Thread: install fiberglass denders

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Can you believe that in close to 40 years of rodding I have never before installed a set of fiberglass fenders and splash aprons and running boards? Well, the time has come brother. The roadster pick-up is at that stage, where I need to do just that, before doing the bodywork on the steel cab section. Now I'm not talking about replacing one fender, where you have a nice bunch of existing reference points for bolting a fender to. I'm talking about start from scratch, with a chassis, front and rear axles in place, and new bed on the pick-up section, body off setting in the corner, no holes in the glass stuff, and ho holes in top of the chassis.. First of all, where do you start?---Well, I kept the wheelbase the same as a stock model A Ford (103 1/2"), and you can move a front fender foreward or backward about 1 1/2" from the "ideal" position before it starts to look wierd. However, the rear fenders just gotta be centered on the rear wheel, or it looks ultra goofy, so--------we'll start with positioning the rear fender first. The splash apron sets on top of the frame, so this pretty well establishes the vertical positioning of the splash aprons. The runningboard sets in a small lip on the bottom of the vertical side of the splash apron, so that establishes the vertical positioning of the running boards. (don't worry about the running board support brackets yet, we'll get to them later). Any fool can eye-ball the rear fender to make sure that it is centered on the rear wheel and concentric to it, but how do you know how far foreward or backward to rotate the rear fender?----its a trick. The bottom of the leading edge of the fender has to line up with the underside of the runningboard, which is located by the splash apron, which is located by the fact that it must bolt to the top of the frame.----How am I doing so far? The front fender must mate with the leading edge flange on the splash apron, and the front edge of the running board. The inner edge of the fender, which sets closest to the engine, also bolts to the top of the frame, and it must line up with the inner edge of the splash apron ----trust me----see the 2 x 4 in the picture. After all glass parts except the rear fenders) are "dummied" into place relative to each other, (I never really knew how many clamps I had before) I drilled 3/8" holes in all the mating flanges and bolted everything together with 1/4" bolts on about 4" centers and flat washers on both sides. I attached the rear fenders to the sides of the pick-up box, and then picked up the front fender, splash apron and runningboard (which become one entity after bolting them together,) and carried them over to the roadster, sat them in place, slid them back against the front of the rear fender, and c-clamped them to the frame. (yes, I did have the front fender brace already bolted to the frame). I then clamped the front of the rear fenders to the rear of the running board and splash apron drilled thru the mating flanges, and bolted them.It seems that running board support brackets are never quite in the correct place, but hey, they'r made of metal so heat, bend, weld, whatever is neccesary to make them be in the correct place (relative to the attachment points on the underside of the running boards) check them for level, and then bolt them to the running board. I will drill thru the top of the fenders and splash aprons into the frame tomorrow while everything is assembled, probably full length of the front fender/splash aprons. for #10-24 flat head screws on about 6" centers, and tap the top of the frame, as it is boxed full length and there is no access to add nuts. Hope this helps anybody who is thinking of adding a glass fender package.

Brianrupnow:

I am enjoying your buildup, but you are younger than I am and you have just convinced me to get the all-in-one floorpan from BeBop or Heritage. You are doing fine with the fenders, but while I know the all-in-one floor could suffer cracking throughout due to a collision with one fender, I will take that chance rather than sweat out the alignment you are (successfully) going through. I think what this means to me is that I better have bumpers to give the fenders some protection. Thanks for your previous messages regarding the rear ratio. I think that will effect my cam choice in that I will choose a torque cam rather than a mileage cam and if I am not happy with the performance it will be easier to change the rear gear rather than replace the cam while the engine is in the car. Even though we are not doing exactly the same thing I am learning a lot from your pictures and posts so keep the info coming.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Trust me brianrupnow i feel your pain my goat has glass hood/fenders/doors/bumpers/trunk and since i built the tube chassis from scratch i had absolutly ZERO mounting points,brackets,hinges or anything of that nature to go off of for reference points or alinging any of the body panels up.

Since i only work on my goat on the weekends it took me the better part of a year to get all the panels lined up and all the brackets/mounts fabbed up to support the fenders/bumpers etc.etc...

Like you mentioned "eye balling" will get you into the ballpark but to have it look nice you need to measure & measure again.

I'm sure guys at cruise nights&shows wondered why i was asking them if they minded if i took some measurments of the fenders and body panels,but after i told them the reason i wanted to measure there cars they must have took pity on me for the job i had ahead of me because most of them smiled and said "no problem you need a piece of paper?"

BG