Body Repairs: Body Bracing

Forty Ford coupes were built without much structural bracing. The original car had two braces supporting the lower tail panel and two triangular braces that attached to the deck lid brace and weather strip channel.  This particular car also had two sheet metal braces formed into angles that ran from the package tray support to the wheel wells at a 45-degree angle.

The original braces were rusted out so I fabricated two from 16-gauge sheet metal.

The braces shown here are the original ones. They had to be slightly lengthened to fit.

I wanted the internal bracing to both strengthen the car and provide a spare tire mount. I fabricated a U shaped piece of 5/8 inch square tube that I welded to the bottom of the package tray support. I bent the square tubing by first tightly packing it with dry sand, heating it with a torch to a cherry red color and then bending it to the desired radius. The dry sand acts as a mandrel so the tubing doesn't kink. If you try this, make sure the sand is dry and you leave a vent hole at one end of the tubing. If the sand is wet, heating it will turn moisture to steam, expand and blow up the neighborhood.

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