A little light entertainment: 1939 Ford 1 ton Utility restoration

[jack neville]

This rear body is from a civvy model and has had a side spare wheel mount added, which is a home made job. The spare on a 39 was mounted under the chassis. The front of the Aussie roadster utes had a modification to the rear body to fit the squared off cabin. You can see in the photo below that the civvy body had the curved contour to follow the rounded civvy cab. I will have to cut this back. This body is missing the rear panel and typical of Australian farmers repairs has been fitted with a heavy piece of wood and over engineered heavy steel to reinforce the corners at the rear. This is typical of vehicles with timber framework that can not survive the elements and abuse and start to loosen up and fall to bits. There is virtually nothing left of the timber work in this body and not too many clues as to what is should be like. Studying the remaining bolts can give a few clues as to thickness of timber and layout. This body also has an inner lining that the army models did not have. It looks a little amatuerish so may have been a after factory addition I think.

[jack neville]

I was going to finish the front panels but the back body is takeing up too much shed space so I thought I would disassemble it and assess what I need to do to rebuild it.

[gordon]

I take it there is no wood frame in there?

You really need to take it apart? Looks like you could blast it and repair it as a unit. You'd need plenty of strength in the rear corner uprights either way.

[jack neville]

Originally Posted by gordon

I take it there is no wood frame in there?

You really need to take it apart? Looks like you could blast it and repair it as a unit. You'd need plenty of strength in the rear corner uprights either way.

You came in as I was posting the remaining photos Gordon. It may have looked reasonable in the photos but believe me it was pretty flimsy. It is easy to think these designs may be alright when rebuilt and driving on modern roads but the reality is these old girls would have spent a life time on dusty, heavily corrugated gravel roads in Australia and literally shaken to bits. Years of weathering does nothing for the timber.

[Bob McNeill]

Jack, seem to recall that a fellow ford man in the central west, rebuilt the body with new sides, the triple ribs cut off old unit and welded, brazed to new one and you wouldn,t pick it once painted.

[jack neville]

Gidday Bob,

That is one option I am considering. I can repair what I have but I don't know if they will come up to a satisfactory standard. I will start with the timber work and think about the sheet metal as I go. John Bellfield has a complete 39 ute which I can access to copy my missing parts, especially the missing rear panel and timber. I do have the tailgate but it is also pretty sad. With the sides I might get away with patching the rust around the wheel arch and reproducing the bottom rear corners and spot welding the repairs in.

[Tony Wheeler]

Would this be of interest Jack? Looks like a civvy body in quite good condition. After reading your thread I recognized it in the background in this Dodge photo.

[jack neville]

The previous photos show the inner panel removed. The upright brackets whilst having been protected from the weather by that panel have disconnected at the bottom obviously having vibrated away from the mounts. They will be ok once I rebuild the damaged part. The bottom timber is mostly all rotted away but there is just enough to guess the timber sizes. The timber in the upper sections is still intact enough for patterns only. Whilst the side panels are badly knocked about they may be redeemable. The biggest problem with making entire new sides is the triple ribbed section at the top. Undecided at this stage as to how I will tackle that.

[jack neville]

The guards are also pretty poor but hopefully will come up ok once I repair the inner section which has badly rusted. The inner guard rivets to the side panel which made disassemble of that part easy. The top hat strips on the floor can all be salvaged and luckily all the special top hat Ford bolts were still in place.

[jack neville]

a few more

[jack neville]

You can see the same lead wiped corners as the cab

[jack neville]

At least now it takes up less room. The front panel is is good shape and will clean up well. I still haven't worked out how to reassemble this body yet. The timber criss members bolt directly through the chassis and are not attached with U bolts. Obviously the timber work on the upper sections has to be assembled before the sheet metal goes over it but the attaching of the cross members to the sides may have to be built on the chassis as I go. There was probably a jig these bodies were built on but not having one it would seem logical that my jig will be the chassis. Just make it up as I go along I suppose. It is a challenge that is something different from all steel bodies. Fortunately my son Jake is a builder and has access to plenty of KD hardwood scraps. Seen the price of hardwood in Australia??????