I 1st tagged as tech, but it was inspired. I've often said look in the right places and old restored cars can inspire hot rod endeavors. Let's endeavor to fender braces. The 34 Ford was still using an exposed carriage bolt to the top n side brace. Effective, not really pretty, how it was done. 34 Packard shows nothing uses a tubular brace and carriage bolt inside. Slick... I did this back in 2011 and the car is OT, but this isn't. I whipped up a custom fender brace for the Ford out of ½" EMT, pinched and punched the ends, bolted to the frame. Rather than straight out I went up and over for a clean look. For the fenders I drilled the square holes to ⅜. I used a Hougan 9/16 sheetmetal cutter and made 4 "slugs" that were ⅜ OD from inside the cutter. The U.P. fenders have a nice brace behind the carriage bolt so I used some pretty heavy sheet, like .060. It gave me these: Which dropped into the fender hole perfect. That little slivered edge is nice, yes? A little O/A torch time, some hammer and light grind. Looked at the fender and said "Fork you." I cut these forks I made off the damaged fender, cleaned em up and welded em into the bead edge. To mount the fenders, drop a 5/16 carriage bolt in the fork and nut it from inside. Clean, OEM if you're a Packard. Once I mount the fender I'll revisit and update, but again not the whole car. Thanks for watching, please stay tuned to WHAMB for more kool kar and hoodlum programming.
The Jalopy Journal
