A little light entertainment: 1939 Ford 1 ton Utility restoration

[jack neville]

Fortunately the inner section of the running boards is solid and straight so I decided to have a go at replacing the flatter section with the raised ribs and join the two.

I bought an old bead roller which luckily had the correct profile wheel.

The last time I used one of these was about 20 years ago when I built a replica Kubelwagen body and I used an identical machine to put the ribs in the side panels.


A test piece shows promise so we'll see how it goes.

[Bob Carriere]

Hi Jack

How thick was the steel you used....?

Nice work....

Bob C

[jack neville]

1.2mm cold rolled panel steel.
I made up some simple tooling to press the ends of the rib which flattens out the pull in the sheet metal at the end of the rib. Trial Looks ok.

[jack neville]

The length of the pressing and operation of the machine means this is ideally a two man job so I supported the sheetmetal from my overhead gantry which enables the chain block to travel as the steel runs through the roller.
Doing it single handedly is slow but the first rib worked so I’ll see what happens with the second.

[jack neville]

Managed to get the ribs rolled and dressed at the ends on the first step.
Maintained parallel and didn’t get too much distortion overall.

[jack neville]

I formed the outside curve by pressing a 60mm pipe into a piece of 100 x 50mm channel iron and dressed the ends over angle iron. This has stiffened up the outside considerably.
I cut back the original board to assist in trial fitting and lining up the eventual weld.

[Danny Devers]

That looks really good. I like watching metal take shape like that, its an artform