front fender assembly

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I am assembling the front clip of my ’35. When I tighten everything up it is going to put a lot of compressive force on the castings that the parking lights and horns  are mounted on. I know these are prone to breaking, I have one broken original and one unbroken. If I shim the 4 bolt pad where the fender horn attaches to the chassis it will leave a significant gap between the lower radiator shell and the fenders. Everything about the alignment of everything seems to indicate that there were no shims pushing the fender out and the castings just end up with a lot of force squeezing the side of the radiator shell and crosstube assembly inside the radiator shell. I don’t see any evidence that the parts have been damaged, bent or warped. The original casting fits the same as the repro. The weird design of the cross tube assembly does  imply it is intended to have very slight give to it after the side of radiator shell is forced into it.

Is the experience of others that the castings end up with a lot of compression force? Intentional by design?

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I guess I have answered my own question. I went ahead and gingerly tightened all the bolts and despite the big compression load on the castings so far they didn’t break, didn’t crack the new paint,  and the fenders and radiator shell lined up more or less like they must have originally. Fingers crossed.

[Author nameAuthor names are only available to PAS members.]

Answered my own question, sort of. Looking for info on another subject in the PASB’s I ran across a 1934 memo from Pierce-Arrow stating that there had been some trouble with breaking the park light/horn castings due to excessive force on assembly. It recommended shims placed between the fender and frame pads, at the top two bolts to “drop” the fender if too tight or the bottom to raise the fender if there’s a gap in the casting attachment. It implies there wasnt intended to be any preload on those castings. Lucky I didn’t break them so far. I can probably relieve  some of the force by the shimming, I doubt all as it will throw other alignments off such as the holes through the fender for the bumper attach and likely the hood.

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