Technical Help with a 32 roadster cowl

Hi

I’m having some issues with a roadster cowl top and the sides panels I’ve bought from brookville.

The side panels fit the moulding on the subrail rockers and are the correct length (measured from cowl band to door opening - front to back) and across their top edge are roughly 14 1/4”. The cowl top, however, measures closer to 15” and the two won’t come together.

We’re there different lengths of cowl (again, measures front to back)??? Or have I got myself some sort of stretched number?

I’ve got to the stage where my frame is mostly built up and my front end is on and lined up, but from cowl backwards it starts getting tricky......grateful for any help anyone can offer.













Sorry for the quality of pictures. Technology isn’t my strong point


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Looks to me like you are getting ahead of yourself, the body needs to be assembled before you mount the hood & radiator shell, once you install the cowl it is higher than the firewall. HRP

 

We assembled several of these bodies when they first came out and always started with the cowl and firewall mounted on the frame and worked our way back. Radiator, shell and hood came last.

 

Rad and hood are only mocked up to check the positioning for the firewall as the previous owner of the firewall had chopped the bottom off it and there were no mounting points in the frame at that stage. With the cowl being all sorts of shapes, seemed reasonable
to start with at least one thing that was square and in the right place. It’s all knocked down again now, which was why the question about the mismatch in cowl and sides.

Anyone know anything about cowl length?


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Someone buys brookies seconds... I got a '31 quarter from a large rodshop…
could yours be seconds ?
ask our hambers to get you measurements from front to back, at the top and bottom of the cowl sides...
front to back measurements from the cowl top's outer edge...
from both brookie and stock bodies... my $0.02.

 

Have had a few measurements from UK guys, and it seems the cowl and sides have been made longer for some unknown reason. Weird.


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I found the original owner, who said it may have been an early Dearborn body by the way. No way to verify but thought it may be of interest to someone.


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On the topic of seconds, all of Brookville's panels are stamped with the same dies. They become seconds when they have tares , dents, holes punched in the wrong place, etc. The parts are dimensionally the same with some kind of damage. Now bodies and parts made by Dearborn and Rod Bods won't necessarily fit or have the same dimensions of a Henry or Brookville.

 

Dearborn deuce stuff was completely wrong from original measurements , or at least anything I have personally touched has been... I’m talking inches too ...not small amounts..

 

That sounds about right. The rear quarters are fine and fit with the other panels I have well. It’s just the cowl that’s longer. I’ll repair what I have and probably stretch the Brookie cowl sides.


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Reckon I’m probably more interested than anyone else (!) but I managed to get it together! I would suggest to anyone thinking about it to avoid Dearborn panels. Disproportionately difficult to get them to behave......


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Buddy told me that brookie said it takes THEIR team a week to assemble an A body...
and they do it all the time...
stick with it and don't weld or rivet anything in an area that you can't easily get at later in case you need to tweek the thing...

 

Thanks for the note. I’ve copied Matt77’s framing work and triangulated it into the trunk to give me a datum point to work off. If I hadn’t, it would be all over the place I think. Still hard to work some areas out as I often don’t have a reference piece or picture other than brookville’s catalogue. I really wanted to do this myself so it will probably take a decade. I can understand why people buy a new brookie body, and mine won’t be as nice as many, but at least I’ll know there’s a couple of pounds of knuckle skin in there!!!


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