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35-36 Ford Pickup Tonneau Cover

Discussion in 'Off Topic Hot Rods & Customs' started by Admiral Tom, Jan 1, 2025.

  1. Admiral Tom
    Joined: Dec 2, 2024
    Posts: 38

    Admiral Tom
    Member

    Has anyone installed a "hard shell" tonneau cover on their '35-36 Ford pickup?
     
  2. krylon32
    Joined: Jan 29, 2006
    Posts: 10,456

    krylon32
    ALLIANCE MEMBER
    from Nebraska
    1. Central Nebraska H.A.M.B.

    I made one for a 32 many years ago. 1 inch square tube frame with a plywood cover then covered that with black vinyl. I hinged it at the front and used a couple of convertible top cylinders in the box and the pump underneath the box to raise it up and down. Worked good but the drawback was is wasn't easily removable. That was in the mid 70's. Better alternatives these days.
     
  3. Admiral Tom
    Joined: Dec 2, 2024
    Posts: 38

    Admiral Tom
    Member

    Thanks! The original owner installed a wooden (plywood) sliding cover. Great idea but 1) not water resistant/proof and 2) hard to remove. I'm hoping that one of the fiberglass one-piece shells will work. However, can't find one for the flared style bed sides. I'll probably have to do a bit of retrofitting to make one fit.
     
  4. Mr48chev
    Joined: Dec 28, 2007
    Posts: 35,555

    Mr48chev
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    I've been thinking of doing something like that or buy a Gaylord tonneau cover and then cover it with convertible top material. I had a Tonneau cover that Bob Russel of Waco made for me back in the 70's that just snapped on but it would fill with water when it rained.
     
  5. gene-koning
    Joined: Oct 28, 2016
    Posts: 5,354

    gene-koning
    Member

    Too bad you are limiting your responses to just a 35 & 36 Ford pickup.

    The basic shape of that 35 & 36 pick up bed was shared with nearly every pickup manufacturer up into the mid 50s. The actual dimensions may have differed some from brand to brand or year to year, but the process of building a Tonneau cover (hard or soft) wouldn't change. Opening up the options may deliver more responses.

    Pictured is the bed from a 48-53 Dodge. The top surfaces is probably not a lot different then the top of your 35/36 pickup bed. The challenges and processes of enclosing either bed won't vary much.
    P1010067.JPG

    The two biggest issues are, do you want to try to keep the things in the bed dry by sealing from the lower point, the front of the bed and the tailgate, or by sealing from the curved top of the bed sides?

    I have kept things mostly dry in the bed using both locations (on a Dodge bed like the one pictured). The low position is much more difficult, but keeps the appearance of the bed period correct. The higher position is more efficient and is easier to keep things dry, but changes the appearance of the bed slightly. Both processes require modification of the bed, which would be visible with removal of the cover.

    I still have pictures of the over the side rail bed modifications, but no longer have any pictures of the lower bed hard cover (it was 20 years ago).
     
  6. Just buy a used simple fiberglass tonneau cover for a hundred bucks or less off of Craigslist or something along those lines (I have seen them for free before, I bought the one from my Ranger a few months ago for 20 bucks where they had lost the keys) then cut it to fit by buying some resin and glass mat. It's only fiberglass It's super easy to work with (other than being messy) and it's easy to repair with a relatively long work time on the resin. Once you got it sized down to fit your truck bed do the normal body work on it and then to make it appear vintage upholster it (that will probably be expensive).
    If your pickup bed has slanted top rails which I believe the 1935/1936 Ford pickups do You could make a stringer out of a 2x4 that is angled cut to give you a flat surface for the tonneau cover to sit on, then completely glass the stringer in to the tonneau cover just the way you would do a stringer on the bottom of a "fiberglassic" boat.
    The worst part I could see with doing what I just said is you will have to figure out a way to mount the lower end of the hydraulic strut because most of those early pickup beds are single walled although if you were in the process of building the truck I guess you could weld them on, at the front edge of the bed you will also have to drill the little L bracket things that the tonneau cover slips onto for a hinge which will generally require drilling a couple of holes.

    As for the weight of the tonneau cover the reality is it's going to take two people to take it on and off It's not because it's heavy it's more because it's awkward and you got to take the struts off and then lift it to near vertical to pull it off those hinges that are mounted to the bulkhead at the back of the bed next to the cab.
     
    hotrodharry2 likes this.
  7. Admiral Tom
    Joined: Dec 2, 2024
    Posts: 38

    Admiral Tom
    Member

    Thanks for the suggestion about opening up the options! Good idea! I realize that I will most likely alter the original looks a bit but the existing cover has already done that somewhat. My hopes are to weather seal (as good as most tonneau covers do up to a point) on all four sides. If I can find one with adequate dimensions, I might just use part of the existing framing to attach and secure the lid. I hopefully wont need it to be completely weather tight as my intentions are not to have it exposed to any rain at all...but, as Murphy's Law has it, it just might, so better to be prepared anyway!

    If you're willing to share your photos, my email is tdf2267@sbcglobal.net.

