Project Phoenix--34 Ford Pickup build

Chapter 1--the beginnings

OK, so I've been saying for months that I'm going to start a build thread to document the history and resurection of my "little truck," but I guess in order to start I have to give some back story into the name and how I got to this point

My grandfather was a naval aviator in WWII and after the war traineda s a mechanical engineer. While he wasn't ahot rodder himself, he was both frugal and mechanically inclined and made surehis three sons learned theinsandouts of automobile maintenance by rebuilding countless engines from the cars used in the family cash register business.

My dad turned sixteen in 1967, just as the muscle car era was coming into full swing. About that same time he and his two brothers inherited the worn out 60 falcon from the family business because the dealership woudn't give by grandfather enough trade in. The promptly set to work making the car what they thought it should be, first with a 221 V8 and 3 speed from a fairlaine, and eventually with a 289. They ordered all the performance parts ford offered and delivered the engine to Banjo Mathews shop for a build. A few weeks after the Mathews motor was installed, they pulled the falcon out of the driveway, dropped the clutch and destroyed the tranny. I think from there my dad was hooked. That motor made it through several falcons.

Fast forward a few years to 1971 or so, my dad is working as a clerk stationed at Fort Jackson in Columbia, SC and living with his young new bride in a palatial 18 foot travel trailer off base. He finds a basket case 34 ford pickup and purchases it from a Captain on base. The truck is already chopped and channeled, but it is literally in laundry baskets when he buys it The pieces are ferried back to Asheville, NC to take up residence behind his grandmothers house until he can get to the project. Eventually he looses interest and sell the truck to Danny Cancelor.

A while later he buys a house and has his hot rod bug re-ignited--probably by the chopped, channeled and sectioned 37 chevy pickup that keeps riding through the neighborhood. He and Ted Defosses become fast friends and he buys the truck back and work begins in earnest. Around the same time he also joins the Street-Tiques of Asheville, not as a founding member, but darn close--he and several other folks from that period are still active in the club today.

The truck, like most rods, goes through a series of build stages from 73-75, and in the process dad acquires the nickname/cb handle "temporary rod"--afterall, it's only temporary (at one point the truck was in a local parade literally held together with coathanger wire).

Dad's a blue oval man so the truck was powered by an available 289 and 4 speed. The chopped, channeled and shortened truck eventually gets full fenders (duece up front and 31 chevy in the rear), a coat of silver paint, 65 mustang bucktes and wood bed sides (to disguise a bed that was shortened from the wrong end before he got it.

Fast forward to the late summer of1975. Tragedy strikes. The aluminum wiring in the nearly new house fails and ignites in the basement. Fortunately for everyone in the house (including 6 week old me along with my mother's best friend and her 15 month old) the gas tank explodes and wakes everyone up.
Now for a dose of humor/reality--to show how hardcore we are. My dad abandons the women and children to get themselves out of the house and runs to the basement (the source of the fire) to try and push the truck out. No such luck. My mother was NOT amused.

After the fire, the truck is deemed a total loss. He sells thetruck 4 days after the fire to a local body shop owner, Roger Pettit, for $150. Roger repairs the firewall, puts a roof insert in where the roof sunk in 6 inches from the heat and generally piddles with it.

Over the next several years the truck is bought and sold several times--at least twice more my dad buys it back then re-sells it. Roger eventually sells it to someone in Etowah, NC where the truck sits in his yard for several years (dad's keeping tabs) until one day it disappears.

 

Had problems loading all the photos from the first intallment. Here's the rest

 

Great story! And then... ( he waits patiently.)

 

still waiting for my wife to digitize the next installment of pictures, but a big wahoo today--it roll for the first time in 3 years. not finished, but mobile roller!

 

LOOOONNNNGG overdue part 2.

