Brookeville model a fenders don't fit no how!!

Anyone other than me had problems with Brookeville/Gas Light Front fenders and major fit problems on a perfect Repo frame?
Wescotts and Poliforms both pretty much bolt on and when compared to Brookville steel fenders the Brookevilles measure as much as 1 5/8" short on the length of the flange where the fenders contact the frame.
The radius at the bottom of the pass side Brookeville fender is so steep it puts the flange of the fender about 3" above the running board and it gets worse from there.
The flange that bolts the drive side to the running board is not even in the ball park for correct angle and the bead is approx. 1 1/4" from the fender brace.
I talked to Brookeville and their response is make 'em work cuz' you own 'em now!
The rears on the other hand are as close to perfect as you can get.
These fenders are going to be on EBAY real soon complete with photos of all the discrepencies and compatison measurements as well as a huge warning "BUYER BEWARE."
I am not frustrated with Brookeville but am totally dissapointed in their lack of response and don't give a damn attitude.

 

My first questions would be are you trying to put 28-29 fenders on a 30-31 or vice versa? and secondly, are you sure the frame is perfect? most reproduction frames seem to be made for high boys and aren't necessarily tapered correctly on the side for fender installation. I think it needs some further investigation.

 

A guy bitching w/ 2 posts....Geeze what's next..

 

No surprise. Brookville is shit, might as well be a Shay.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=387177

 

It's almost Christmas Day....... Take a breather!

 

I dont think brookville is shit. every car is going to be a hair different. i have brookville rears that fit like a glove and fronts that need a little massaging.

 

They may need a little massaging but I really doubt that fenders from one model A to another model A would fit prefect. You aren't building a "snap together" kit.

 

any pictures?

 

Since Brookville uses mostly the original presses that Henry once used, their parts are no more shit than the ones that came from Ford directly in the 20's and 30's. Anyone who has played with Model A's long enough knows that the fit and finish of these cars was no where near precise. We make these parts fit by shimming, pie cutting, bending, stretching, and drilling new mounting holes, and that would be the same whether you were using NOS Ford parts or Brookville parts.

Don

 

ditto

I've messed around with several Model A's and owned a 29 roadster. Almost all of the parts swapping I've done, especially with sheetmetal, involved making modifications to make things fit, even with NOS Model A sheetmetal.

Car manufacturing in the 20's and 30's wasn't a precise science. Anyone who says Brookville is shit, doesn't know what they're talking about.

Brookville is expensive, but certainly not shit.

 

I agree with Don ^^^

Been there, done it!

You can make them fit and no one will be able to tell the differance once done right.

 

This is news to me, are you sure you didn't just make that up?

are you saying that Brookville roadster uses original dies to stamp parts?

 

We had a lengthy conversation with Bob at Turkey Run a few years ago and he told us how they acquired a lot of the original presses and how they had to build a special building to house one of them because it is several stories high. He was quite proud of that fact and I saw no reason to doubt him. But have I been there to actually see them and verify where they came from...........no.



Don

 

presses yes
dies no
and correct they fit like shit
tk

 

He didn't say dies. He said presses. I think Brookeville makes their own dies using Kirksite.

Bob

 

from what I remember reading on the HAMB their dies are a low temp
castable alloy that dosen't even last that many stampings. Edit-Kirksite.

how do the obsolete dies survive the scrap runs of WW2?

I also have not been there so I don't know for sure. although I've rarely seen a Brookvile part match a original.

 

It's funny how guys who are dissatisfied with a product or company think they can really hurt said company with these threads. Most parts from the after market need some finessing to fit right. There are exceptions and some parts are perfect fits. It's what hot rodding is all about, making things work to your application.

CRUISER

 

Well said Cruiser. If was easy everyone would be doing it.

 

I went to pick up my roadster body to save some $$ in shipping and got a tour of the factory. Very neat, and they do very nice work. Yes, they're dies are made from kirksite and there presses are very large, the one in particular they had to open up the roof to get it in the building. I'll add some pictures once I get to my other computer. I thought they were great people to do business with, very down to earth and easygoing.

 

Hell, I thought it was normal to have to finesse body parts to get them to fit on anything that was made before the mid fifties.

Tweaked in shipping or when being handled ?

