Fender Skirts

[Gordie9]

Finishing up the restoration on my 66' and installing the fender skirts for the first time. The skirts did not come with the car, but I bought a pair from an owner of a 64' who had sold his car. I've got all the pins in place on the wheel wells and the skirt mechanisms work well, but the skirts don't seem to fit well. The front edge of the skirts are a bit inboard and do not fit flush with the wheel well. I believe the skirts for the 64', 65' and 66's are all the same with exception of the stainless trim for the 66's. Is there some trick to getting these to fit well??? Should the front edge mounting pin be located on the wheel well instead of the skirt?? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

[RedBird64]

Mine have never fit well either. I have to muscle them forward while rotating them towards the front of the car and they're still not perfect.
I'm curious to see how others have done.

Scott

[rzcrisis]

My fender skirts came with the car and are the originals confirmed with my gate release options and original paint. Mine do not fit 100% but the rubber gasket that is on the top edge helps fill any gaps. All of my pins are in the wheel well. Mine have elongated holes so there is some room to adjust the skirt when fitting to quarter. I sometimes have to play with this to get the right fit.

One thought....If there was any major body work done on the quarters in the wheel well area this could affect the contour to mate with the skirts. Not sure if this is your case or not.

Hope this helps.

Randy

[SBurney]

About that rubber gasket on the fender skirts...

I just had my car repainted and I ordered new gaskets. I can’t find anything in the body manual or service manual about installing them. It looks like the ends may need to be cut to length, & the gasket possibly glued on. Does anyone have any knowledge on the subject?

[paulr]

Steve,
Mine were attached with pop rivets--a large number, not sure how many. I know this was done by the previous owner due to how the repaint job shows around the area. There might be glue involved also; I could take a look next week if you're still needing that info. I have no clue what the factory application was.

[RedBird64]

Yes, I had to cut mine to length as well.
originally, the gaskets are stapled on right through the metal.
I used Rubber trim adhesive https://www.grainger.com/product/2KVC4? ... 6923885500!
to glue mine back on. I used 8~10 clamps to keep it in position while it cured and it turned out great.
One important thing to note, this adhesive is like instant paint remover. If you get it someplace painted and try to wipe it off, it will take the paint with it but it works fantastic.

[sseebart]

I also used glue and clamps to attach the gasket. It's a time consuming process, and I found that the glue failed at some of the tighter curves after a year or two. I rarely run with the skirts, since they interfere a little bit with my wheel/tire setup, but if I were to do this again, I would add some thin wire through the original staple holes for extra security.

~Steve

[SBurney]

Thanks, guys. The original staples were still in the skirts (along with little bits of leftover skirt material). I pulled the staples out, straightened them, then reinstalled them with the new gaskets and trimmed the gaskets to length when I was finished. It wasn’t quick, but it turned out great and no adhesive was involved like Ford intended.

If anyone else wants to try this, poking an 18 gauge finishing brad through the original staple hole and into the gasket makes it a little easier to locate the correct staple placement in the gasket. While I was doing this one slow staple at a time I couldn’t help but think about the Ford assembler and his stapler knocking out a skirt in probably just a minute or 2. I would have been fired for sure.

[RedBird64]

They sure don't make staples the way they used to!
Nice work!