Fast Forward to 1987. 12 year old me is given the ultimatum to buy or build my own car if I want one at 16, in either case I won't be given one. so we start lookings. a few months later a buddy from our club calls and offer this truck he just bought sans the bed for $50--a doable price for a 12 year old.

we go to look at the truck and as we round the corner of his house my dad see sees the truck from across the yard and says "that's my truck." I ask how he knows and he says "you build one and you just know." as it turns out there were a couple of give aways. first was the windshield wipers installed on the cowl (VW 2 speed electric units work like a champ) and some chassis bracing.

we drag the car home and slowly start working on it. we added a mII (ok pinto, but it was the 80's afterall) with the help of a friend, found and installed a punched buick 231 (it's previous life was in a 48 angia drag car--it was quick as hell in an 1/8 but was wound tight as could be at intersate speed). it was also WAY too low. if you look at the pics you can see we actually had to bob the front fenders to keep them from hitting the ground.

my goal at the time was to make is close to my dad's build--with some of my own touches. wood bed side, full fendered etc--I'd planned on the camaro teal that was new then--literally chased a guy down to get the paint code off his car.

I drove the truck through high school. the first time I drove it it was 20 degrees out and there were no windows, but that didn't stop me--frozen grin ear to ear. I also drove it through the furnace--but that's another story and concludes with the lesson ALWAYS INSTALL A NEUTRAL SAFETY SWITCH.

it was loud, rattly, rode rought and fun as hell for a high school kid--unfortuntatly not terribly practical as a daily driver. bought someting else to take to college and while I was away traded it for a 31 roadster project.

in the subsequent years I bought and resold the truck a few times and in 08 they guy I sold it to called and told me he'd gotten it back after several months of dickering he delivered it to me for $225 worth of swap meet parts he wanted for his other b model truck.

 

I should mention that I acquired the name "Bondo Boy" in school largely based on this truck. as a result fo the fire damage if there was 1 gallon there was 10 gallons in it and it still wasn't straight.

I was forced to learn to do bodywork by hand. I spent probably 6 months working with hand tools before my dad would let me work with the air tools--a giant PITA, but worth it now. the skills he taught me have always helped to fund my hobby and for a period my day to day life. I'm grateful to have a skill to fall back on.

anyway here's a series of pics

pic 1 -3--when we brought it home in 87

pic 4--in progress first built--this one wouldn't load check back later

pic 5--when I sold it--same as above

remaining pics when it came back in 08

 

had to move to another computer to get the other two missing pics to load. here ya go. threw in a couple of more for good measure.

 

cool story and nice truck..keep us posted..

 

now that I got the back story out of the way I can get on with the build thread part

 

Ok, time for a long overdue update. After I got the truck home I blasted it apart and started collecting up a parts and pieces for the rebuild. first order of business was a new chassis as the old one was TOAST. Bought the "superprize" ASC rails from the winner at Nats South, salvaged the rear suspension out of the original chassis (it's 31 chevy front leaf springs) and managed to locate dropped 32 heavy with brake kit at charlotte. added a set of 40 bones and I was ready to try and get roller going. Thanksgiving day of 2010 I couldn't stand it any longer. I was in a temporary rental after moving back to NC and had no shop, but I'd been over a year without working on anything to speak of. Weather was nice so I decided to assemble the chassis.

You'll note my high tech frame table. I actually used my trailer as the base and clamped some sign posts I had down as the build platform. looks pretty ghetto, but it worked really well. I was able to level things ups and get them straight and square. after a lot of soul searching I decided to narrow the chassis to 32 specs while keeping the wheelbase of the 33/34. used a 32 front crossmemeber and front and rear spreader bars for dimensioning. also had a 35-40 x member I'd finagled that I trimmed down and worked in for added stability.

Once I got everything gusseted in place I added the front boxing plates and rear suspension (just tacked in place).

 

the whole story is great! glad to see you still got it!!

 

Thanks! it's a SLOW process with 3 kids and no money. and it also doesn't help that I got distracted last year by competetive triathlons trading training time for shop time. I've picked up a few more missing pieces and hope to have the chassis completed as a roller (motor trans and all) later this summer. stay tuned.

 

Oh man, What a story.
You need to weld a chain from the frame to a welded shackle around your ankle
so you don't let it get away from you again.
Bought and sold a billion times, and you got it back,
pretty cool!

