31 mail truck rear fender question

[n2s3]

restoring a 31 mail truck,could not locate any steel rear fenders so went with fiberglass for now. drilled thru the existing holes from inside of the truck, holes came out close to the radius of the fender. cannot tighten down the nut without a radius washer of sorts.I guess I will have to make them unless anyone has seen something like this available online? thanks you,Bryan

[Dick Carne]

My recollection is that the mounting bolts are drilled from the top rather than in accordance with traditional fender mountings found on the wheel wells of steel-bodied cars. We have a '29 Mail Truck but we stopped our restoration when we discovered that our truck has an overall height somewhere around 7'2" once the uprights are installed - at the time we only had a seven foot tall garage door. Nonetheless, I seem to remember that the bolts are drilled through the wooden wheel liner. To the extent that I can, I will be glad to assist in any way possible from here. Good luck going forward.

[ronn]

just asking
is there not a model A mail truck association or club? I have always found them fascinating.

[Bob C]

Originally Posted by ronn

just asking
is there not a model A mail truck association or club? I have always found them fascinating.

http://postalas.org/

[n2s3]

Thanks, we use that site for reference. we have several photos for reference that show fenders attached in the normal fashion. However, the limited prints we have do not show fender attachment. we will have to make up something to fill the radius so the nut tightens on a flat surface.

[jimsa]

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Are you using the correct rear fender? They should bolt up thru the original wheel well studs like other body styles.

[Dick Carne]

As I referenced above, Mail Trucks have a unique body, each of which was made to fit onto either a 1/2 ton truck chassis (100 cu. ft which would have been the smaller of the two bodies made, and was essentially a standard passenger car chassis - therefore having rear passenger car fenders) or a 200 cu. ft. body designed to be mounted on a 1-ton truck chassis and therefore not able to use standard passenger car rear fenders. The 1931 100 cu. ft. truck bodies would have more than likely been made by York-Hoover.

As for the proper fender for an original Mail Truck, York Hoover stipulated that the proper Ford fender to be used carried Ford Part No. A-16168 (for the right rear) and A-16169 (for the left rear).

With respect to the mounting of rear fenders, every Mail Truck that I have ever seen had a flat inner fender panel (steel plate) that mounts to a wooden radius that runs over the rear wheel. This inner wooden radius is not visible from the outside - only from the inside where the mail compartment is situated. There is also a support brace that runs over this wooden radius and ties to the floor, and also extends up over the wooden wheel radius to the upper side panel to provide structural support for both the center vertical side brace as well as tying into the upper wooden outer panel that runs from the windshield to the rear of the truck body. Unlike station wagons, there was not a "more typical" rear fender panel on Mail Trucks similar to those on other metal-bodied cars, but rather the set-up I described above. Instead, all of the trucks that I have seen have a carriage bolt intermittently spaced that drills down from the inside of the mail compartment through the top of the wooden wheel radius and through the fender on the underside (through the top of the fender itself). As for flat washers (if I correctly understood your comment concerning radius washers), I have always used flat washers immediately below the lock washers and nuts tying the fender to the body.

Again, I hope that this will help.