MTFCA Forum

I’ve been going through my collection of bits and pieces and came across this set of body to cowl brackets. Can anyone tell what year they would fit? They don’t seem correct for my 1923 high radiator roadster. Thanks.

Those like like body brackets for a T closed car. Not sure but pretty close.

This shows similar brackets for a '25 roadster:
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/22138.html
I hope it helps. According to this your '23 wouldn't have steel brackets
james dimit on Saturday, June 23, 2007 "I will post some pictures of a late 25 roadster I helped rewood a year ago. Some of this will probably be different from yours as the late 25 has some steel in the door hinge and upper cowl area. The earlier cars had wood in theses locations."
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/31820.html

High cowl/radiator cars came out in August '23 and were referred to as 1924 models by Ford (which is consistent with their annual change-over of body styles at that time of year, pretty much every year), thus, your car is considered a 1924 even if made and sold in later part of 1923...

see anything familiar...?

I’ve owned, driven and loved this car for over 10 years. The redwood job it came was not good so I finally decided to redo it with the official plans. When I disassembled the body I was shocked at what I found, or didn’t find as the case maybe. It only had about half the wood and a third of the bolts didn’t have nuts. I was hoping the brackets I had would work but they don’t seem right at least when fitted up to the old wood. They don’t have the semicircle bump at the bottom like the ones in your picture.

My apologies! I did not catch that small difference in brackets.

that "bump" at the bottom is a countersunk hole for (I recall), a #12 x 3/4 screw. The bump "up" is a rivet hold that the cowl rivets to...and the small holes around the "square" hole are also for flathead rivets to the cowl...with the square hole for a carriage bolt to the steel firewall.

you have quite a job in front of you...been there done that!

remember that several companies made these bodies and I would not doubt that there are small differences in manufacture, including brackets. Or, they are for a pre-23 car and someone decided that the extra reinforcement of that extra screw was useful or necessary (it does structurally tie the hinge pilar to the bracket very nicely). At the very least the somewhat diagonally spaced rivet holes around the front square hole are clearly for a low cowl as can be seen in the link posted by Rich: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/31820.html

If you will look at the upper cowl (high) in Rich's link, you will not see the diagonally spaced rivet holes which you DO see on the bottom (low) cowl.

I would agree that if you have a high cowl car, the brackets you posted pix of are not for that car.