After reading some bad press around here on EMS patch pannels, I just wanted to report my good experience. They seem to be the only guys making patch pannels for the lower cowl section on a 41-48 ford, so I ordered them. This is a hard piece to make if you arnt quite skilled in sheetmetal shaping (and Im not), and I was pretty concerned about it really fitting. While it isnt perfect, it did fit quite well, and only needed a little trimming. I'll post a few pics this weekend. Im not trying to advertise them or anything, but after reading a lot about pannels that didnt fit (although I couldnt find any comments on their 41-48 ford pannels), I figure Id report on the quality of these Ford pannels.
Excellent! Were you able to minimize warpage by using lots of tackwelds, with time to cool between 'em, instead of long beads? Looking forward to pics.
Well the EMS rear quarter pannels are totaly done and fully welded (and yes, with 2-3 well spaced tack welds and then cool of time, at a time). Those panels fit pretty well. The other panels on the market didnt have the door jamb area of the panel, and that was the most rusted part on my cars rear lower quarters. I must say that the inner door jamb details were not at all as crisp as the original ford stampings (maybe EMS doesnt have as strong of a press as Henry did?), but with a little cutting, little hammering, welding and grinding, I got the door jamb area looking fine, and I know I could have never fabricated these myself, so the little extra work the pannel needed was no sweat at all. For the most part, they were pretty dead on. I only have one jamb finished, so I can post some pics of where the ford jamb stamping ends, and the EMS one starts on the one I havnt fixed yet. The front cowl pieces I have just tacked in place as of last night. This panel should weld in with a little less concern of warpage, as there are much more compound curves in every area of the pannel. I am expecialy impressed with how they handled the inner door jamb piece of the front lower cowl. I really need to get some pics up to show it, but its a seperate piece, and really worked out great. Again, a pannel that I could have never come close to replicating from scratch myself. This patch pannel fitting has become something I really enjoy doing. Its kinda like putting together a puzzle, and the final result is really rewarding. But by the next car, Ive promised myself Im going to learn to gas weld these things in. Im taking some pics tonight.
Here is some im progress work. I still need to finnish weld, grind down the welds, and patch in a small area that I made from some poor trimming. I'll get some shots with the door on the car too, it ligns up really nicely.
Heres a shot with the door on. The Its hard to see because of the different surface colors and the lighting, but the gap is pretty good. I must have had the door on and off 30 times getting the door gap right with the panel.
thanks for the good words chad, your the type of customer we aim to make happy. fyi we are reworking the tooling for crisper corners on the 1/4's we strive for the best job we can do.
I got my rear quarter patch panels from EMS for my 49 Ford Club Coupe. Very nice and thick steel, no problems putting them in.
I had one for the tail of my 38, now I don't know if Aussy cars were different or not but the panel did not fit at all. Took many many hours of pounding to get the body lines to fit and it was almost an inch too narrow. Good to see you didn't have any problems.
To: Doc 1 Inch To Narrow, Not One Of Our Panels, Aussie Cars Do Not Seem To Be Different Than Usa But Sometimes Certian Years Were Made Longer Overseas Or Ol Henry Used The Overseas Market To Use Up Leftovers From Detroit. Chevys There Are Almost Always Different Than Usa.
Well, heres a little update. The passenger side lower cowl patch doesnt fit so well. The driver side went in so nicely, I expected a bit of trimming to get a fairly complex pannel with several different planes to fit, but it went very smoothly. The passenger side is way off. Its not that my car is off, this is a nice straight car with no colission damage, and only rust in the lower inch or two of the body. I checked contours of the driver side to the passenger side of the patch pannels (using one of those contour transfer tools with a few hundred metal pins, from the hardware store), and they dont even match from one side's patch panel to the other. This is clearly a case of the die's for the passenger side pannel being wrong, otherwise one would be a mirror image of the other. On a good note, the only rocker patch I needed, the very front passenger rocker fits perfectly. The lower cowl patch is fixable, but it will need a lot of surgery. Still a better start than a piece of flat 18 gauge sheet, but at around $165 per side, it should be a lot closer than it is. Sorry EMS, I appreciate that the other panels fit well, but this ones a real curve ball, so I gotta be honest with everyone.
To save time on my body resto I used EMS tail pan and tool box sections lower rear quarters and door and door skin repair sections, also front lower A post repair sections and found them allpretty good . I got them with the car when I bought it so instead of wasting them decided to use them, I expected some fitting issues but was surprised that they fitted so well. One thing that was a pain in the ass was the coating applied to stop the parts rusting.. since most of it has to be cleaned off to tig the parts in it seems a shame to waste the materials used to coat them.. Sold off the lower rear fender repair sections but now decided that I need them... Unfortunatley they seem to be on back ordr... any news if they are in stock now, I havent called for a few months... ( 1936 Ford 3 window coupe) cheers.. P.S fitted at least 3 of the tail pans with no problems
plenty of fender section in stock now. it is rather difficult to remove the antirust coating since it applied when the material is still hot from intial rolling in the steel mill, it more than a coating it is mixes into the steel when it hot, the coating is not a problem when mig welding or spot welding is used as that is how the material was designed to function. DUKESVILLE ROD SHOP 37 TAUNTON RD ASHTON,UNDERLYNE LANASHIR, ENGLAND 0L7-9DP GORDIE PAUL-OWNER TEL:44-161-343-6015 YOUR LOCAL GREAT BRITAIN DEALER OR CALL US DIRECT 1-216-541-4585 AND WE SEND SAME DAY 6 HOUR TIME DIFF
Sooo...Any info on why the passenger side 46-48 ford front lower cowl patch is not a mirror image of the driver side panel you make? If they arnt a mirror image of each other, how could both possibly fit?
because ford did not make the left and right side a perfect mirror image, gm was worse, wait till you get to the late 50's when detroit was change sheetmetal every year and the cars are all over the place.
Im sorry, but I cant buy that. Are you saying that the left side and right side are consistantly off, as in the driver side being off the same way from the passenger, on every car? I checked the contours on the left and right side of that area on my car before I cut out the bad pannels. The bad pannels had rust holes but they wernt so far gone that the original contour couldnt be accurately recorded. They were pretty damn close. It was the EMS passenger side pannel that was the only odd ball (compared to the original ford left and right side, and the EMS driver side patch) when it came to measuring the contour, this pannel is WAY off, not ford.
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