Front Fender Patch Panel

[xm708]

Spoke to the new owner of the dies and he is willing to talk.I will speak to him again in a few days. Any idea what Sheldon and his son made for m37 stuff other than the fender pieces...

[Jess]

I understand that he also made the cab corners. At one time I was looking for cowl repair pieces and had contacted him about making some, but it never went anywhere. Not sure if any other bits were ever offered.

Jess

[xm708]

Thanks Jess. I actually sent Sheldon a cowl vent section and he had decided not enough people would buy them to offset the cost of the dies. Cab corners I did not know he did those either. Hopefully I can strike a deal with this gentleman and get some sheet metal flowing again...

[Jess]

I'd be interested if you find out anything else. I had looked into having the dies cut and have a local logging equipment manufacturer that has the press and would make me one or a hundred. The corners are pretty easy to do if you can roll them or have someone in a tin bash shop do them. I have a pile of t/o fenders that could use patches and if cowl pieces were available, could save at least one cab from china. In my area, damp climate and salt air rusts anything left outside. Tarps are the kiss of death but sometime a necessary evil. If you weren't one the opposite of the world, I'd be looking at some of the things you listed but shipping makes it prohibitive. My dream is to find a rust free cab somewhere on the west coast for a reasonable price and then go get it.

Buds are on the trees, snow drops in bloom and waiting for the daffodils to bloom here. I understand that its a bit early for that in the east....

Jess

[MSeriesRebuild]

We can make some, I haven't used any lately and haven't had a need here in the shop, but I'm sure we'll need some in the future. If there is interest, let me know and I'll get somebody on it. I think we can do these in the affordable price range.

We built weld-in cowl vent repairs back in 2010 for a truck we were building at the time, never sold any outright though. Building tooling is extremely costly, I can easily see where Sheldon thought it was not worth the investment. My experience has simply been this; it seems there is all kinds of interest in various items until folks realize the cost involved in producing these items. Most just fade away due to the fact they can't afford it or they just don't want to pay what it cost. For us, it is very simple; there is no money to be made in reproducing only a few items that cost a pile of cash to reproduce. Few will do it. In our case where we have had to reproduce some tough items in order to complete one of our builds. Just because we have done it doesn't mean we did or can do it again for what one would consider a reasonable cost. We certainly don't expect to sell a couple of a reproduced item and make money. If we have done it, we have patterns to do it again. The bottom line is it cost what it cost, if we have the time, we'll do it again based on the time and materials involved. Once the dies are cast, then it's all in the numbers; if you can fabricate 1,000 pieces with a market to support reasonable sales, then the cost per item gets into an affordable range, BUT if you build 10 of an item, and figure most of those will still be on the shelf 10+ years from now due to the high cost of production; well you see where that goes. This is simply why there seems to be plenty of supply of certain repro items and none of others.

[Jess]

Thanks Charles, I think you are right on the money about interest vs actually ordering. This went on with bed floors some years ago when an individual got them produced but the the buy in wasn't what the interest was. Still, some of us would like to do a decent repair and particularly on the fenders a patch panel would beat other methods. I repaired my cowl the hard way and now know why good quality body work is expensive.
If Ed doesn't come up with a solution from the current inquiry, I'll contact you directly and discuss what it would take to have a front fender patch panel produced again. My requirements would be from a few to maybe 10 but that's not enough to warrant a run.

Jess

[Rusty1340]

I would love to have the upper cowl sheetmetal, mine has been patched before and I'm not sure I can salvage the cowl vent because it was poorly done last time.

[MSeriesRebuild]

I would love to have the upper cowl sheetmetal, mine has been patched before and I'm not sure I can salvage the cowl vent because it was poorly done last time.

What we did was patch the sheet metal in the cowl with cold roll sheet we cut in house and welded in. The vent trough and drain assembly with groove for sealing the vent lid we machined from cold rolled stock on a CNC milling machine after design using CAD software. A far better repair than anything out of sheet metal, and at a lesser cost than creating dies to press sheet metal. My guys at the body shop welded it in, it worked great, and the vent lid fit perfectly. I have pictures of the unit, the installation process, the finished repair, and what the cowl looked like prior to any repair being done. I think it was the worst deteriorated one I ever saw.

[MSeriesRebuild]

Thanks Charles, I think you are right on the money about interest vs actually ordering. This went on with bed floors some years ago when an individual got them produced but the the buy in wasn't what the interest was. Still, some of us would like to do a decent repair and particularly on the fenders a patch panel would beat other methods. I repaired my cowl the hard way and now know why good quality body work is expensive.
If Ed doesn't come up with a solution from the current inquiry, I'll contact you directly and discuss what it would take to have a front fender patch panel produced again. My requirements would be from a few to maybe 10 but that's not enough to warrant a run.

Jess

John at Midwest has the best repro bed floors I've seen.

Fender panels won't be a big deal, just let me know if we can help you.

[002]

I need two fender patch panels. I guess they are different side to side, so make that I need one right and one left. Only 999 more to pre-sell and let the stamping commence.

[xm708]

spoke to Mr.Green and he has no dies for the m37 fender patch panels. He thinks possibly Sheldon did something different to make them but they did not come with the sale. He is going to try and find one of the panels Sheldon made and possibly reverse engineer a die and possibly make some so stay tuned... sorry guys I tried I have not given up yet just in pause mode... also put in a call to Midwest military and the guy who answered the phone says he does not think they will be tooling up anytime soon of course this was NOT the owner so we will see. I also spoke with Matt Tisdale who does a lot of repair panels for civilian wagons and he could tool up but at the tune of 4-6 grand that's a lot of panels at 50 bucks each to get money as profit so he will not be doing much with it either. I am checking into some more options stay tuned...

[creinemann]

Here's what Sheldon's Panels looked like, Just an FYI Image

[Gerry]

I have a repair panel that i was going to use to repair an extra fender I have but would be willing to sell to someone that needs it. It has a recessed lip around the edge to make a smooth fit.
Fits passenger side.

[Galen]

I really need some front fender under head light patch panels. Any word on repro sources?
Galen

[MSeriesRebuild]

This is one of the things I promised to look into. I know we can do it, and I really need to as I need them here periodically also. I'll get it on my list of things to get done.