 

so obviously the next step after hanging the rear was to get the front end mounted into place so I could roll the thing around as neede. it' just easier to move that way. after we got settled in to the new permanent house (with crappy and SMALL) shop space--I lost that battle--I went to work. I wanted to maintain the look of a traditional wishbone, but till have space to fit a later motor/trans combo. I don't really like the look of framerail mount wishbones AND the bones I had were 40 bones so there's no way I could have used them with the fendrs.

Now my x member was eyballed in terms of where it was placed fore to aft--and the decision was largely made by where it was cut out of the previous frame. as it happend, the x member landed in a place where I could tie the split bones into the rails themselves rather than having to order or fab a full wishbone splitting kit for the 40 x member. I used the wishbone mounting tabs from speedway. I didn't photo document the whole process, but basically, I tacked positioned then tacked and hard welded them on the underside. I tend to overkill engineer so I also cut through the rail from the top and through welded for extra security.

After looking at the condition/weight of the xmember I decided it needed some additional re-inforcing. so I welded a thin piece of plate over the dressed down weld from the mounts extending a few inches on either side of the mount. it was periodically plug welded along with the stitches at either end and along the edge. I'm comfortable with the overal setup, but I plan to add a boxing plate to the same area where I reinforced the bottom of the rail as an added bonus. the last thing I want is for that area to flex, stress and eventually crack a make the front end fail.

 

here's a little side project I did for the truck--the sealed beam conversion for the freebie headlight buckets I found to go with the truck

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=567131

 

thought I'd throw this back up. I finally got off my duff and transferred the title back into my name today. since the last update I've picked up another cad motor and 700r4 (still waffling about de-channeling or not), I've also collected up most of the patch panels I need so I'm hoping to get back to work on it this winter. Especailly since I sold my driver. stay tuned for details.

 

I would say keep the channel; that is a part of what makes it what it is! So cool!

 

X2-MIKE

 

man now you guys have me second guessing myself. I'd pretty well convinced myself to de-channel the truck in the interest of comfort and driveability for a tall, fat guy who's not as flexible as he was as a teenager. I also waffle on the fenders. maybe I'll have to find another one and build a fenderless version too--lol.

BTW--I'm going to try and finish getting the motor in or at least mocked up this weekend so hopefully I get some updated pics. the chassis does roll right now, though.

 

Hi tech mock up . Now to build the actual motor and tranny mounts. This weekend's project.

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Finally got the motor and trans mounts in. I'll grab pics of the tranny mounts when I pull the motor to hard weld the engine mounts.

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Update?

 

not much happening--been working stuff for other folks--wrapping up some panel work on a 56 T-bird and moving close to final assembly on a jeep j-10 pickup I've been working on for a while.

since the motor pics above I've worked on making the trans fit into the x member (700r4 requires some modifications. I did fiddle around some the other day and I cleeco's the bed together and hung the fenders for some visual mock up.

 

Puddles around some yesterday on the stake pockets. Just ignore the undressed welds

 

That should read "piddled"

 

made a big change a few weeks ago. I sold a flip car earlier this year and ended up keeping the rebuilt 350 out of it. after much deliberation I bit the bullet and put the cad motor setup up for sale . after it sold I dropped the 350 into its place. threw up a little in my mouth when I was done, but with 4 kids it was the prudent thing to do to keep things moving forward and affordable.

the additional upside is that the sale of the caddy setup should allow me to pick up the parts to finish the chassis completely over the next little while.





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spent a few hours in the shop today. the lesson learned was that sometimes the cheapest option isn't the best option, but I was committed. bed mounts built and re-purposed floor fitted and installed with a couple of placeholder bolts.

I also trimmed down the Speedway extended boards for a quick mock up.







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swallowed my pride in the interest of getting something running in a timely fashion. took delivery of a replacement cab. i plan to use my doors and windshield. maybe the roof.



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got things bolted up and subrail mocked up. the PO had planned on square tubing rails so it was pretty easy to go that direction. hopefully i'll get her on the chassis for a look later this week

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slow progress but she's been chopped 4.25 inches to match the old cab

(doors and windshield)

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