Hillbilly Engineering at Hershey...

[Jive-Bomber]

I just stumbled upon a small folder of my photos from the Hershey Fall '10 AACAÂ* Swap. At one point, I stopped to check out a '36 Ford Tudor sedan on a trailer, when I noticed the owner scraping Bondo off the rear quarter panel with a slotted screwd...

To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.

[Hot Rods Ta Hell]

Looks like a laced up football!. No torch or welder= crap such as pop rineted patch panels and large holes cut through firewalls via series of small holes drilled in a circle, then punched through.
Don't knock the flat blade screwdriver; It makes an excellent chisel, prybar or starter jumper!

[KrisKustomPaint]

Originally Posted by Hot Rods Ta Hell

Looks like a laced up football!. No torch or welder= crap such as pop rineted patch panels and large holes cut through firewalls via series of small holes drilled in a circle, then punched through.
Don't knock the flat blade screwdriver; It makes an excellent chisel, prybar or starter jumper!

Hey now, unless you have a six inch hole saw that series of small holes works when you don't (but clean it up with a rotary file).

[49ratfink]

after seeing that fender I can be confident that no matter what crazy body work comes my way I can now say "I've seen worse"....

[Hnstray]

As my mother-in law used to say....."poor folks got poor ways".........who knows how long ago that was done and what the 'poor' fellow was up against at the time.

Ray

[roseville carl]

Fender surgeon stichin it up........

[onedge]

i love the fender repair, and would leave it. (somewhere/ i guess)

[4t64rd]

I drove a car for 3 weeks with a broken starter, it was a manual transmission car... I just parked it on top of the parking blocks, or on a hill, and just bump started it.

I drove a car with a broken throttle linkage ('66 Olds... if you know about the bell crank, then you know what happened) I used a wired tied to the carb linkage, through the gap left by GM hood hinges, and through the vent window with a key ring on the end... That was my throttle for about 2 weeks.

Sometimes the money (or the $ to buy tools) just isn't there... and you still have to get to work.

[dabirdguy]

Give the guy a break!

You lot all think that everyone back in the day had a Mig, a Tig, 2- 15 drawer tool chests full of tools, and an 80 HP compressor to run a bevy power tools. LOTS of guys had a hammer, a chisle or two, a socket set, some wrenches and some files. THAT's it. Tools were EXPENSIVE and labor was cheap, expecially when $.20 or less would buy a loaf of bread. My first acetlyene system cost me over $1000 in today's dollars. Back in 1950, many DEALERS did not have the tools a lot of us have in our garages.

Repairs like this happened because it FIXED the problem and made the fender serviceable. Especially in the Depression days.

And the fix was probably stronger than lot of guys welds (mine included!).

Ya, it's ugly, but it SURVIVED the crusher. Lots of other repairs didn't.

[tb33anda3rd]

necessity is a mother! that repair is kinda cool in it's own way. probably the best bad repair i ever saw. i think i would leave if it was mine.

[hotroddon]

Frankenfender!

I think that he had to know someone with a torch set, everyone knows someone with one!

And remember, all the tools in the tool box are hammers - except the screwdrivers, which are chisels and punches

[fur biscuit]

that ain't bailing wire, those are nails!

[61bone]

How can you say it was a bad repair when it is still holding who knows how many years after it was done. I've seen high zoot professional repairs fail in less than a year.

[veedolpaul]

The saying, now I`ve seen everything was never truer when applied to Hershey!

[LynchMOB]

I kinda like the fender stitching....

[crashbox]

Wow! Fender stitching... Do I detect a new wave of customization?

[Mr48chev]

Originally Posted by crashbox

Wow! Fender stitching... Do I detect a new wave of customization?

I sure hope not but you can bet that someone will show up with a fender laced together with wire in the spring. There used to be a Model A that was still someone's daily driver in the 70s around here that had patches screwed to the fenders in a couple of spots and painted over with a brush. That guy probably couldn't afford bondo to cover it up though. Those of us who live or grew up in farm country have seen a lot of less than stellar repair jobs on stuff.

[hotroddon]

Originally Posted by crashbox

Wow! Fender stitching... Do I detect a new wave of customization?

Only if connected to the dreaded "R" Rod word

[thepolecat]

I think it is cool if it was done as a last resort long ago. Style points not awarded, but ingenuity points are.

[Retro Jim]

Yes I can see the "Stitch" work on a rodent car but it would be with Barbed wire ! OK enough of those POS !

I think the guy did what he had to do to make it work . I have been there and done that like many of you have . It's NO worst that someone using a "Coat hanger" as a muffler hanger ! It works when you have no money . Not everyone had a stick welder or a torch back in those days so they made it work the best they could with no money to spend on a weld job . So how many cracked fenders have you seen repaired with another piece of metal and sheet metal screws ? That was done a lot too so who can say one is better than the other . It was some mans work truck and he needed it to do a job or farm work so who cared what it looked like as long as it held the fender together . Damn I can remember using a coat hanger to hold a rusted front fender onto the inner fender when it broke loose . You just do what you have to do to make it to work !
I am sure there are many other things done like that back in those days to cars , houses and anything else they had to make it work the best they could because they weren't lucky enough to have the extra money to buy the right tools for the right job . Most had a hammer , the famous "BFH" , a pipe wrench and a few screwdrivers and that was it .

Anyway I always love to see what people did and came up with to fix things back in the day ! just think , it lasted all this time too !

Retro Jim