A little light entertainment: 1939 Ford 1 ton Utility restoration

[cliff]

very nice work. One thing I never learned was how to weld.

[jack neville]

Get a mig welder Cliff. Nothing to it. And I just bought a chep Chinese electric spot welder. Very handy for this sort of work.

[jack neville]

The half cowl went in perfectly after trimming up and matching the other half.

[jack neville]

once the cowl was in I cut the top half of the windscreen off to replace it with the other top half I had previously repaired with the top section filled in. This is unique to the roadster cabs to take the hood arrangement. Small sections of frame were tacked in to help align the two halves. I have only tacked the two halves together until I check that the windscreen will fit properly.

[jack neville]

The bottom section of the left side was cut out both because it was rusted and to open up the inner frame for sandblasting. A salvaged section from the hard cab was good enough to repair and refit.

[jack neville]

The side panels were removed from the old body by grinding away the spot welds on the pillars leaving the panel intact to be reattached to the new pillars. The bottom areas are rusted out and will need replacement sections and cleaning up before reassembly. The dark green paint is the original colour, which is unusual for an Australian vehicle I would have thought. Khaki is visible but the dark green is the factory colour. The red would indicate some Country Fire Authority service post war. A common fate for many ex-army vehicles in Australia.

[jack neville]

These photos show the remains of the timber work which needed replacing. It would have been impossible to copy from these remains if I had not done the same job on my Marmon Herrington Gun Tractor a few years ago.