Issue No. 12 January 1998
Issue No. 12 January 1998
I started on this car about 5 years ago, but I had been collecting parts for a few years before that. All my teenage years were full of old Fords, and my nose was forever stuck in a rod magazine. Lots of people thought I wasted my youth playing with old cars, but I reckon it was cool. Now I'm older, I still love old cars, and restore them for a l iving.
The cost of rusty original bodies led to the building of my closed cab pick-up. I used an old tourer cowl, and very little else! My trade of body builder made the job fairly simple, but as I had never seen a real closed cab, I worked off photos in rod mags. Someone told me Henry Ford used left over '27 T Coupe doors to make these pick-ups for the colder states, so, I had to measure some coupe doors. Wally Deskin had one, and gave me measurements over the phone, and off I went.
The body frame was mocked up in 1" square tube, then roughly panelled in alloy sheet to see what it looked like. It looked crook, so out with the hacksaw, and I started again. When I was happy with the shape I covered it in zinc anneal sheet. Until this point it was on a Model 'A' chassis, but after geting a 350 Chev and T400, I decided to build a stronger chassis. This one is welded up from 5" x 2" box section, with lots of cross members and braces, VERY STRONG, make a good boat anchor too! The usual HT f/end bolts are under the front, with 2" dropped spindles and HR sports coils. P76 discs do the stopping and Commodore supplied the steering. Diff is a Falcon unit at the moment, but is to be changed to a Toyota Hi-lux shortly. Guards are glass from AJ's Hot Rods (Nerang) and the pick-up bed is a Dean Repro from Brissy. At the moment I'm fitting air con and heater up behind my hand carved timber dash, tight fit.. The engine was also a tight fit, especially on the right side, with the starter motor and steering leaving very little room for the exhaust system. Block huggers were OK on the left side, but needed severe mods on the right. I hand bent a set of pipes for the right, but still wasn't happy with clearance or looks, so I fabricated a set of 'log' manifolds, which solved the space problem, but didn't look that flash. I cured this by welding on fins (see photo), and once they get a coat of HPC Gloss Black, they'll do the job. The original bumpers, lights and quail mascot will give me the vintage look I'm after, and colour will be gloss black with Chev orange spoke wheels (15" x 7" rears, 15" x 6" fronts).
I built this car to drive so hope we get full rego sorted out soon. If not, I will rebuild for full ADR's, with all the bull that entails. Anyway, next step is to have the chassis tested by an engineer, then some assembly so that our TAC guys can do their checks, then paint and trim, and hit the streets..See ya out there. PS. Thanks to Greg Hardcastle for good advice at all hours.
This photo shows one of the exhaust manifolds Tim produced to solve his clearance problems.
