Projects 41 Ford pickup finally got it home and pictures pictures

Today ,after turkey, I snuck out to the garage with Eric and set the dwell and reset the timing on the truck. Eric took me for a ride in it afterward. Over the last week, V8bob helped me with some info about FH ignition and a good vacuum advance for my Load a Matic. I didn't know about the internal resister coils and I had wired the stock 41 in front of the coil. It is a good Thanksgiving.

 

Not much going on with the holidays and my cataracts finally needed to be done. I had to lay off body work and I could hardly see to do anything else. I cleaned up a spare column drop before the surgery and painted it. I ordered some new parts and assembled it last Saturday.

The detent screw in the last pic came out of a rusted POS 40 drop and it was all I could save.
I found my voltage leak yesterday; it was the starter pushbutton with a path to ground, so I installed a new one. I ordered a turn signal switch and some wiring to add it to the truck. I didn't get to drive it a lot, but enough to know that I want turn signals. I should be back on the car after Christmas.

 

I've been doing odds and end on the truck while my eyes were healing ( cataracts) and I got the turn signals installed and tested. Great! I also bought a cowl vent operator from a man on the Fordbarn. It's a nice piece and he included the mounting brace that was cut out of my truck. I cleaned it up and painted the parts.
I also rebuilt a 2g Rochester to put on a mercury manifold ( 4 bolt carb mount ) that I plan to put on the truck later this year.

 

It is good to see you are getting some projects done while healing Joel. Are you going to be able separate that piece of cowl from the mounting bracket without screwing up your paint job?

 

I could see the rivits on my truck on the fire wall and dash; I assumed that was it.
Good Ol Henry also spot welded the dash end and arc welded the firewall end on the inside. I have a stub on the truck sticking out about 1 1/2 in from the firewall. On the dash end, I can plug weld.
Thanks for following along Sam.


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wow sweet truck !!!!! I would love to have that in my garage !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Thanks, I’m trying to keep it driveable and fix/improve it at the same time.


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Really nice truck. I am happy to know you are having fun tinkering with it at the same time keeping it on the road.
Bob

 

A little work on this project, while organizing the garage. I've installed the brace the cowl vent operator bolts to and checking the adjustment of the linkage. When this is sorted out, I can patch the hole in the dash. Yaaayyyy.

stub left from the P.O. surgery.

I cut the brace to match the stub and prepped for welding.

I thought I might use the tig across the bottom but I couldn't get my head in a place to see ( with the hood on). Getting the mig torch in wasn't much better, but I finally got it stitched together.

Back to cleaning the garage.

 

I’m a Chevy guy through and through but I just LOVE the ‘40-‘41 Ford pickup.

If I ever sell my no-longer-HAMB-friendly avatar ‘55 I will definitely be looking for one. And I would want to do what I started doing on my ‘55 (before I got carried away) and what you are doing now, “Work on it while keeping it driveable.”

Yours is SUCH a great truck - huge congrats. Watching and really enjoying.

 

I have a working cowl vent!

 

I finished up the cowl vent with a screen and an adjustment. I’m getting my parts for the supplied air pump Wednesday so I tacked in a patch for the hole in the dash.



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I have been wanting to install the column drop/ignition switch that I rebuilt a while back because I have left the turn signals on after parking the truck. I also needed to tighten up the steering box free play and after buying a repo 40 steering wheel I found the column had been modified to fit the wheel it came with. I did that today, almost.

I cut the column where it was welded before and you might notice that the steering shaft is laying against the steering column tube. As a consequence of this, the steering box had to be in a bind. I pulled the tube to recut the end squarely.

I recut the top half of the tube also to square it and added a 3/4 in. piece to make the column the correct length. It's clamped up and ready to weld.

The new drop with the shaft nearly centered.
Ready to weld


All welded back together and clamped in place. A little bondo, grinding, sanding and some rattle can black and the turn signals will go off with the ignition switch.

