Stripped Cowl Light Arm on my 28

[50Trucking]

Doing a restoration on a 28 Tudor. Had to remove the cowl lights to repaint the replacement gas tank and the cowl.

The cowl arms are made of pot metal and the surface that mates with the cowl is very small. This allows the cowl light to be very susceptible to moving. There is not enough surface on the cowl light arm to bond to the cowl. Needless to say while tighten the nut to make sure the light did not move, the threads stripped out of the arm.

What can I do, short of buying a new arm, to fix this problem?
Has anyone modified the end of the arm to better make it mate with the cowl whereby it will be less likely to move? How did you modify it?

Seems to me this was a poor design.

 

[Doug Linden]

I have used LocTite Stripped Thread Repair with good success on newer cars. It used to be called Form-a-Thread, Summit has this product.

 

[bobbader]

28/29 cowl light DO NOT mate to the outside of the cowl panel. They go THROUGH the panel (and a grommet) and attach to a reinforcing plate inside the panel. If you try to mate them to the outside of the panel, when they lay flush with the panel, the lights will aim on a slight angle toward the centerline of the hood (front to back) and, YES, they will always want to move around on the panel. As per your "stripped" arm, if you mount the lights correctly "through the panel" you will probably find that they stay in place better and MAYBE you still have some good threads further inside the bad arm that will now work. Good luck.

 

[jrelliott]

If the suggestion Doug made does not work, try boring out, tap to a larger diameter bolt and installing a heli-coil. Bobbader is correct as there are panels inside the cowl that the lights attach to. If you do not have the plate, I still have two. My vehicle is a fordor, and the other body styles have a different cowl structure.

 

[Ron Blissit]

Mine were striped also, installed a Helicoil tighten the suckers up real tight and no more problem.