    Thanks, again, and hope you have a wonderful New Year!!
     
    hotrodharry2 likes this.
  8. gene-koning
    Joined: Oct 28, 2016
    Posts: 5,354

    gene-koning
    Member

    With either a hard shell, or a soft shell, the secrete to a mostly dry bed will be having the cover go over the top of the bed rails. Then all that has to be done is to fill in the height difference between the top of the front panel, and the height of the tailgate to match the height of the top of the bed rails.
    If you do a hard cover the gap can be filled at the tailgate by simply adding the needed material to the top. The front panel will likely need to be built up because the cover will most likely hinge off the front panel.

    When I built the truck with the bed pictured above, I was planning on a bed cover, and I intended to cover to extend over the top of the bed rails. My truck came without a tailgate, and I had no intention of paying over $500 for a replacement tailgate, especially knowing it would not be tall enough to work with a bed cover.
    I had available to me a Dodge Dakota truck bed I intended to hijack the steel floor out of, it bolted to the Dakota frame the truck was built on. Using the Dakota frame raised the floor in my truck about 6" from the original height. I could reuse my 50 bed front panel, and raise it up to the rail height, then bend a new bottom 90 degree flange to attach to the Dakota floor. Then, all I would have to do at the front would be to enclose each top corner edge between the bed side 45 degree angle and the front panel's 90 degree angle.
    Pictures, or it don't mean anything, right?
    This is the bed side at the correct height, the bed floor is bolted to the frame, the bed sides have the rear set at the proper height. So for reference, at the rear of the bed side you can see the "new" floor height. The original floor height would have been centered on the bed side rib below the current position, about 6" higher (from memory).
    100_0629.JPG
    The modified front panel leaning against the bed side. That 90 degree bottom flange is 2" wide, so about 5" has been removed from the bottom of that front panel. I also had to trim both sides of the top flanges because those flanges were on the outside of the bed sides, and were now above the angled part of the bed sides. 100_0620.JPG I had to drill new holes in the front edges of both bed sides to bolt the front panel on. I wanted to keep it all bolted together in case I needed access to things under the bed in those front corners. as you can see, the fuel tank is in the Dakota's original position ion the left front corner, and my battery will also reside there. Notice the gaps at the top corners of bed front panel where it meets the bed side angle. Those two small areas were filled in with triangle shaped 18 g sheet metal formed into an "L" shape. The top flange of the "L" was across the top of the gap, the bottom was welded to the bed side angle, leaving the end of the tube open for any trapped water to escape. I don't have any pictures of those top corners enclosed.
    100_0630.JPG

    I didn't get a tailgate with my truck, and a replacement was big $$ and would have been too short.
    Dodge made step side trucks up into the early 1980s. I stumbled across a mid 70s version that was pretty rough for $75. The newer Dodge step side beds were taller and wider then the 50s beds, but the tailgates had the same overall appearance. I knew I could cut down the cheap tailgate, and remove most, if not all of the damaged area. The other option was to build from 18 gauge sheet metal, which I would have done, had this tailgate not shown up when it did. The only difference was the tailgate had the embossed D O D G E the sheet metal one wouldn't have had. My cost of either would have been a wash.
    So i cut the crap out, and welded a tube across the top and the bottom, and added an angle iron on both sides., and then another angle to meet the bed sides. then added hinges on to the bottom tube and bolted the tailgate to the truck.
    100_0646.JPG
    That left me with this gap to fill, on each side.
    100_0648.JPG
    100_0659.JPG
    100_0656.JPG
    Three pieces all welded together on each side. The vertical flange 1/8" x 2 flat stock (the hole is where the pin goes to hold the tailgate closed), a top piece, and the end cap. Most of the end cap is welded to the tube on the bed side, with just a small water drain, the top, and sides are all fully welded.
    100_0662.JPG
    At this point, the top surface of the bed is very much like most modern beds. after the truck was painted, I went with a soft cover made out of black marine vinyl. Since I went with a soft cover, and I have a 6'6" bed, I needed to add two support pieces. I added two small brackets just below the angled bed side that split the bed in 3 even length sections. Those two brackets use 3/16" diameter stainless screws with the smooth head outside of the bed. I bent 2 pieces of 1/2" conduit into a low curve and welded a short piece of conduit to the under side of the curve towards each end, with a piece of 1/8" x 1" flat stock welded to the short conduit pieces. Those two curved pieces of conduit slide into the brackets screwed to the bed sides to support the center of the marine vinyl so water runs off of it. I'll have to take pictures of the conduit and the brackets.

    The front of the bed has a slide in groove so the cover can be completely removed (except the grove piece itself). I also elected to go with snaps as an enclosure, but those snaps are installed into the sides of the top rail tube, and into the back side of the tailgate. I had the cover made by a local upholstery guy that usually makes boat covers. My truck gets driven year around. At this point (3 summers into it), I have one snap that was not quite positioned correctly and its hard to snap and unsnap. I'm sure that repositioning that snap would solve the problem, but I'm not that concerned at this point. I am pretty happy with the soft cover.

    A hard cover could have been made from an existing hard cover if a guy was willing to work with the fiberglass. I've never worked with fiberglass, and didn't think this was the thing I wanted to start on. The hard cover would have to have brackets at the front to hinge from and to make it removable. One would probably want to make it lockable at the tailgate. If that hard cover extended out past the top of the rails and the tailgate, it would be pretty dry in the bed.
     
    hotrodharry2 and TrailerTrashToo like this.

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