Canvas Side Curtain Frame

[Jim Price]

I recently purchased a well used side curtain from Brian Asbury so that I could use it as a pattern for making up a pair of curtains for my F8 doors. Am almost finished with both but have a question. I do not have any parts of the frame that supports the curtains. The two holes in the doors are 1/2" in diameter. Which of the following are the frame pieces made of: 1/2" rod, or pipe, or some type of hardwood? Or, something else?

Any help on this will be most appreciated!

Regards,
Jim

[Bob Carriere]

HI JIm

The common practice in the civvy auto industry was to have a steel rod that fitted in pockets of the side curtains........ in turn the end of those rods were inserted in the two white metal tubes in the cab 11/12 doors..... 3 other fasteners held the bottom end of the curtain in place on the door.

Note that replacement tubes... almost identical to our CMPs and the top hat fasteners that fits in the doors are avaialble at Mac's Auto in Niagara NY as they were quite common on Ford vehicles of that period.

I have NOS side curtains from Dirk...... but unfortunetaly I have no idea of what the "rods" look like and may have to invent something......

Bob

[Mike Kelly]

Jim

As far as I know, the two rods ( about 3/8" diam. from memory ) are shaped with a crank handle shape on the end ..this end has a tapered square section that fits into the two fittings in the door tops . The door top fittings have a square shaped hole in them - the holes are located 90 degrees from side on, that is, standing at the door, looking across the cab to the other door, the square shape looks like a diamond ..hope u understand !

Not all of the vehicles had the snaps to hold down the lower edge of the curtain. The original side curtains I have here , do not have any snaps on them at all. The NOS doors I had didnt have any snap fittings on the either.
Mike

[Jim Price]

Bob,
I checked out the rods on Mac's site and they won't work on my F8; they're not the shape needed. The 1/2" holes on the top of the door sill are right at each end of the top door sill. On both the vertical latch and hinge sides of the doors are counter-sunk holes where a screw would go to hold each rod or tube frame piece in a vertical position.

I'm assuming that a cross piece fitted into the top of each vertical "post" to keep the top of the curtain ridgid. (Although I say vertical, the post of the windshield side of the door needs to have a bend in it to accomdate the sloping angle of the windshield frame.)

There are four snap rings on the inside of the door frame above the hinge side of the door for the back side of the curtain to snap into. Likewise there are 3 on the outside of the door itself to fasten down the bottom of the curtain. The curtain snaps for these are available from Mac's.

The curtain I have must be a later model as there are no snaps to attach it to the edge of the windshield frame. These were present on the frame on my F8 before we redid the windshield but have yet to replace them. These are available form Mac's as well.

This later model curtain must have been designed to take the place of the earlier model that snaped onto the windshield frame as it would have been a royal pain to unsnap them from inside the cab through the door latch opening when trying to open the door.

I think what I'll probably do is find some 1/2" OD pipe to make the frame as 1/2" solid rod would be a bit heavy. I'll need to drill and tap screw holes for the screws that will hold the pipe frames vertical.

I did notice that there are rod sockets listed on Mac's that might be what originally went into these 1/2" holes but am not sure. Use of these would cause the size of the curtain support "rods" to be somewhat less than 1/2" in diameter.

Regards,
Jim

[Maurice Donckers]

I had still some in my C15 when bought , I will take pictures whenn I am with the truck .
They are rods wich go up , then there is another rod to push on top of them (so 3 pieces , so the screen can fold in the storage bag.

[Jim Price]

Maurice,
It would be great if you could provide some pictures of those rods. I'm curious as to how the top rod attaches to the other two vertical ones.

Thanks!

Regards,
Jim

[Jim Price]

Mike,
I can visualize what you're saying. However, the crank handle setup won't match what's there on my F8.

As for the snaps, I'm beginning to suspect that there were several variations in the design of the curtains as the War went on!

Regards,
Jim