Projects The LeGrange Produce Tribute Truck build

I have been pondering building a shop truck for some time. I didn’t want to just build another “fake speed shop” truck. It needed to be a fitting tribute. I wanted to build a tribute truck in honor of my grandpa, who recently passed away at the ripe, old age of 99.

You see the LeGrange family has been fans of the 35-36 Fords for a LONG time. Look in the background....that's my second birthday present.

My Grandpa's produce truck, that was my dad's first car and eventually took on a life as a C/Gasser that held a national record for some time. Also, the donor motor for the Drag-N-Fly came from this truck.

Back to the topic at hand.

My family ran a produce company during the early years of Oklahoma’s statehood. My great grandpa had started the company using a wooden, horse drawn wagon. Eventually, he bought a brand new 1936 Ford pickup for his delivery truck.

This picture was taken in 1915 at the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds.

He drove to the far corners of the state delivering produce, poultry and eggs to grocers everywhere. It was a novel concept. He told me you would buy the produce and just double the price. What you didn't sell, you would eat. Simple. My Grandpa told me , that during the great depression, they never missed a meal and never went hungry.

I am planning a hot rod version of the family produce truck. I recently found a calendar from 1932 that was given out as a promotional item to grocers etc. It has the company address and phone number. I plan to capture that info and use it in the build. I think this would be a fitting tribute.

This build kinda holds a special place for me because, the frame came from my Grandpa's farm. He had it laying up against the back of the garage for years. He never liked to just throw things away if they could be reused or repurposed.

This won't be a ground shattering build, but it is more of a sentimental journey for me. Family is very important to me, as many of you know. Hang with me as we build this fitting tribute to one of the greatest men I have ever met.

Getting started. The vision.

I have always loved this truck. I don't know exactly what it is about the truck that gets me, but it's just right. I'm going to steal the idea of the two tone paint from this truck. I'm changing up the colors, but it will have the same basic feel.

This is the frame that I am starting with. It's seen better days, but I wanted to salvage it, since it came from Grandpa's farm. I will save you the details on the blasting it etc.

This is pretty typical on the early Fords, but we can remedy that.

I won't bore you with the details but here is the finished product.

There were a lot of bad farmer welds, cutout using a torch, cracked front crossmember etc. You guys know all about that , so I am fast forwarding to the good stuff.

So the X member had to come out to make room for my 327/350 combo I have slated for this build.

Replaced it with a Chassis Engineering center section. Pretty easy.

Since the rear inner plates were rusted inside the frame kick ups, I decided to box them. I usually am not a fan of boxing frames, but this is the one exception.

Fast forward to the finished product.

I decided I wanted to build an integral hitch using the frame as part of the structure.
The first thing I needed was tubing. In order to help beef up the rear area, I decided to use a thick walled tubing to replace the original C channel. I stopped by a local metal supplier and picked up a 4 ft. stick of 2"x 2"x1/4" wall.
I figured to minimize the driving back and forth, I would go ahead and get the receiver tubing as well. Be ready to take it in the shorts when you buy that. It is "special" tubing with no welds, made specifically for receiver hitches, therefore you pay for that. It was $20 per foot. Ouch. So I opted for 2 feet.

 

This is mounted to the old transverse leaf cross member and tied into the back.

 

I made 2 tapered plates to fit inside the frame rails at the rear to prevent rotation. These are welded to the tube and then bolted through the frame. It is a no fail situation. Redundancy built in.

I used the front leaf spring setup off of an AD series Chevy truck for the rear parallel leafs. I found this idea on the hamb and it worked out beautifully.
The front axle is a dropped 4" Chassis Engineering that I took a hole saw to…

I used a Posies reversed Eye spring with that. I have a set of GM discs I bought off of the HAMB classifieds. I am trying to keep this truck on the cheap, if possible. I have most of the parts needed stashed in the rafters, after years of hoarding.

I figured black was the best color for any frame. It's the old standard.

 

This is gonna be a cool truck ,i like your plans.

 

I bought this cab off a buddy here on the hamb and it is a pretty straight old cab. I welded up a bunch of holes in the firewall and decided to see what was under the John Deere Green.



I was pretty pleased with the outcome.

 

I dig it a lot. Great cars (trucks) come with great stories. My dad has a super sano 36 Chevy pick up he's owned since 1954. I broke the key off in the glove box lock in 1961.

 

Since Jr. was home from college, I figured I would let him earn some of that tuition money back.

