Projects 1934 Ford Pickup in England

Thanks, the rear tyres are stout, I believe they are 12 ply, they are certainly pretty heavy too.
I'm running them at 24PSI, but ride quality is not something that I can be too concerned about in this vehicle.

But they look good

 

Man that looks gooooood!

 

Going back in time and filling in some of the changes I've made.
I wasn't happy with some of the details on the front.
The indicators were hung onto the ends of the bumper, with agricultural brackets, and loads of period incorrect cable ties holding the wiring in place.
The horns didn't work either.


The number plate had an equally agricultural bracket, and loads of iffy and varied fasteners holding it on.



I 3D printed a 2 piece bracket, to allow the number plate bracket, to be mounted through the starter motor hole in the grille. This is a prototype, the final version was printed in black to be more subtle.



That allowed the original, but slightly modified bracket to be bolted on, with no additional holes drilled in the vehicle, which is always a win, for a vehicle so old and original.



Sorting the horns is next....

 

The horns don't work, they are lovely Spartan Made in the USA models, but they are 6V I believe, and there wasn't even any wiring to them.
Luckily my vehicle had already been converted to 12V.

A bit of research showed that modern Hella horns were just a little bit smaller.
I hoped to fit the Hella mechanism in place of the original 6V ones without modifying the actual horn body.



Remove the yellow cage, and a 3D printed ring, joins the old and the new together nicely.
Don't worry about the pink'ish ring, it can't be seen when the covers are on.



Inside of the horn bodies were bare metal, and had a lot of surface rust.
As this is preservation rather than restoration, a quick wire brush, vactan rust converter and a squirt of Dinitrol seemed like a good option.


Bolted back into place, with plenty of wire - ready for commisioning.
The bell shaped cover is held on with a machine screw.
The Hella horn has an M8 thread for mounting - way too big.
A couple of tube nuts, cut down to length, had a couple of nuts for the machine screws welded on.
Quick and dirty - but it works.



Plenty of wire, as a full-rewire is on the cards
Nice and loud, and nobody would know they aren't period correct internally.

Front indicators in the next installment.

 

Looking great! Curious about the use of tubes in the tires. I thought putting tubes in (I presume) tubeless tires wasn't a good thing, but could be wrong.

Chris

 

Just an FYI. A 6 volt horn will work on 12 volts. They are just VERY LOUD. I have used the 6 volt horns on my 49 Buick on 12 volts for years with no issues.

 

The rears require tubes, so that is straightforward.
I've always been told it is important to match tube usage to the wheel, and I believe the 1940's wheels require tubes.
Hope I'm right and it helps.

 

Indicators, flashers, whatever you call them, this isn't acceptable wiring.
Shocking (if you'll excuse the pun) that anyone who owns a soldering iron would do this.

With those in the bin, I could investigate options.
Whilst browsing the US retailers, I noticed a rather crude kit to mount the indicator inside the horn.

I thought I could do a version of that at home, and a version that didn't need mounting holes drilling in the horn.
Again fired up the 3D printer, and printed a draft in white.



Yep - That was going to work, so I printed a couple in black ASA which is a stronger more heat resistant material - similar to ABS that the bulb holder was made of.
The little brass fittings are M5 fittings, that get melted into the print with a soldering iron.
I'm a big fan of the silvered bulbs.
It was so satisfying to get the print accurate enough, that the holder not only fitted perfectly, but then twisted a fraction of a turn and locked into place.



But it is pretty good when illuminated.



To be continued.....

 

It never mattered when they were just horns, but now with indicators/flashers, the slight angle of the mounting bracket wasn't acceptable.
The headlamps are held on with a long stud at the bottom, and a massive 9/16 UNF nut. The horns were attached to this with a second 9/16 nut. More tractor than Hot Rod, so I needed to lengthen the brackets to lose one of the nuts, and tweak the angle to suit the indicators.

They are handed, but here is one bracket slit in half, and an extension tacked into place.


I printed a little template, which allowed me to mark the holes/shape ready for chain drilling the "dog bone" in the middle - worked well.
Along with a quick coat of aerosol black.



The astute will notice that my welding on the LHS one, wasn't all that.
That did indeed casuse some issues, so I re-did it after the pictures were taken, and welded on small gussets to the back.

With all that back together, so the headlamps were looking scruffy.......

 

One of the favourite pieces of my vehicle is the headlights. Big and with the original glass makes a huge win for me.

Calling these headlamp "reflectors" would be pushing it, thanks to the matt silver paint.
What looks like rust around the edges is a combination of cork gasket, and something like Hermetite Red.



I originally started this, to sort out some sidelamp holders.
But decided to clean them up too.
They came up well.


For £8 I got a roll of chrome film - enough to do 5 or 6 headlamps.
Thought it would be worth a try.



With my level of skill, one pair of hands and the cold, it was never going to be pretty.
So I'm scrapping that idea.

