Hot Rods Reunited After So Many Years

Many years ago (1972), as a kid, I bought a "1936" Ford Pickup (more on the model year sometime later) . It was pretty much apart at the time and try as I might, it never really came together. After a year or two under cover outside, it finally made it into the garage. Thank you Dad! While work continued on an on again off again basis, as noted earlier progress stalled once I went away to school, got married, worked crazy hours and raised a family etc. Some where along the timeline, the chassis was moved into the barn and the cab and box stayed in the garage. It always seemed that either time or money was missing at any given time, Fast forward a bit and in an effort to revive the long dormant project, I began searching out parts and in the process found the black truck in my avatar and purchased it. After a couple of years, I felt the need to build a car and then set out to build the Model A in my avatar. All the time the original truck languished. Finally, two years ago the truck project was resurrected out of the barn and garage and moved to a new home where work began anew. One constant in all this is slow. . Finally this year, there's some good news to report. A bunch of progress was made on the chassis and mounting the engine and transmission etc. Yesterday, working with my son, the cab was finally reunited to the chassis after being separated after 40 years. I have some photos of the progress and hope to turn this into a "build thread" however given how slow things seem to move here, that may take a while. In the meantime, here's a couple photos of our work placing the cab in its proper location and thankfully clearing the Y-Block transplant. Happy New Year! More to come in 2021

 

Very Cool!!

 

Alright! Another great holiday tale begins.....

Sent from my Pixel 3a XL using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

I thought I was slow on a project! Good for you! Keep plugging away at it and you'll get it done.

 

Looks good so far, nice work. That’s a really nice, solid cab. I like the truck manifolds on the Y- block and it’s great to see a realistic scrub radius on a build with Buick drums.

 

Bought my 46 Stude M series truck in about 1976 - didn't pick it up until about 1992 - that's another story as it got moved to another property and I thought it was gone. Moved the cab over to a 1953 Stude chassis with a dump bed about 2001 and that's where it sits. Good luck with yours - looking real good !

 

Excellent resurrection!
Barn/garage find....makes it more valuable and interesting.
Looking forward to more.

 

Kool !

 

So Awesome!!

 

Now that you have started, don't give up.

 

Awesome! Glad to see it's resurrection.

 

One of your front tires is mounted backwards.

 

Looking good Pete. I like it.
Jim

 

You apparently have an understanding father to store it in his garage so long.

 

Thank you Greg!

Thank you & Pressure on now!

Thank you Gordon. Sometimes I thought if I moved any slower, I would have to be in reverse.

Thank you! Cab is pretty good. One of the things that actually got done many years ago was fixing the rockers. I need to spend some time on the passenger side rain gutter and some work at the lower rear of the cab. Went with the Buick/F2 brakes because I like their stopping power so much on my coupe that I wanted them on this too even though you really won't see them much with the fenders on.

Thank you- your patience is inspiring.

Bugguts, Yes--We have it all here, barn, garage, garage again.

Thank you so much!

Good eyest there BamaMav! Given all the tires (and three of the wheels) came from the dump as a result of searching for what could be mock up big n littles, I'm happy they hold air. Actually those front tires were in amazingly great condition when I picked them up over 10 years ago. Not sure they were ever mounted before.

Thank you Jim!

For sure Latigo! Kind of interesting as he could be tough as nails on some things but seemed to have a soft spot for this and many other things too! Great parents who worked hard and encouraged the same of others

All-Happy New Year and look forward to sharing more ahead!

 

I'm going to try to keep on truckin' on this now. Running out of excuses

 

Cool truck! We'll be patient with you

 

Happy New Year @AVater, there's soon to be Hotrod Pickups in Stereo and an A Special Hotrod for Midrange...at least you've had a head start on it...that helps a little...

 

I hope your enthusiasm keeps you going for the rest of the build

 

I have complete confidence @AVater will pull this off and passing the torch on in the process...The missus must be in sweater mode for another stealthy Mascot on the nose...

 

I love reunions. And father and son projects are cool. Happy New Year, AVater.

 

looks like i have good company i have another 33 5 window in the garage i bought in 1982 along with a big pile of 35 pickups lets get er done

 

I'm gonna follow along. I had a '35 Ford Pick up my Senior year in high school in '72. Marriage and kids took up my time and money so i never could build it and finally had to let it go. Looking forward to your progress.

