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Old 08-24-2019, 12:18 AM   #11
Tudortomnz
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: Canterbury, New Zealand
Posts: 1,242
Default Re: Indented Firewall

Quote:
Originally Posted by Railcarmover View Post
A few things were done by 31 to lessen the fire danger.One was moving the steering column support to the dash rail from the tank,on front collisions the driver would be impaled by the steering wheel, often breaking the bracket at the tank.Some died in the resulting fire. Ford was in court a bunch over the cowl tank,even using the tactic of renaming the filler screen to imply it was a fire suppression device.
Its also one of the reasons why no one reproduced the tank..liability.
It was actually done to prevent a leak at the weld joint of the column support as drivers put weight on to the steering wheel when getting in.
Although much is made of fires with the Model A, these were never common. A trick done at Ford Dealers was to light a match over the tank with the gas cap off ; because of the arrester screen, nothing happened.
It is hard to make a car go up in flames because of fuel ; check out old Myth Busters on this. The new bracket was a fix for this & was promoted in the Service Bulletins to fit on earlier cars if the problem occurred. There was even one for RHD & they were available here in NZ.
Regarding being impaled on the steering, in the Model A era this was not worried about, only much later were auto makers forced to improve interior design to lessen injury, but certainly not in the '30's, '40's or '50's.
Cheers.
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