Thread: Another Brookville body whine

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Dave and C9x, It is an honor to chat with you guys. I am not finshed with my writing chore quite yet and need to ge back to the car soon. I just tell myself it is too hot to work in the garage now and that is partly true but I just want to keep my membership in the Forum going while I am mostly inactive. All I did this summer was to get my stock windshield frame filled with glass using the stock rubber gasket from Bratton's Antique parts. The frame is the 2" chopped version but all that was necessary was to trim the gasket. However I have yet to drill the holes for the 2" chopped stanchions (stainless). Anyway here is a picture of my main innovation. If you have to buy new rear bumper brackets they are $158 a pair from Brattons (part no. 24670) and so you have to approach cutting them with care and reverence but they were intended to extend forward quite a long distance and attach to the frame in the channel about 15" in front of the rear axle. With a Brookville tube frame this won't work because of the rear kickout in the frame around the rear pumpkin. You have to call Brookville for the exact place to cut those precious gennie brackets but it is about in half and Brookville then sells you a pair of flame cut brackets for $35 that attach over the top of their frame to two little bolts (5/16") on each side. That looks very weak to me so you can see in the picture the other cut off piece of the gennie bracket can be slightly bent in a vise and reversed to attach as an "under brace" to the gennie bracket. You have to drill a vertical hole through the frame on each side and I used a 7/16" bolt along with one 1/2" bolt to clamp the pieces together. Sometimes some of these simple things give pleasure in the sense of "I did it!" and I think that is a large part of the hot rod attitude of little innovations. I told the guy at Brookville about this but he only seemed slightly interested. At the price of those gennie/repro brackets it was a shame to throw away the front halves! In the picture you can just see the two small 5/16" bolts at the top of the frame covered by the rubber inner tube boot I had to put over the access hole in the floor for the top shock bolt. Someday when I have the car on a rack I plan to spray the underside of the floor with black rattle-can enamel, but I guess I am not going to put a mirror under the chassis in the future once it gets covered with mud splash, just wash off the top and keep the shiny side up!
When I went out to the garage to take the picture I noted that the Bebops '29 doors are smooth along the bottom. The only bead is in the all-in-one floor pan-splash-apron.

Don Shillady
Retired (?) Scientist/teen rodder