A little light entertainment: 1939 Ford 1 ton Utility restoration

[rnixartillery]

Lovely Job Jack ,a real credit to you.

Rob...………..rnixartillery.

[jack neville]

Thank you gents.

When I arrived at Corowa I spied John Mackie sitting at his camp about 100 metres away.
By the time I stopped and got out he was at the back of my trailer. He is an old Ford man from way back and I doubt he has moved that fast in a long time.
He has been very interested in this vehicle for a long time so of course I had to get him to take me for a drive.

[Alex van de Wetering]

Awesome work guys! I have followed your project with great interest.....and the solutions on how to repair and make stuff was very informative.

Well done....what a lovely truck!

[Lionelgee]

Hello Jack,

It is wonderful that the vehicle is back on the road and is in pristine condition. You have deserved the time to have a break and to take things easy.

The only thing is that we will now miss following the progress on this project and witnessing the outcomes of all your skilled work.

So what is the next project - when will it start - and where is the link to it?

Kind regards
Lionel

[jack neville]

Thank you.
I have a Diamond T patiently waiting it’s turn but there are a couple of Morris Tilly owners who will be expecting their stalled project to be taken off the back burner and I have told them it will be ready for Corowa next year.

[Richard Farrant]

Originally Posted by jack neville

I have told them it will be ready for Corowa next year.

Hi Jack,
Glad to see you are looking positive! As organisers of the Corowa Swim-In we are already planning for next year

regards, Richard

[jack neville]

It is over two and a half years since The Ford ute hit the road and I guess it is time to get a few things finished. The seat I have been using is out of my Ford/Marmon Herrington gun tractor and has been swapped back and forward.
They are a modified version of the Ford truck seat altered to suit the roadster cab to allow the roof to collapse and stow behind the seat. They are not a very robust design and disintegrate rapidly once the old trucks are allowed to be exposed to the weather. When I built the seat for the Marmy I had only scraps of data to work with and very few photos and no reliable measurements. The seat worked however but there was always difficulties getting the roof to stow behind the seat. A while ago I managed to acquire the remains of an original seat. extremely dilapidated but enough remains to make a better job of the second seat. A lot of detailed woodwork to replicate and I got the spring sets from a civvy Ford truck. It is a very time consuming and fiddly process to rearrange them to copy the ute setup as they are completely different.
It is now ready for Matt Strickland to do his magic and unholster it for me.
I also found that the side panels were never correct which is why I always had trouble with the Marmy. These should now be correct and you can see where I even had to re-correct some of the T nuts even this time. I made an extra pair of side panels to put of the Marmy seat as well.
A very odd thing with these seats is that there appears to be no method of securing the seat. It sits on top of the fuel tank and two drilled holes in the base locate on the two studs on the front corners of the fuel tank. Crash the truck and the seat goes with you into the windscreen. Not so bad on a gun tractor doing not much more than 20 mph I guess but the ute is a bit quicker.