So I sent them away for replating, along with lots of money, and they came back looking like this.


WTF - was this your first plating job ? Did you not know they needed polishing too !!
I was not amused.
Sent them back along with colourful language ready for attempt number two.
Much better.


Now the components of the front end are coming together nicely.

 

Your truck is coming along nicely and looking really good. I definitely like the wheel change. Now carry on.

 

Refitting all the front end panels, was never going to be easy.
The little pickup has led a life, and not too much was straight.
The front wings aren't a perfectly matched pair. But are likely as good as I'll get on this side of the pond.
The stripped down starting point looks like this.


Somebody had redrilled bracket, so the headlamp bar would fit !!



I started from the top, getting a consistent gap on the top of the bonnet.
There are two stays that go between the radiator and the bulkhead.
One of these had been chopped short in a previous life, and wasn't long enough to give me the adjustment I needed.
I chopped off the thread, and found a suitable UNF bolt to weld into place.
Good enough, until a pair of stainless ones find their way into place.



Now the poor bumper fit, always pulls my eye towards it.
Doing some rudimentary fit up, shows a kink in the offside dumb iron.

I bolted the bumper back on, to act as spreader plates, and bolted on a old piece of Unimog suspension to act as a lever.


I managed to straigten out the Mercedes bend in the end of that bar.... with my cheater bar.


Added some heat via Map gas, not sure if that helped, but the dumb iron is now much straighter and allowed me to bolt the bumper back on.

 

After the bumper was back on, I ran out to by myself a new magnetic spirit level.
There is a 0.3degree runout in the garage, so I set the blade of the bumper to the same.


There was still a discrepancy, the drivers offside was approx 15mm further forward than the nearside, that was in the irons themselves.
Easiest course of action was to clamp the bumper into place where I wanted it, and mark for some new holes.
That is quite a difference.


One of the easier jobs is to paint the bumper irons.
Rather than get them blasted and powdercoated, I elected to go DIY.
By giving them a good going over with a flap disc, I was able to linish out some of nicks and gouges on them.
I'd also welded up the old mounting holes for the license-plate

Looking pretty good in a zinc rich primer. Before being slathered in satin black.

 

Refitting the wings was no fun.
First off the barrier between the wing and the chassis appeared to be offcuts of old ratchet straps.
That went in the bin, whilst I worked on a replacement.
Left over rubber roofing from my shed, folded double, with the odd dab of superglue to hold it in place worked well, and was the right price.


Roughly in place, largely with punches and podgers to get a first stab at alignment.


A sanity check that the wings were level, before going any further.



The dropped headlamp bar was and absolute bear to get back on, in the proper mounting holes, but go back on it did.

The front aprom is pretty rough (but original I believe) it is bent in all directions, and makes truing up the front end awkward, because I don't know what is right, and what it bent.
Also the slightly missmatched front wings have different angles where they meet the apron.


I don't have the sheetmetal skills to adjust the wings, and make the apron perfect, so I put the apron to one side, and started making a new one via a 3D print.
This is my first attempt, using up old material, and using a big hole to save on time/material when printing.

Close, but it wasnt close to following the contour of the radiator shell.


This time I printed everything in ASA - very much like ABS, as if I got lucky, it could be the final part.
I tried keying the center section to see how it responded to sanding.

I glued it together using a homemade paste of ASA and acetone, and gave it a first trial fit.


That was going to work well, so I went onto prep and paint.
Alas the join lines have shrunk a little and are now visible.
But that is all the pieces for the front end refresh in one place.

 

It was a great looking truck on day1, but the detailing was iffy, and kind of had a broken nose, as the panel fit and bumper were all over the place.
That doesn't really come across in the photos, but it sure did in reality.



But I couldn't be happier with the small changes to make it mine.
It isn't perfect, but it is certainly good enough.



Lots to report under the skin too but I'll save that for another day.

 

Love it! Did you place any protection for the bulbs inside the horns from rocks etc?

 

Enjoying your explanations to solving your problems and the pictures as well. Great work, and cool truck.

 

Tim the horns as I got them had a mesh, which is perfect for protecting bulbs, yet still letting plenty of light through.
I was particularly happy with the chrome bulb, much better than an amber bulb poking through.

 

A few bits of bodywork.
Took me a while, but I noticed the centre hinge to the tailgate had no bracket, and the ugliest bolts.


I took off one hinge so I could use it as a pattern.
A hunt around the scrap pile found a suitable candidate for sacrifice.



An hour or so later - I had this fresh copy.



The rear indicators were as much of a horror as the front, so I swapped the rear lamps for red/amber, and replaced all the fittings to the license plate holder whilst I was there, along with stainless hardware for the tailgate hinges.
I'm spending quite a lot on stainless hardware, but it seems to be the right thing to do.
Tow ball and electrics - nope - don't need those.
So, the rear went from this.....