 

Cool truck, my first hotrod was a 36 pu. that I bought in 72 for 600. 283 3 speed. was my daily driver for 2 yrs. Sure wish I had kept it. Fast forward to 87 found a 36 pu. sitting in a backyard bought it planning to build it. About 2 weeks later was working on getting the flathead running , garage door was open and a guy stopped to check it out. He offered me A LOT MORE than what I paid for it so I sold it to him. Glad that you kept yours . I have a drawing of a 36 by Steve Stanford that I would love to do but probably never happen

 

Very, very cool that you guys are still at it. I got the truck in my avatar in 1963 for $50, built it as you see it in 1772 and that was 140k miles ago mostly pulling the trailer. This thing has towed more hot rods/derelict cars than most people have seen. Good luck with your project and be safe.

 

Stogy--Thank you! Actually the sweater on the pickup now is it's second. The first one was getting a bit faded so it was determined by Mrs. Avater a new one was needed. Not sure what will happen on this one.

Thank you Rickybop! This one started with my father and I but he's no longer with us so hope to keep my son involved. He was helpful on the Model A project.

Understood! We must have went to different schools together. Came close to selling it a number of times. Actually kept this and sold off my '50 Mercury when I was getting married to put the $ towards a house.

Wow--great work and longevity there!

Thank you all and more to come.

 

Looks good. I am curious about the length of the Y block in that chassis. I looked into a swap once, but it seemed like the firewall was going to require quite a bit of massaging, if memory serves.

 

So, in order to provide you with some background information on the truck, here's an attempt to share the first 45 years as best I can remember them. Please understand I have no real photo documentation of what happened during the first couple of years after I purchased and many of the years after that were really nothing to see.
Here goes: My dad knew someone at work that had this old truck for sale and thought I might be interested in it. Pretty cool, and yes I was excited at the idea. We took a ride out to this person's home and in the garage was to a 16 year old the most amazing sights: Cars being worked on with metal flake paint jobs and a bunch of guys working together in the garage and outside on car stuff. Pin ups too. Very cool it seemed to me. We were escorted over to the garage at the house next door that stored what turned out to be a cab and pickup box on the chassis and several boxes of parts. In the end, I bought it for $250 with money earned by working on the farm and a few weeks later it was delivered to our home.
When we began looking at the truck more closely we could see there were some "interesting" aspects of the work done. One was that we were told the PO was attempting to get the chassis ready for a SBC but really there was little done in that direction. There were hydraulic brakes installed and this set up featured burning off the brake pedal from the original pedal set up and mounting a single firewall jar master cylinder and pedal. The brake line headed to the master cylinder was routed though a fairly large burned hole in the chassis flange just in front of the left side of the firewall. Not pretty, even to a 16yo.
Another feature was the dropped and drilled axel and split wishbones. Definitely cool, but the attachments for the bones were such that the turning ability of the front wheels was limited too much in my opinion. As luck would have it, in the woods behind my Aunt's house, my cousins had abandoned a '36 pickup and while setting there about 15 years, the sheet metal has pretty much turned into rust held together by some really thin and dented steel. The axle and wishbone could be and was retrieved. As it turned out, fast forward several years and the dropped and drilled axle from this project found its way over to my Model A build. All good there.
Having seen only one or two other '35 or '36 Ford trucks on the farm I did summer work on, I wasn't knowledgeable about the differences between the two years. Even at some car shows at the time, these trucks weren't really seen very often. Long story short, I began to think I would like to portray this vehicle as a '35 as I liked the wire wheels and given the presence of the Ford hydraulic brakes featuring 5 on 5.5 spacing, thought this could be a good move.
Thanks for reading and more to come!

 

This is definitely a measure, measure, measure kind of undertaking. I should have kept track of the time I spent moving, marking, and moving again to place the engine as best I could. Not sure I am home free yet. Engine clears firewall with a bit to spare. I have to stick a distributer in to see if I am out of the woods. Really wanted to not cut the firewall but was fortunate enough to find another firewall in my travels and may use it to extend the center indent a bit left if I need to. We'll see. Also wanted to be sure I cleared the radiator using the stock fan. I have that cleared.