cowl help please

H

hotrod3333

Junior Member
I bought this cowl the guy told me it was a 30 roadster cowl...but what has me confused is that there are no windsheild stanchen mounts....could somebody tell me why or what it is off of....thanks for your time
 

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I think that is a commercial cowl sold for independant bodybuilders to add they're own stuff. If I'm right, I suspect it's worth more than an open car cowl to the right buyer.
 
With the indented firewall, it is mid-late 31, from my cell phone it appears to be a roadster cowl, has provisions for a door. Must have been right before the introduction of the commercial cowl. Was used on a 'body by others' Ford chassis. If you make it back into an actuall roadster I would be interested in the top trim piece under windshield as you will not need it.
 
Yes, the one pictured is a roadster cowl. The mail trucks had a steel cowl band, not stainless and the mail truck cowl no matter what year 29 or 31 there was a second choke rod hole drilled about 2 inches lower than the factory hole at the bottom of the firewall to align the rod to carb with the postal department mandatory Hoof governor.
 
YES, That is a Commercial Cowl, I've had 3 of them over the years. The cross piece under the dash rail and corner forged brackets differ from the Roadster pieces. If you plan to sell it list it on the HAMB, they are a sought after item if you wish to use a DuVal V'd windsheild. Bob
 
I don't believe that this is a roadster cowl for a couple of reasons - first, I didn't see any indentations for door hinges on the "door side" of the cowl section; second, the band across the top and the curve of the side cowl panels suggest that this was intended for commercial use; I agree with Steve that the stainless cowl band also rules it out as a mail truck cowl. That said, it is my understanding that cowl sections like this one would have probably been mated to some type of custom body, often in wood. That said, in its current configuration, it would seem to be a desirable start for some type of wooden bodied specialty one-off type of vehicle - because of that, I would also tend to agree with Greg that it has a value greater than that of a roadster or other production open body style cowl section.
 
It seems to have a hole drilled for an aftermarket exhaust manifold heater. Might this lead one to think this for an enclosed body?

OTOH, I think I see slots and holes where the hinges might have been mounted. (middle pix)

I don't own an "open car" so can't comment on the applicability of heaters to open cars.

Interesting. Everyone LOOOVES a mystery. Could stand some interior steel to hold the floor boards.

Joe K
 
lots of great info...how much do you guys think this is worth....i bought it cause i thought it was a good deal but i really want a roadster cowl...here are some more pics to help identafi it...
 

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You all need to stop looking at the top of the cowl and look again at the side, the commercial cowl DID NOT have the recess for the door. This is roadster cowl used in a commercial application. It is not a commercial cowl. Price 250.
 
I'm tending to agree with Steve. His pricing seems correct, but subtract for the "horns" which carry the floorboards (these are available repop from the parts dealers.)

Joe K
 
Steve, on page 22 of THE FORD MODEL A MAIL TRUCK by Aldie Johnson shows that the 30-31 commercial cowl is as the one pictured and in early 31 they came out with the flat back one. I'm not sure when the indented firewall came in.

Bob
 
Bob, look at page 24, it has pictures, the lower left is the top view of the roadster cowl, with the recess for the door, this was used on the first procurement of the two in 1931. This is the cowl used on the York Hoover bodied trucks, which is what mine is and has the roadster cowl as pictured above. The lower right picture is of the commercial cowl used on the second procurement of 1931, which were mifflinburg bodied. these had no recess. looking at these two pictures in Aldie book, you can clearly see the difference. I tried for 45 minutes to upload pictures, but had no luck. It is a roadster cowl. As stated earlier quit looking at the top of the cowl.
 
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