To this


For me, it is about getting a lot of the details right/better.
My aim is not to let anything catch the eye, I want everything to look appropriate and cohesive.

Thanks for looking

 

Very tidy, very much worth the time and effort

 

Jeff is right about the body belt line. As for the grilles, that looks like a 33, 34s have a stainless steel
Trim around the grille bars and you can tell one by the little holes around the edge that hold the trim, if the trim is missing. I looked close as I could at your photo, but don’t see the holes.
The frames are different also, look at the front motor mounts, the cross member on a 33 has a
half moon shape to it towards the the engine side whereas the 34 cross member metal goes straight across and encompasses the entire motor mount. The was done by Ford to ease the engine load.
Your truck looks incredible and the fit and finish work great. Jeff has the nicest un restored 34
Pickup I’ve ever seen. Thanks for your post …..

 

I was trying to see the trim on the grill shell but couldn’t find it. Most 34’s lost that piece somewhere in their life. Mine still has the original trim. I really like this ‘33. Looks awesome!

 

Thanks for the kind words - there is no sign of the grille shell ever having a stainless trim, no holes, and the primer on the rear of the grille shell is intact, so that is one small mystery solved

 

The pickup sides have loads of holes - bound to happen on a commercial vehicle that is 91 years old.
There was also a piece of angle iron on each side, that was bolted on to make a tonneau cover.
A total of 36 unnecessary holes.

I treated myself to a couple of welding blankets, stripped the paint off, and set to welding up all the holes.
I used a copper backing plate, to control the rear of the weld.
I also added a few dots of weld to some of the rivets, as they had lost some of their definition over the years.

All things considered the bed sides are very straight. It only took a couple of light skims of filler to get them into shape.

I don't want perfect bodywork, I don't want immaculate paint. I want to be able to use it as a pickup.
With that in mind, the repaired areas got some 2-pack epoxy. I rollered it on, using a 2.5" mini roller.
Which worked pretty well.
Already looking better without 36 holes.

The 2K epoxy was blocked back to get rid of the worst of the orange peel.

I then use a little 2" gloss roller to put on a couple of coats of white undercoat, not photo worthy.
Then it was onto the top-coat. The previous owner used yacht enamel, so that was my choices made for me.
Again a 2" gloss roller was the weapon of choice.

This is the finish I ended up with. Which I'm 100% happy with, and I believe is appropriate for an old commercial vehicle, that still have to work for its living occasionally.

I could cut and polish it, but I doubt I will.
Thanks for looking.

 

With the plywood floor and chest out for painting, it was time to get annoyed by this farmer-spec plate.

I couldn't do much about the hacked out access hole, over the fuel pickup.

But I got the best surprise when I turned the plate over - a cool American sign, now gracing my shed door.

I knocked together a slightly better fitting plate. I reused some of the original holes, which are all over the place. The comical bead-rolled arrow helps me refit the plate.

It wasn't worth painting the load bed floor, as it needs so minor repairs.
One day when the bed is off.....

The best solution for now, is to slide the utilitarian plywood floor, and storage chest, back into position, and call it good.

I have put some bolts through the wood, and into existing holes in the bed floor to hold it into place, since that picture was taken.

 

Originally there could have been wooden stakes added to the pickup bed, now the bed was clean and painted all the holes and fittings for them annoyed me.
Also the pickup bed sides are really quite shallow.

So I got a piece of oak from B&Q/Home-Depot, which they comically describe as straight edged.
I wished I'd waited for the timber merchants to open on Monday, as their definition of straight edged, is you can place a straight edge on it !!

After faffing around for ages (I'm no woodworker).
I managed to rip that piece into two straight planks, and wheeled the pickup outside for a mock-up.

I wanted to be able to tie things to the rails, so some clearance for ropes/straps was in the brief, but that is just a little too high.
Some very basic woodwork later, some wood glue, and stainless carriage bolts, and we are getting somewhere.
The first coat of Danish oil makes quite a difference.

Bolted into place after another couple of coats of Danish oil.
Yep liking that a lot.
Simple, pretty period correct, and now gives me the scope to carry an 8x4 board should the need arise.



Thanks for looking

 

Just keeps getting better!

 

Thanks - there is plenty more still to come

 

Really like the bed sides. All I can say is the little pickup sure landed in the right hands. Like the cover sign in the bed. You can tell the difference between 33/34 bed by the gas tank cover, but yours is whittled out, so I can’t tell. Keep the picks coming please…

 

I have a35 Ford pickup, and, I had almost identical chopped out panels in the bed, and, I beadrolled a panel (Just like yours). Unfortunately I didn't take any pics. I'm also going for the sort of used look, so, I sprayed the inside of the bed with "Raptor" bed liner. I also want to chuck shit in it . Good luck, looking good!!
Charlie.