 

I have a Brookville body,frame,and fenders and I had no problem installing all of it but it has been since the late 90's so I guess I got some of the good one never had to adjust any thing just bolted on and went riding

 

If Wescotts and Poliforms fit, there obviously is something different about the Brookevilles. Perhaps they shipped the wrong ones. One would like to think that Brookeville would like to know why their fenders are so much different from the others. I hate to think that they made a bad run of fenders and knowingly sell them.

 

all my parts from Brookville lined up fine.....no complants here......next time at the shows talk to wiskers.....graet guy to deal with........just my 2 cents

 

From what I've read, Brookville scanned a lot of original parts to create digital masters. They found that there were significant differences between duplicates of the same parts and between what were supposed to be mirror images. They had to do some massaging to eliminate the obvious errors. (From personal experience in the automotive stamping business, there were many instances in the '30s & '40s where L.H. were NOT perfect mirror images of R.H.) Those digital masters were used to carve out the surfaces (Using CNC machines) of the Kirksite dies. The fact that the dies are Kirksite as opposed to cast iron (or steel) has nothing to do with quality-only the life span of the dies. I would venture that Brookville is making parts that are more representative of Ford's design intent than Ford made. And even with the shorter life span of Kirksite tooling, it's doubtful that Brookville will ever run enough volume on a given tool to compromise it's quality. (We sometimes made Kirksite dies to use as a stopgap while the regular hard tooling was being renovated or revised. We ran in the tens of thousands of parts on the temporary dies).

As far as the presses being used by Brookville, their origin has nothing to do with whether or not the parts fit. The presses could have come from Chevrolet or Chrysler as long as they had the capacity (bed size, tonnage, stroke) to operate Brookville's dies. And as far as the original tooling, it's extremely doubtful that any of the Model A or '32 dies survived the '30s. Dies were held only as long as there was still a demand for service parts (that couldn't be met with existing inventories.). Once a model change took place, it was usually difficult to reset the past model dies to run efficiently or without jeapordizing current production. That lead to a philosophy of :"run as seldom as possible and try to forecast and produce one last and final batch as soon as possible".

 

X2 - This is a major problem for most hot rod suppliers these days. New guys in the hobby think everything should be a "bolt-on" solution. If they can't throw it across the room and land in place, it must be junk. My old man used to say "There's mechanics and then there's "parts changers".

There are many factors that can affect sheet metal components - were they stacked too high in storage?, were they shipped with poor packaging?, Were they bent by the shipper? (that never happens), Is your Henry body/chassis way out of alignment? And finally, these cars weren't BMW's, there were pieced together over wood frames. Brookville has been making these parts for 38 years. They have been all over Model A's thousands of times and they make the parts as close to the originals as possible. They measured many '32 three windows for tooling and found NONE of them were the same dimensions!

The most important thing is your customer experience. If you were civil in your complaint and were told "It's yours now so deal with it..." then you should have asked to speak with the owner of the company (they're not that big). But you stating "If it isn't [what I think it should be], don't send it..." seems a bit confrontational straight away. Yeah, I see in your profile you're a seasoned racer, rodder, tig expert, etc. so I'm surprised by this post.

BTW, my Brookville '31 has better, tighter gaps and fit than any original I've ever seen.

 

These are Brookville fenders front and rear. Yes, some fitting, as to be expected. Quite satisfied overall. Stock Model A body and frame. Regards, Ron

 

Can we assume your's is a Chevrolet? "nailed together over wood frames." Ron

BTW, my '31 has better, tighter gaps and fit than any original I've ever seen.[/QUOTE]

 

What year and style is your Model A? Can you post pics? Let's see this/ I have mounted several Brookville fenders for several different people and like any part they need a little adjustment to make perfect, but they have always been top quality and actually better than most stock fenders I have worked with after 80 years of getting beat on an "adjusted" from one person after the next. Proofs in the puddin....where's your pics?

 

I think he is using another MFG.'s rails and trying to fit brookville parts to it..
All parts have to be massaged when using mis-matched brands of parts...

 

Did you modify the fenders in any way? Is that why they said that you can't send them back?


And a comment on fit of Ford parts: I helped put virgin 29 fenders from one car (never removed from the original car before we got them) onto his excellent bodied and original framed 29 coupe. We had plenty of tweaking, twisting, trimming, and adding to do before they fit. So, even original Ford stuff was not a "bolt-on".