 

Mission accomplished. I took it for a test drive; steering is much better. I rotated the signal stat up so the indicator lights would be more line of sight.
Next is the door glass. The window regulators are rebuilt; I'm just waiting on the door glass.

 

Door glass on 40-41 pickups (my experience is with these two years) is a bit of a bear. Unless the bottoms of the doors are rotted out and you can come from underneath (not trying to be funny - that's how I did one of my doors by installing the whole window mechanism first, I then fixed the door bottom), they slide in through the door window opening. Fun fun fun - have a friend nearby for a couple extra hands - you'll need them!

 

Thanks for the info. When I took the glass/regulators out, the glass was busted on one side and the regulator was not connected on the other side. I’ll be flying blind.


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Those little round lights with the conical lenses are a '50s-'60s aftermarket item. J. C. Whitney, Economy Auto, and Western Auto used to carry them.

 

The glass needs to be in its channel first, then slid into the vertical door channels inside the door with felts already installed. That will somewhat hold the glass in place along with one hand. The regulator goes through the door access hole and is either fully up or down. There's an article on the Drake website about doing a coupe door window. The coupe had a much bigger inside door opening vs the small truck opening and there's the rub of trying to get the regulator rollers in the channel while holding the window - this is where the extra hands come in and the fun and games start. Have the regulator screws ready.

I hope someone else can jump in to clarify things but I am also hoping your experience will be much less frustrating than mine was .... If you need window glass to channel positioning (left and right), I think the one glass I have not yet installed in my stalled 40 pickup project has it installed and I can give you some measurements if needed ....

 

Thanks; I may need some dimensions. If I get frustrated, I can always go in the next room and sand on the coupe to relax. BTW. The drivers door does need a new bottom, but I can't go there yet.

 

A little update. The glass install went pretty much like TomT described. After I got the glass in the channel, I used 2 pieces of 1x2 and a C clamp across the glass to hold it up.
I don’t have any pix of that. I was doing the glass as a fill in while priming on the coupe and the glass went so well that I was done before I knew it.
I also put the truck bed floor in.


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The bed looks FANTASTIC!

Did you use a kit?
Whose?
How much?

Thanks,
Rich

 

I bought a bed kit from Midwest Early Ford in Ohio. It was a little less than $2000 I think and that included the bed wood, steel strips, bolts.
Every thing you need to go from bare frame to done except paint.


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My quote from them was 1300 bucks, did you get bed sides also?

 

Here is the link and I also bought the tail gate. So, to answer your question, I bought the bedsides. There is not a single original bed part on my truck. Go to https://midwestearlyford.com/shop/ and search fo part # 81C-830000.
I met up with them at nsra nationals north in kalamazoo mi. so I saved shipping. I had the help of a good friend who was experienced at riveting and that was the most time consuming part of assembly.
BTW, I will have some hour in body working things like spot welds, but much preferable to fixing rust.

 

Money well spent Joel! It looks great. I have had my eye on 41 flatbed bed for years locally. Although the flatbed is very well done I would want to convert it to a pickup. I had figured the costs at more than that so I am glad to hear it can be done for less than I thought. Too bad I have too many projects ahead of me to pursue this truck project.. The picture is of my car club in 2008. We used to try to gather for a group photo at some point during the Rod Run we put on the last week in June for 34 years.

 

I thought so, Sam. The new bed makes it easier to put up with the holes in the cab floor. The instructions that come with the kit recommend assembling the bed parts on a raised platform or saw horses, some place you can work around easily. The bed sub-frame is pre-assembled and welded and is a good start. Long story short; a person could assemble, paint and install the floor before you ever get the truck. Just a thought.

 

So easy.......but I better not unless I want to live /sleep in the shop

 

I understand.


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Looking good!!

 

Thanks. It's going to be slow, but today I sent some $$ to a fellow hamber for a piece of firewall, a throttle pedal, and a set of seat springs. The new seat frame is coming from LeBaron-Bonney.
I'll find someone to build up the seat over the winter; the rest will get done after the coupe. All is well and the HAMB is great.