A little light entertainment: 1939 Ford 1 ton Utility restoration

[jack neville]

What the cool guys will be riding

[Jan Thompson]

Now you don't want my dad's bicycle.

[jack neville]

I tried hard to prise it from him Jan but he wouldn't let it go. Perhaps we'll see you pedalling around the town instead.

[jack neville]

I tried hard to prise it from him Jan but he wouldn't let it go. Perhaps we'll see you pedalling around the town instead.

[jack neville]

Finally back on the ute after a few distractions. I had enough of the remains of a floor from the hard cab to repo the plywood floor. I was able to salvage the cover clips and re rivet them in. Some new black screws and washers and brake hole cover from Macs. The gearbox cover just needed derusting and the toe board sandblasting. A bit of felt and rubber and the floor is done

[jack neville]

Didn't get photos loaded

[jack neville]

Can't get more than one photo to load and they load counter clock wise. (Using IPad). While I was putting the gearbox in I decided to fit an air pump as I found it would fit beside the front suspension A car. I tried to put one on a Fordson WOT but they won't fit so I was surprised it fitted the ute. All went well until I tried to fit the pedal cluster. Oops! A bit of assistance machining some parts by Ian Mastin and reconfiguring the pedals allowed everything to fit in without being obvious unless you look underneath.

[jack neville]

Can someone tell me why I can't ad more than one photo?

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by jack neville

Can someone tell me why I can't ad more than one photo?

Jack

That's due to the Apple software.

Hanno

[jack neville]

With the floor done and the fuel tank dropped off for sandblasting I have had a look at the running boards. Condition is very bad. Both are badly rusted especially underneath where the mounting bolt brackets are located. This rust has gone through to the to deck in places.

[jack neville]

The shorter truck running boards have the same rib pressing so some spare ones I have of the short boards may provide some repair patches. I will replace the bottom brackets and build some sort of jig to try and straighten the boards.

[cliff]

Hi Jack have just caught up on this thread again after a long rest. Great work. Have just got my model stuff out again and am looking at doing a 1941 M/H LP3 GT, standard 3ton MCP and 1 ton roadster ute in 1/35 scale. Can you help with photos of the roaster top fold mechanism and measurements?

[jack neville]

PM your email address Cliff and I will organise some deails

[jack neville]

A few more shots of the efforts so far to straighten the running boards. I have made jigs to use to clamp and heat the damaged sections to slowly get some shape back intro them. Thank god for G clamps. Can't have too many with a job like this. The jig is pieces or pipe and channel, anything to force it back to the correct profile. I cut some previously welded repairs in the corners out and will rematch them later. The welds were too rough to work with. Common to find when repairing old Fords. Some of the weld repairs of the past were pretty rough. I still won't be able to finish them until I have the front guards and rear guards fitted to the vehicle as I will have to align the corners to the guards and put back the missing pieces. Unfortunately no replacement panels are available for these models so I ave to do the best with what I have.

[cliff]

that looks like hard work Jack. Far easier to work in plastic/resin at a smaller scale you know

[jack neville]

some more photos. The press came in handy for straightening out the ribs.

[jack neville]

When it was all clamped together it was so heavy I had to use the block and tackle to turn it over. This is as good as I can get them for now until the guards are on.

[jack neville]

Like the bonnets I have three grills all of which appear to have been crashed in to the same object. Or does the crank handle on these utes not disengage and destroy the handle hole. It took pieces of two of two grills to make one good front end.

[jack neville]

The centre crank hole I made from scratch as none of the remains could be repaired.

[Keith Webb]

Very much enjoying watching your restoration skills and techniques. Thanks for posting these images, Jack!

[cliff]

I fully agree with you Keith. It is a pleasure to see someone with excellent skills getting these sort of results from their hard work.

[jack neville]

Hasn't come up too bad

[jack neville]

Try again. Stupid iPad !

[jack neville]

And the front

[jack neville]

I managed to get a little side tracked from the 39 ute with some work for Chris Collins on his Morris Tillys x 2 and Jakes 41 Dodge ambulance... and Diamond T and Wiles Junior Cooker...etc. you know how it goes!

Anyway back to the ute, I have decided the rear body side panels are not salvageable. I am getting some blank panels pressed to form the three top ribs. A separate sheet for each side which will then have the bottom pressing folded in and cut outs for the guards formed up by hand. A separate panel will be required for the tailgate outer skin. The doors should be ok.

I have a 40 model and 41 model of these utes to restore in the future and as the triple rib pressing is the same on all three models I will get blank panels made sufficient to reskin the rear sides, the doors and the tailgate.

Once these panels are pressed up there will be no use for retaining the dies required so my man will most likely scrap the dies and reuse the considerable amount of steel going into making them.

This is a once off opportunity if anyone else is considering getting panels to rebuild one of these Australian utes. I don't have a price as yet as we are still working on them but if anyone is interested send me a PM.

[Mike K]

I always liked those utes . Never got the chance to get hold of one in good enough shape to restore. I did have a 11D hardtop . I looked at a 1941 11Y at Werribee garden centre but it was stuffed , the guy wanted 2k$ for it , a chassis and cab .

Regarding the panels . I was at John Belfields workshop , he was fabricating new side panels for his ute. He used formers to make the 3 ribbed section with a brake press. He is a clever chap, the job turned out excellent . I guess you have seen his ute at Corowa ?

[jack neville]

I did start to post this on another thread but since I have got the photos on the computer and can load them better I will update onto here. New blank side panels for the rear body, door skins and tailgate. The first two photos show the small original sample and a test piece. Third photo shows how the die was formed up. I got some panels with a longer section to be used for door skins as required.

[jack neville]

Photos of full panel. Still considerable amount of folding and shaping to be done but it can be hand finished. Nice to have clean straight metal to work with instead of chasing warped rusty rubbish full of holes.
Mr Jones is a very handy man to know. Well done Colin.

[jack neville]

Its been a while since I touched the Ford ute but time to do some more work on it.
I need to put the rear body together before I can continue on with the running boards as whichever way I go with them I need to line them up between the front and rear guards to get them right. I picked up a rear tailgate separate to the rest of the vehicle from Colin Anderson many years ago. The pictures tell the story of its condition.

[jack neville]

The inner panel looks promising but there were signs that the outer skin had already been re-skinned once before.