COE Dough Boy's 47 Ford COE Build

This build started about two years ago as a idea that I had seen in a restaurant trade magazine. A couple had taken a old ford flatbed truck and put a wood fire oven on it to cook pizza. They used it for catering and special events. At the time I didn't really think about doing something like that till I saw my first COE. It was the Wescott COE, and I said wow that would make a nice cab for a mobile pizza catering rig. So the hunt was on to find a 1947 Ford COE. I put the word out to all that would listen that I was looking for one to restore. I also began to search the web and start to do research on what was involved in building a COE. In my search I came across the H.A.M.B. and boy what a help it has been. I have spent hours and hours looking though threads, post, and pictures. Thank you for all your input, it has help me out a lot. A year or so goes bye with no luck in finding what I wanted. I decided to widen my search to 1948 and on. I came across a complete 1948 COE in St. Louis, and lucky for me I have a sister that lives there. I ask my brother in law if he would check it out for me. He calls and said it looks real solid and that it was all there. I'm thinking this could be the one. The only problem it is about 2000 miles away. I decide to do one more search before I commit to make it happen. And came across a restored 1948 in California with a work box on the back that had been updated to newer ch***is and drive train. All I needed to do is pull the box off and fab a new one to work for my needs. I'm thinking this is the one and call my other brother in law and ask if he wanted to make a road trip to California. He agrees and we make plans to leave Thursday night after he gets off work. I was ready to drive it back home if it look as good as it did in the pictures. I call my brother who was one of the guys looking out for the 1947 to tell him what I found and that I was heading to California to buy it if it all check out. He tells me I didn't think you were looking that serious, and this is Wednesday the day before we leave. It's now Thursday morning and it's my brother on the phone to tell me he was talking to some of his customers and ask them if they knew of any 1947 COE that were available in the area. One said I know where one is less then a mile from here, but don't know if it's for sale. So my brother tells me that he's on his way over to talk to the guy and will let me know what's he finds out. He calls me back about a hour later which seem like days. He said, Don get in your car,go to the bank , bring cash, and get here fast before he changes his mind. I ask what do you mean before he changes his mind? Well he's kind of a hoarder, but his health not that good and I showed him your drawing of what you wanted to build and said he would look for the ***le and to come back later. I saying to myself that there is no way he is going to sale, but got in my car and drove 50 miles to find out. I get there and pick up my brother to see if we could make this deal happen. We walk up to the door and his wife answers and said he was taking his afternoon nap and that he would call us in two hours. The worst part of this is that I got my first look at the truck that was about 100 yards away. I ask my brother to pinch me because I thought I was dreaming. It was a prefect 1947 Coe that was all there, and original. We went to lunch and bet if he would even call us back. I was really hoping he would, because I wasn't looking forward to a all night 1100 mile trip to California. Almost exactly two hours later my brothers phone rings, I found the ***le. We couldn't get in the car fast enough, I think we were there before he hung the phone up. Before the night was over I was a proud new owner of a 1947 Ford COE. There was only three condition, that we had to clear a path to get it out, unload a 8'x16' flatbed of its cargo of twenty years, and it had to be my brother and I to do the work. He was worried that someone would take things from his property. He doesn't know it but I would have agreed to clean up his whole yard to get that truck. In the long run my brother pull through with a great save and a great truck, thank you Benny! Sorry to be so long winded, I promise the rest of the posts will be short and sweet with more photo's. I hope that some of the build thread and information will help someone else someday. Here are some pictures of the truck as we found it. (Hopefully)

 

Great story......but we need pics!

 

Ok, I think I have the posting of pictures down. I will post the two candidate COE pictures for some practice.

 

Nice, but we need more pics of that red '47 sittin' in your driveway. DD

 

very cool. that green interior would make me barf after a few miles.

 

This is the day we made are path and unload the bed. It took us six non stop hours to finsh the task and two sore backs. We had no brakes so we would move the truck about two feet and unload a stack of doors and repeat till we were done. We came back the next day to tow it home.




If you can't tell I'm pretty happy at this point!

 

Subscribed!

 

Uncontrollable jealousy here.....I love those 47s! That thing is a peach!

Good luck with your very cool project!

 

COE's and good pizza. What's not to love? I'm in.

 

I have always Liked COE's so, I will keep an eye on this one as well!

 

Great find and cool story. Look forward to your build.

 

That's what I want!

 

What a great story, I wonder if it would run?


Hope to see many updated pics of this one



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I actually have had the truck since July, but didn’t want to start a thread till we were further into the project. So I have a little catch up to do to get to where I'm at on the build.
Being the nostalgia kind of guy that I am I wanted to get the truck running with the original drive train? Frank said that it ran when he park it 20 years ago. I'm thinking I have a 50/50 chance. My goal was to drive it to town for what we call first Friday. The first Friday of Every month the town shops stay open late and have a kind of street fair. The local car club closes down one of the streets for a mini car show. It's very low key but fun to see what shows up for the night.
As all things go I missed the first event. It took longer to work out the bugs than I was anticipating. After a new battery, redoing the wiring for the starting system, rebuilding the distributor, new coil, new starter, rebuilding the carb, changing out the old fluids, and a lot of head scratching I was able to achieve my goal. My first drive was down the driveway and after a little gear grinding and pumping the brakes I was on my way. And as long as I gave myself 100 yards to stop I was good to go. The next first Friday my daughter and I went to town. We made it to town and back with no problems, but I don't think we went over 35 miles an hour just in case. Boy did we see some rubber necking going on.
In a way I fill kind of guilty to be taking apart a running piece of history, but I need the safety of a newer ch***is. It's now the end of August and time to start taking the cab off the ch***is.

The truck at its new home.

My daughter waiting for her ride to town.

