Is it just me, or does anyone else think it strange that the cowl to hood seal is actually NAILED into the sheet metal?
just a thought,
doug

 

Ford bodies up into the 30s had a wood supporting understructure and most of the sheetmetal was nailed to the wood. Ol Frugal Henry prolly had some leftover nails he wanted to use up! Actually nails aren't that bad a fastener for the purpose and the day, just are a one time deal and don't reuse very well. Pop rivets would make a good replacement.

 

I used very small stainless sheetmetal screws. Everything tends to rust up here in the northeast

 

Henry, being an innovator and a future thinker... knew that in later years there would be extremely bright forward thinking young/old men who would restore his trucks and make them more beautiful than even he'd imagined...

He could see that that new generation of individualists would mostly want tilt front ends on their trucks and would invent a ingenious foam and / or velcro padding for the cowl... so knowing all this ??? he didn't invest a lot of capitol in this area and used carpet tacks left over from an office remodel...

later
john

 

all i can do now is laugh

 

You won't be laughing when you try to hold them and hit 'em with a hammer.

 

And flattened fabric gardenhose for the seal material.

 

And flattened fabric gardenhose for the seal material.


Man !! I hadn't even thought of that !!!!!!!

thanks Ax..

later
john

 

Same here...

 

I asked a similar question a while back, might be worth looking it up. There are several places that offer a self-adhesive foam replacement. I got that and it didn't hold worth a darn. (They apply a double-stick tape to the back of the foam and the tape doesn't stick well to the rubber; it sticks to the cowl and you're left with a strip of tape that is even worse to get off). The rubber is only 3/16" wide too. I had to apply 3M weatherstrip adhesive to stick it on (messy but effective). If I had to do it over I would get a universal weatherstripping that is the same shape as the original cotton webbing and glue it on with the 3M.

 

If nailing the cowl seal was a strange idea how about stapling the fender to cab rubber? At least with the cowl seal you can use something like a small flathead wood screw to hold it in, who makes a staple, or a staple gun to attach the rubber? The best I have seen is using pop rivets, at least you don't see the inside of the fender rubber.

 

I was wondering if I was seeing right the other day when I was getting ready to pull the front end. I noticed what looked like nails but I thought that somewhere along the line in my trucks life some smart person came up with the idea to use nails to hold something on (my seal has been long gone). Well, now I know what the deal was. I guess it worked for quite sometime. Interesting!

 

I am sure the Ford assembly line had some kind of neumatic nailers, much like every carpenter uses today, that they used to install the cowl seals in a matter of a few seconds. It would be a lot faster than lining up self tapping screws and driving them in even if it was only a second or two. They would save hours/days over the length of the production run.

Ford always has the newest and best technology, I know this from building controls for some of their machines. Ford demands to have the newest even if it's not availlable to the general industrial market and is only in the prototype stage.

 

I also used ss screws. But if you want to make your truck like Henry did, then hold the little nails with needle nose pliers. This will save your fingers from the 5 lb sledge you're using. By the way, you get the new nails with the replacement rubber. Jag

 

I posted some more pictures in my gallery and I have a couple of the cowl lacing that was a Dennis Carpenter reproduction it came with small screws that worked very well.
The pics are in the album work in progress.
Don