Firewall Date

Chuck Dempsey

Chuck Dempsey

Well-known member
Does anyone have a nice picture of just where the firewall date should be stamped on a 1929 Tudor? Hopefully that is some consistency in where it is stamped, between the different assembly plants. I've looked over my car (Charlotte NC plant) and can't find it....

Thanks!
 
This is where mine is....the steering column is to the left of the picture....the date is stamped up-side-down...
 

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Chuck,

First of all...and this is just my and a few others opinion, that the firewall date was stamped at Dearborn when the tanks were complete and tested...then sent out to the various assembly plants with the stamped date on the tank.. We still have not found any documentation on that thought or any other thought as that goes.

Some tanks did not get stamped between May 1928 and September 1929 and this could be one of yours. If your 1929 Tudor is after sometime in September 1929 as far as being assembled, then it is highly likely that there would be no date stamp.

Hopefully someone will come up with a photo of just where it is supposed to be in the same general area...Left corner of the gas tank just above the row of firewall bolts.

Here is some data you might find interesting:

http://www.plucks329s.org/studies/studies_firewall.html

Pluck
 
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Thanks all. Judging from the frame VIN number, I think mine is an October 1929. So perhaps it just doesn't have a tank date.. I'll take one more look.
 
I don't have photos handy, but both my '28 Coupe (November) and '29 Tudor (September) have their dates stamped, right side up, in the exact same location as indicated above.

Was/is there such a thing as an unstamped replacement/aftermarket/reproduction fuel tank?
 
mfarley said:
I don't have photos handy, but both my '28 Coupe (November) and '29 Tudor (September) have their dates stamped, right side up, in the exact same location as indicated above.

Was/is there such a thing as an unstamped replacement/aftermarket/reproduction fuel tank?
Click to expand...

I am sure there were no "aftermarket" or "reproduction" tanks ever made by FORD or anyone else as that goes for the Model A/AA Fords.

However many damaged "ORIGINAL to the car or truck" tanks have been replaced over the years with better ORIGINAL tanks...date or no date.

Pluck
 
I think Ford originally purchased machines that were made to weld the tank to liquid tight status but ended up modifying them further to get better results. This is Steve's PDF direct link. http://www.plucks329s.org/pdf/gastank/gas_tank_production.pdf
It's a very interesting read.

I've always felt that the firewall section was stamped before it was welded on to the tank. It's not easy to stamp a piece of sheet metal that is not bolted to something pretty solid or backed up by a heavy bucking bar. It could have been done that way but it also could have been placed into the jaws of a stamping machine just prior to the part being attached to the tank. If they were finishing 2500 tanks a day, they were making a lot of tanks.

Charlie Sorensen's book mentions how a lot of Fords "storage" for parts was while the parts were being shipped to the assembly branch plants. Ford may have shipped stuff by sea to California but they may have delivered it by rail as well. They delivered a lot of stuff by rail in that time frame and by the box car loads. Shipments get ******* at rail yards when they have to go through a rail car transfer and it can slow progress down a while. There was certainly no railroad that went from Dearborn direct to the branch in California so there may have been several transfers along the way. A lot of the sea shipments were likely to foreign branches. It took a long time to get out of the Saint Lawrence seaway let alone travel down to Panama and back up to California. It could have been shipped both ways depending on how large the parts may have been. It would have been faster by rail though.
 
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