Thread: Crack in 32 ford Firew wall

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Have engine out of the 32 ford roadster at the moment and have noticed a crack in the fibreglass about 150mm long where the firewall meets the start of the gearbox tunnel running from the floor upward.
Has anybody else experienced cracks in fibreglass bodies before and is this a major problem.
Car has only traveled about 1000kms since licensed and not to sure how long the crack has been there.
The driveline is a 350 chev supercharged with a beefed up turbo 350 trans.
Hav'nt really given the car a hard time at all from what I can remember

fix it and be ddone with it

Occasionally with 'glass you will have a crack. A 6" crack is substantial. There are several reasons, but there are two that I can think of as being the most obvious. First are the materials used and technique. If the firewall is manufactured with chopper gun short strands, there is little inherent strength unless there is some sort of backing of 'glass or Kevlar cloth, steel or even plywood. Then of course, being a roadster, and secondly frame twist/body twist will cause some failures as there isn't a roof to hold things solid. My steel '31 is built similarly to a '32 and I can assure you that the cowl/firewall area flops unless it is solidly bolted to the boxed chassis.

What to do - check for twist by jacking a corner and measure as best possible how much the frame and body twist (or spread) at the firewall. It shouldn't be much, but it might not need a lot. Repairs - not real easy. If it's a floppy frame, why? Is it boxed? Are the cross members welds OK? If these are OK, then you need to reinforce the firewall, do your glass repairs and hope that it doesn't happen again.

Then - of course, that firewall might just be the "one" that the builders new guy screwed up and it's one of a kind, and no one else that owns that manufacturers product ever has had or ever will have that problem

Let us know what you find

Thanks for the info I'll check that all out and if there's a one only chance of something you can buy,I'll buy it.
Let you know how I get on

Originally Posted by roadster

.......and if there's a one only chance of something you can buy,I'll buy it.

....only if I hadn't bought it just before you got there. Good luck

After thinking about the crack and looking at early photo's of the fibreglass shell it looks like the fibreglass body is fine.The crack must be from the bodywork after welding in the new tunnel section from the firewall as the body originally came with a half hexigon shape from the firewall and we welded a curved sheetmetal section from there to cover the gearbox.The split must be from the body filler installed. Bitch.
Will scrape out a bit and fill it with Sikaflex and then paint