Fender brace replacement---The Thrash Begins

Many of you will know what this is about as soon as you see the title. For those who don't, I refer you to this thread
http://www.clubhotrod.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33869
Basically, I am going to try and fix an annoying inner tire to front fender interferance that has plagued the roadster pickup ever since I built it 3 or 4 years ago. Only on the drivers side, and only on extreme parking lot right hand turns. I used aftermarket inner fender braces made of stamped steel---they don't fit particularly well, and they have a deep flange on both sides to give them rigidity. I was able to "tweak" them to make them fit, and I ground away a lot of the flange in the tire scrub area, but it still scrubbed!!! The originals that Henry Ford used for 28/29 Fords were a thinner cross section, and thanks to Ebay and a gentleman from Arizona, I was able to secure some Henry originals this past winter. Now the real issue, is that I have 28/29 series fiberglass fenders, and they are painted, and I don't want to get into paint or bodywork issues when I change the brace. Over the next few days, I will be building a jig that exactly picks up all the bolted areas on the aftermarket brace, as these points can not be changed or messed with. Then I will do whatever is necessary to make the Henry original exactly match the aftermarket unit. (My tire scrub issue was not at any of these "bolting points). I can not get under the car and use the "hot wrench" to make things fit, for fear of damaging my paint job, and/or glass fenders. I will keep you posted as this develops.---brian

It looks like it will give you more room, hope that works.
BradC

These fender braces are forgings, I am sure. A casting would never stand up to the offset loading and vibration that these things see. I think that if I have to alter the height of the Henry unit I should be able to weld it back together with my trusty old Lincoln stickwelder and 6013 or 6011 rod. Any body ever weld these things??????

Brian, on my 'glass '29 the pressed steel brackets extended about 3/4" beyond the edge of the fender so as to put the edge bolt hole outside the fender. I puzzled over this for a while and called the Bebops folks about the mismatch. Their immediate answer was to just cut off the excess which I have done. The cause is that the fiberglass is thicker than the stock steel fender and so bunches up the distance along the inside of the fender. It may be that you may just have to cut off the eyelet at the end of the cast brace and grind off the stub in a smooth way. Depending on the thickness of the fiberglass of the fenders, the outer hole probably will not match up with the edge of the fender. As far as I can tell my 'glass fenders are sufficiently thick to hold their shape without that outer attachment. So the question is whether the stamped steel braces used that outer hole in the previous installation? It does look like the length of the pressed steel brackets are the same so maybe there is no problem? Since the headlight bar holes can be slightly enlarged and are further down on the brace there is less of a problem there. I guess all I can say is that the 'glass fenders are thicker than the steel fenders and that may be a problem. I am not very happy about using 14" wheels on the front due to a low axle scrub line, but when I measure for 15" wheels I see there would be a clearance problem on a bump or tight turn.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

What you see here is the jig I built, with the aftermarket fender brace in it. Its not pretty, but its functional, made from scrap out of my bin. The secret here is to bolt everything to the fender brace, without putting any stress on the brace, then weld extensions to all the bolted on peices, then bolt the extensions to the table. Once it has cooled, I can unbolt the fender brace and remove it, and the jig will be a perfect representation of the shape that the Henry original has to be to mate with my fender.

And what you see here is the Henry original, bolted into the jig. I had to cut about 3/8" out of it between the mid point bolts that connect to the headlight bar and the base bolts which attach it to the frame. I put a 3/16" x 45 degree chamfer around both of the cut ends before welding them back together. I bolted everything into place---it was all fairly close, within 3/4" of the jig bolt positions. I tightened up all the jig bolts and pulled the Henry original into the correct shape, then heated the Henry original cherry red in a few critical places with the oxy acetylene torch. This let the Henry original "destress" and move into the position that the bolts pulled it to. Once it cooled, I was able to remove the bolts and nothing moved!! Tomorrow will tell the tale when I go to bolt it into the roadster pickup.----I hope it was this simple!!!

Don Shillady---You have expressed concern about the fact that the fiberglass fenders are considerably thicker than the original metal fenders. This is true, however, the fender braces do not actually touch the inside of the fender anywhere except right at the points where the bolts are. The fender braces are designed so that all parts of them except right at the bolts is clear of the inside of the fender by 1/16" to 3/16". This more or less solves the issue of thicker fenders.

No Denny---I hadn't planned on it.

Well the 3/8" you took out of the original is about what I cut off the end of my braces except I lost the end bolt mount so the length difference makes sense to me. On my glass fenders the holes for the headlight bar just get drilled where the braces have holes so there is no reference to where the steel fenders might have had the holes. Anyway from this exercise my conclusion is that I probably have to stay with the 14" wheels in the front to keep the clearance with the pressed steel braces. By the way what is your tire/wheel size on the front wheels?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Well kiddies---that went very well. The original Henry fender brace bolted right up to the frame with no trouble, and the holes for the headlight bar lined up pretty well perfect with the holes in my glass fenders. The hole at the very end which lines up with the fender lip hole was about 5/8" too high. I didn't want to remove it, so I was able to bolt a peice of duct hanger strap to the eye in the fender brace with a 1/4" bolt (yes it was darn tight) and make up a stirrup in the duct hanger to get my big old size 11 shoe in. Once I applied my 270 pounds to the duct hanger strap by standing in the loop I had formed, it came down to where it was supposed to.---Man that stuff is strong!!!! I had to really "bounce" it to bend it just that little bit!!! I have to do some serious bolt trimming on the inside of the fender now where the bolts which hold the headlight bar come through, and apply a bit of paint, but all seems to be well. And---as an added bonus, now that I have everything lined up, tightened down, and levelled, the headlight bar seems to fit the fenders much better at the ends. I may still have to make some shims, but they will be smaller than I had thought at first. Don---My fromt tires are 165R15.

Just a minor hijack - sorry Brian.

Don, this is what I did to my fender braces. Where you see the weld is an ~1/2" piece sectioned out of the brace then rewelded back in place. This left the bead bolt hole in place. Some suggest not even bolting the outer edge down. I find this less then a good idea as those big sail size fenders will be flapping in the breeze as you drive down the hiways and byways at near warp speed(:LOL: ). The other picture shows how they had to be modified to clear the IFS upper support. It is braced on the backside to replace at least most of the strength - that picture wasn't clear enough to post (black is tough to photograph)

Nicely done Brian.


You can gain a bit more clearance by using Pal nuts.
They have less height than standard nuts.

Stainless steel washers are many times thinner than regular steel washers.

You can skip the lock washer and use blue LocTite instead.
As far as that goes, you can buy Pal nuts with nylock inserts in both stainless and regular steel.


And . . . if a guy had a lathe he could cut cut his own very thin Pal nuts from a regular stainless nut....

Very good points, C9---I had the car out driving around yesterday, and it didn't scrub, but then again I wasn't driving that much. You are right though---if I still have scrub issues, I will get some thin nuts with Nylock inserts and get rid of the lockwashers. After I was done bolting everything up, I pulled the front wheels off and got in there with my air grinder and a "zizz wheel" and cut off the protruding bolts, then took a flap wheel and rounded off any sharp corners.---Don't want to slice my cokers---Brian