Technical 1939 Mercury Build

Nice work, well explained. Thanks for taking the time.

 

All welded in!




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The bottom of the fender is in rough shape. It looks as if it had been worked over with a pick ax.
In addition, the 40Ford teardrop skirts have a bad fit at the rear corner because the Merc fender are very rounded at the bottom edge. As explained, I will also have to enlarge the opening for the skirt to fit and also to facilitate changing a wheel on after lowering.



I put a tape line where I want to cut to be.






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I have already replaced the flange where the fender bolts to the body.

I made a paper template of the general outline, cut the piece and gave it a couple of good whacks with the mallet to bring some shape into it. What have I done...



The idea becomes more evident once the piece is flattened.



A couple of passes in the English wheel evens out the bumps. i form the forward edge with the sharper edge over a 1/2" tube.







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Next will be to trim the edge of the patch and clean up the inside of the fender for tacking.


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Wow! That was easy.

 

I've seen alot of cool hand hammering jobs on other stuff that i liked... but this is by far the coolest hand hammered job! Awesome work.
I'm planning my attack on my car because of how easy you make it look.

 

Here is the new patch welded in. The mangled original on top for reference.



After some grinding and hammer and dolly work. Not perfect, but should be ok for filler.



Here is the fender back on the car.




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I will replace the triangular area between the. Ew patch and the wheel opening as well, because it is wavy and torn at the bottom from previous damage.

 

Nice work!

 

Agreed!

 

I'm welding so much these days I have become pretty good at grinding ;-)


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Here is the mangled area which gets replaced next.




First I made a template to get an idea how the new opening will look like. The faded line is the outline of the fender skirt, the middle line if the new opening.



Here is the patch tacked in.



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Today was a pretty good day at the shop. I made a plywood template to bend the 1/2" DOM. At this time it's a guessing game how much spring back has to be compensated for. I started with the original size of the wheel opening. Which turned out still a little too big, but no bad.



I strapped the template to the boat trailer in order to get some solid leverage when bending the tubing.



I used a wheel rim to tweak the curvature, then cut where the curvature changes and two separate pieces will be joined.






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After quit a bit of adjustment to get the shape in the 3rd dimension to fit the fender, the fit is acceptable.



Here I am taking a little detour to test the concept. I made a mock up section and spot welded it to a panel, scribed a 5/8" distance from the tube and cut to size.



Then starting to slowly hammer the edge over the tube while keeping the tube and panel clamped to the table. This worked fine except for the very sharp radius where it will require some relief cuts.






After removing the tubing







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Spot welding the tubing to the fender.



Scribing and cutting. The thin cut off wheel worked much better than the air body saw.
Made a couple of relief cuts for the tight corners. Ready for some hammer shaping tomorrow!




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Good stuff! Anxious to see the results.

 

Starting with the shaping process. Clamping short sections of the fender to the work table and slowly starting to fold the edge. The large dolly actually worked well as it provided the necessary force and has no sharp edges to locally dig in and leave marks.





This time I made relief cuts at the sharp corners. On the front corner I ended up welding a shaped 5" piece of 3/16" rod on the inside edge in the area of the cuts because the old metal was somewhat thin.



Here is the new rolled edge with the fender in place.





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Now trial fitting the fender skirt. The skirts are nicely made and fairly soft so the general shape can be adjusted by hand shaping over the knee or a suitable round object.







Here is an "upskirt" shot. The upper lever needs to be cut and straightened so it will engage the fender lip. I will spot weld a reinforcement piece on the inside of the lip eventually, where the little wood block is placed in the picture.



Here is the rear bracket from the skirt. Anybody have any idea what this is supposed to do?
Looks like this could interfere with the wheel.




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Nice! Do you have a wheel to put in the wheel ell new so we can see what the opening looks like? I

 

I do have an original spare I can use. I will run 15" with 6.70 firestone wide whites. I hope they don't stick out to far to interfere with the reinforced edge of the skirt.


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Nice work. Im saving a 41 Ford that was a friends that passed away. Ive posted a pic or two of it here before. Nice seeing somebody else dealing with the same issues.

 

Man that's neat. Will definitely help with another task I have ahead of me.

 

Looks like the bare metal bracket is assembled upside down and 180 degrees from where it should be in that picture. The long end of the bracket should be welded to the bottom lip of the fender with the stud pointing downward. Make sense?

 

You can probably do a lot better for your skirt's bottom brackets than those that were supplied. A small tab welded to the bottom edge of the fender, and corresponding hooks on the bottom edge of the skirt. So that they hook up into the tab w/hole and the only clamping needed is provided by the big one at the top. Clear as mud?

 

Heres a pic of some old tear drop 36-40 skirts. Looking from the top down.[/IMG]

 

Thanks for the help. I'll give it some thought.


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Mike, Peanut 1959 has it right.. but, rather than welding the (unfinished) bracket to the fender, it is simply cinched down with the nut holding the two portions together while pinching the fender roll between.. Just flip the shiny piece end for end and above the skirt bracket and allow it to grab the fender when you tighten the nut.

Whoa, long way around to explain that!
Dave

 

Dave, that's what I figured I could do. I have to check for wheel clearance. The other option is to come up with something more elegant which doesn't require a nut or screw, as previously suggested.


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Ah, yes; wheel clearance.. Not a problem with the long '41 skirts I have - but a potential issue with yours for sure. I'm know your eye for beauty and function will provide a more elegant solution as you say. Great project!

Dave

 

Happy New Year, all. Hope to make some more progress now that the holidays are over.

I finished the initial fit of the skirt today and came up with a better solution for the rear mount. I removed the factory bracket and added a Starboard plastic piece which is secured by two small self tapping screws from the bottom and the 1/4" carriage bolt going all the way through. The plastic bar is slightly wedge shaped to pull in the lip of the fender when the nut is tightened. I will use a shorter bolt and a wing nut in the final assembly.





I added a small stop at the front to register the position of the skirt, and cut and bent the center bar to move closer to the fender lip.
I will probably replace the wood block with a bent metal piece, although the wood works real well and could probably be glued to the inside using panel adhesive.





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