 

Jeez, what a beautiful truck! You can use the original ch***is with careful and proper planning. 97% of the charm of those things is the original ride height and the original style wheels. Do some hard research and measuring before you "chunk" that original ch***is. Love that thing! DD

 

I would love to see more on this build, however I think it would be better left on the original frame and suspension. You also got a much better looking rig than either of the 2 '48s you were looking at!

 

Awesome find! I'd love to find one like that around here, and were next door nieghbors! So whats the story on the Green one?????
Doug

 

Man - that looked good the way it was.... But your motorhome ch***is shown in your album here is a good one.


That loading dock cover over it saved it from the Oregon rains. Mine was not so fortunate spending the last 18 years outside under a moisture collecting and deteriating tarp only 10 miles from the ocean in Fallbrook, CA.



Check out this beast built on a similar but double rear axle motorhome ch***is - goes to show - if you can dream it - you can build it:

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=35267

 

I would love to keep the original ch***is for this project and make it work. There are a few things that this ch***is cannot accomplish for the build. I want to make sure I can keep up with traffic and stop when needed in a safely manner. Also the bed of the truck is too high. We plan on serving the pizza out of the box thru a service window, so we need a lower bed. Didn’t want to be three feet higher than the customer. I have a lot of things to consider, holding tanks, water, hot water tank, propane, generator electrical and plumbing just to name a few.
The one thing I do not want to do in this build is to lose that charm or the look of its era. That’s what makes this truck so cool.
Here are some drawing that I did in Photoshop and Sketch Book Pro.



The last two are rough ones I did for ride height. This one is for when it's parked and ready to serve pizza.

This is ride height

 

The Green 1948 was in St. Louis. It was back in May when I found it. Not sure if is still availabe or not.

 

Large pepperoni please!

 

Thinking outside "the pizza box".....how about running a big inch late 70s 80s Cadillac front wheel drive clip. Does 2 things, gets it lower and you can build rails with torsion flex trailer axles out back to drop the floor all the way across to serve from. No kick up for the straight axle, no drive shaft ,no leaves. Build a plate off the torsion flex to the rail and bag it to drop down when you park. Strut bag the front and your done.

 

There are motorhomes similar to what the OP is using, and already frontwheel drive. See the free rear wheel drive he is using in his album here.

Deco-Liner ch***is:
http://www.hotrod.com/featuredvehicles/hrdp_1301_the_decoliner/photo_20.html

 

The floor on my "Grumman" box is 30" from the ground with the truck at the ride height shown, with air bags it would be 5-6 inches lower.

 

Great looking drawings but you might want to re-think the stacks. Sure as shooting somebody is going to burn themselves and you will have to give them free pizza for life.... ;o)

 

Agree with the above. What about modding the ch***is with a dropped section in the middle, behind the cab, to get a more friendly 'service height'- this way you could keep more of the '47 charm? Or maybe a 'vertical conveyor' could be worked to drop the pizza down to pedestrian height?
As an owner of a '40; I don't see a 500/transaxle fitting in the factory doghouse. This gen Ford COEs are tight up front for alternate powertrains. What's going to be tough in modern traffic is the gearing. Mine is a 2-spd rear: 5.83/8.11. I wonder how much it would cost to get a circa 3.00 13-in ring & pinion made?

 

Awesome idea, great minds think alike. I have a '52 chevy coe that's going on a '94 F600 and I plan on making a mobile bbq with it. The serving height is one of my concerns too but I was thinking a lower serving window will alleviate that issue if the frame is sitting too high. My frame is flat but almost "10 deep . There is a local guy that built a brick oven inside his p30 (everyone has a p30) I think his oven weighs almost 3,000lbs. My current rig has around 2 tons of cooking equipment so you probably want a donor frame from something beefy. I was thinking (after I bought the ford) about a Lincoln towncar 12 person stretch limo from the 80's would be a interesting frame donor and you would have the lowest possible serving height with it parked in the weeds. I think they usually come with a 5.0 which would sound real cool uncorked.

 

When it comes to making pizza and drawing what I need I can hold my own. When it comes to shaping metal and welding that's a different story. So I needed to find the person that could make my project come to life. About two months before the project began we were enlarging the walk-in at the restaurant and needed some custom stainless work done. One day my wife comes home and gives me a business card, and said she met a nice young lady and that her husband does custom hoods and stainless work and that we should give him a call for the walk-in project. I gave Chris a call to come and take a look at what we needed and take some measurements. After he was done I ask if he would take a look at my drawing. When I gave him the drawing his facial expression was like giving a three year old a double scoop ice cream cone. At that point I new he was a car guy. I asked him if he worked on cars? He pulled out his phone and showed me a 50 Ford that he had chop, sectioned, and fabricated some of the lower panels that had rusted out. We talked for at least an hour about cars and the project. I ask if this is something he would be interested in building? I didn't think I really needed to ask, because of his enthusiasm and interest that he was showing. It was a big yes! He ask for me to give him some measurements and what kind of materials that I wanted to use and the scope of the work I wanted him to complete so that he could give me a ball park figure of what it might cost. I told him I would get the information together and we would meet again. At that point I had a gut feeling that Chris was going to be the man for the job. During the time between our meetings I worked on pulling off the cab and doing research on the new ch***is.

My make shift hoist. Crude engineering, but it worked.

Made it to shop without any problems.

 

Well looking at your pictures, you must be Benny's Brother???? Small world, I live right by the restaurant and have known him for years. I'm sure we've met when you guy first started the restaurant here in Vancouver! Good luck with your build, gonna be cool!

 

I guess I'll have to admit that Benny's my brother. If it wasn't for him I would be building a 1948. He really came through on this one! It's going to be a lot of work, but will be fun building.