 

Now, this one is going to be worth following. If reaching back on the family tree for inspiration for a hot rod build is not traditional , nothing is. Root, thumbs up for this build. Be sure to keep us up to date on any progress. Bet you'll feel your grandpa's presence as you move forward.

Frank

 

So we decided to attack the very item that started this whole build. The bed.

A friend of mine, Bob Owens, owns the ultimate salvage yard in the universe, Owens Salvage Company, in Wellington, TX. Here's a link to his website. http://www.owenssalvage.com You won't be disappointed.
Bob calls me and tells me about this friend he has in Fresno, CA. who has recently passed away. He had a bed, a set of running boards and the panels that go between the bed and running boards for a 35-36. His estate was being sold off and Bob was helping connect the right people with the right parts.
The only catch was this bed was a shop truck bed back in the day. It had tread plate welded inside the bed sides and the floor. It was well done, but it was super HEAVY. Which is not a bad thing , since the 35-36 are a little light in the rear and some extra weight could make it ride better. It is going to work out great for throwing swap meet parts in the back and letting them roll around without worrying about it.

I put the college boy back on it, to sandblast the old flat lacquer paint and the rust out of the bed.

The old subfloor wood still looks good. Just needs cleaning up.

I'm not planning on spending a lot of time on the bed. The bedsides are very straight. I am going to have to fill a bunch of holes where they had something mounted on the rails, but other than that, it should go pretty quick.

 

I went down and bought some black enamel paint to coat the bottom of the bed with.

 

The main difference between the pickup cabs and the big truck cabs is the fuel tank location. The pickup tank is located under the rear of the bed, while the big truck is inside the cab. It doubled as a seat riser. A buddy of mine, Bruce, did this recently, so I am going to steal his idea. He retained the tank, but removed the top of the tank and used it for storage. It's a good place for my stereo amp and my powered subwoofer.

I drilled four holes withe a hole saw to give me a starting point. I used the sawzall to remove the lid. I purged the tank with shop air for a few minutes to see if there were fuel fumes present.



The shape of this tank was pretty amazing. I felt bad about cutting it up for about.......10 seconds. The baffles are spot welded in. I underestimated the quality of the spot welds. I tore a hole in it trying an air chisel. Gonna hafta cut it just above the floor and grind the remainder out.

The carnage after about an hour. It's a pain, but it needs to be done, so I can make sure I can locate the critical pieces. I hate having to rework stuff after it's done.

It still needs some clean up, but I ran out of sawzall blades and time.
I'm done for tonight. I'll post more pics later.......

 

Truck build, i'm in!
Like the tribute

 

Looks like a swell build in progress.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

 

Cool truck..cant wait to see. .

 

Nice plan, nice work. Nice family photo.

Like the ideer about the inside gas tank.

Keep the pictures comming.

 

Cab looks great. I would go with your family produce name on it. That history is great and no one can take that away from you. Neat build.

 

Nice! Subscribed!

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Looking forward to the updates on this one.

 

Very Cool tribute project ! and pictures.
Does the seat hindge forward to access the storage ? I had an old International that did that.. it was a 52 R120. I can't remember if just the back that hindged or the whole seat ? I think it was just the back..... it gave you access to storage also. The tank was verticle behind the seat.
I love trucks .... you can make a living with them, and I have.

 

Love the build and especially the reason behind the build. Grandpa is looking down and enjoying it too.

Don

 

I Like what you have done so far I will keep following your project !

 

...this is gonna be a good one, I too like the Planada service truck.
good luck on your build.

 

Great build-up, but more importantly, GREAT Family story and involvement. This is going to be special.

 

I'm really digging this build.

 

Thanks guys. I'm on the hamb a lot but rarely do tech posts. I never seem to have enough foresight to have a camera around.

As far as the seat goes, it normally sits on 2 pins that keep it stationary. I am still in the pondering stage on if I have enough room to get the seat to tilt. I'll keep you posted as I progress.

 

Neat build! Very nice keeping the family history going in this tribute,


jerry

 

Great Idea and Neat start for a truck.Subscribed

Not far off what I'm ultimately trying to achieve with my truck (just on a slightly bigger scale in my case)

 

I can't remember if you were going to use a Chrysler 3rd row seat, like I used in the stake truck. Had I thought about it, we could have taken it out of my truck and set it in yours, for a trial fit, while I was at your house.

 

Very cool Root! I think it is neat that both of our dads "held a national record for a while"! You have inspired me to get moving on my truck!

 

Bret, I have a seat. Just haven't figured out how much steering column clearance I am going to have yet.

Trent, get moving on that thang….