Toyota pickup chassis that "fit" 1930 pickups

That is one great looking truck. They say less is more that applies here. Road salt scares me and that is why I left that rust belt. My current ride and probably last is an 89 Caprce 4 door.

 

Thanks. The road salt was on my mind when I built the 49. In the very late 1990s I built a 50 Dodge truck on a 1980 Dodge 4x4 frame. Those frames pretty much used "C" channel frame components as opposed to boxed frames nearly all the modern trucks (like a Dakota) are built with. I believe the old "C" channel frames survived the winter salt better then the boxed frames do. I used that 50 as a work truck and a snow plow. That truck saw a lot of salted roads, but even under those extremes, the truck survived 12 years on the roads. The 50 was taken out by a crash, not rust. When the head on crash happened, the crumpled ch***is was still very solid. The cab could have been put on a different frame.




The salt they are using these days is more nasty then what they used on he roads back then, and my 49 has a boxed front frame, but I have taken a lot of time painting everything under this truck (both sides of all the metal I could). I have also built much better inner fenders then the 50 had. I am also retired now, the truck doesn't have to leave the garage if the roads are really nasty.

The facts are, I was 67yo when the 49 was put on the road. If it lasts 12 years or more, it will probably be the last truck I will need to be concerned about. I intend to use it until I can't, or it can't go any more.

 

Salt + Magnesium Chloride(the extra gift the States keep using as a Winter Offering to the Rust/Rot Gods, for us) on wet metal, is a whole lot like using gasoline to put out a fire.
MC eats just about anything, even stainless steel. About the only thing it didn't ruin quickly, was high quality aluminum. Ate the buses that I worked on, alive. Cheap aluminum & stainless steel body panels rotted, frames got rust-jacked - although the later frames contained a fair amount of s/s, so that got slowed down, hvac systems corroded real bad, & electrical points, esp "hot" points, were a mess.
Doesn't do much for tar & concrete longevity either, but at least it destroys bridges too. So the $$$ tap stays open, regardless of any input by regular folks.

Oh, & Toyota made an little ***-kicking hemi 4banger. Wish I still had the engine n trans from my moms' wrecked Toy. ;( .
Marcus...

 

mid 80s Mazda truck. ****ty pics, but I think it would be a good frame for a 40s truck