Hot Rods bringing my Model A pickup back after the fire

My father in law bought this pickup sometime in 1968, and drove it around his farm for fun, and occasionally drove down Burr Canyon to the Snake river.

With a 59AB flathead and a 1939 transmission, he would say, "Man, that thing would GO."
In 1969, during one of these jaunts, it started smoking and knocking. He ended up pushing it into a shed, where it stayed till the mid 2000s. He and I pulled it apart, cleaned it up and got a 8BA to replace the 59AB. The 8BA was out of the first pickup he had bought new, a 1950 F1.

We boxed the frame and added front suspension from a 1940 frame that was in the boneyard behind the shop. It all came together really well.

We lost my wife's parents 2 years ago, passing 5 weeks apart. For the past 2 years, my wife, her family and I have been caring for the farm, cleaning stuff up, and trying to protect the farmhouses and the shops.

Last October there was a fire that started over 12 miles away. It came along the Snake river, and up Burr Canyon. It devastated the farm. We were told 6 homes were lost, 2 of which were homes at our farm. We also lost both shops and a bunch of outbuildings.
The Model A was in the same shop that we had put it back together in. That shop burned to the ground, and some of the pictures will show nails on the body.
The building burned and collapsed onto the pickup, leaving the nails behind after the wood burned away. As if it had rained nails.


So I have decided to try to save the Model A, Hopefully the frame and suspension is salvageable. But I am in for this project even if Im starting with only some nuts and bolts. [

 

Wow, that’s devastating.
Looking forward to seeing your progress.
Not sure what you can save, but I’m sure that there will be a lot of helpful advice here.

 

Wow ! What a sad story but I know that you will get the old girl back together.

 

All those memories and hard work.......Gone! I hope that you and your Family can pull together to make New ones after this tragedy. Save what you can and recreate your old truck. Best Wishes, Carp!

 

Wow what a shame... It has a lot of good memories for you- get busy!

 

Looking at the way the doors are distorted is shocking to say the least. Fire sure is a scary thing. About the only good thing is that you were not hurt or there when the fire was raging. Good on you to save a family treasure.

 

Sorry about all of the fire damage! But, what a sweet truck !!! God bless ya for your endever to "bring er back". Don't change a thing because....
well, just because. I'd love to have one just like it in it's prime.

 

Sorry to see that. Itll be a long road with burnt sheetmetal, hows it look cleaned up/ powerwashed etc.

 

Wow! Sorry about the fire but you have the right spirit! Get after it!

 

I glad you all got out safely. A truck is just metal at its core, but I hope you can salvage enough to keep the memories and that unexplainable sentiment certain vehicles instill in us.

 

I'm sorry about your truck. How bad is the back of the cab between the doors? I need a partial cab back, the part below the belt line to the door. I could use a partial panel from the right hand side from the back around to the doors. I have another cab but it has the back of a sedan but the belt line is different. Thanks, Mike

 

This last week, I took the wheels off the front and found the rears ( I had taken the rear end apart after it broke an axle shaft), and took them in to make sure they were ok. The tires had burned right off of the wheels. I also found 3 other wheels in the rubble that I had looked for 10 years ago. I left 7 wheels with some great local wheel guys to check and powdercoat the 4 best fire-engine-red. I had rattlecan painted them 10 years ago instead of powdercoating and always regretted it.

They called and told me that 2 of the 7 were usable. The others were warped and out of round from the heat. A third wheel might be usable as a spare, they said, but still had excessive runout. I loved those Ford wires, but I have some other wheels I might use.

The engine seems wasted, as it is locked up, and all the aluminum parts are melted, as are the carbs, and the radiator. And the windshield. That sucker got HOT.
So I have some decisions to make. We had decided to not restore the Model A those years ago. Rather than do the restoration thing, we thought it wanted to be a hot rod. So we left alone as much as we could and made everything work, leaving it somewhat a survivor. That plan doesn't really work anymore, so maybe a 60s vibe. Ive been thinking about a 390 FE and slotted mags.

Ive already bought another cab, and Ive salvaged some sheetmetal from a 1936 International truck (that also partially burned) that I am going to try to include. And since the radiator and grille was destroyed, I am going to use the grille and radiator from the corn binder, too.

 

I found a photo of the cab as I pulled it off. It was smashed down to the belt line right behind the windshield. Pretty messed up.

 

that fire was hot. i wonder if even the frame rivets are not tight anymore? i had a shop fire, but it was mostly heat up high in the ceiling. cars got burnt up from burning shit falling on them, but the motors all turned over with the starter, so not even hot enough to melt solder. now in your case, i wonder about using any of it? sorry to be a downer!

 

This is the 1936 International that I have salvaged some parts and sheetmetal from. My father in law would talk about what a great truck it was, and curse the thing in the same sentence. One great example. " That damn thing never did run right.... but it never stopped running."

here's the dash that I salvaged.

And the roof sheetmetal looks like it will fit quite well. The windshield is exactly the same dimensions! The curve where the windshield meets the cowl is dead-on. So the dash matches right up, too. I have ordered some sheetmetal for where the roof meets the door opening, and I will use the stock door openings. I may have to use the International cab back, which is a little longer. I may end up with some more legroom.

 

Sad for your loss. I'm going on 5 yrs since lighting struck a tree next to my storage of stuff - my little Daytona was just 10 feet away and lucky the firefighters didn't toss crap on it. Thankful for the stuff that did survive.

 

My core idea about this build has been evolving, and here's what Ive been thinking:

I can't really bring this thing back exactly as it was. It was a a survivor, so it really was a glimpse of what the old hot rods used to be. I keep thinking about the saying, "you can restore them a thousand times, but they're only original once."

We didn't restore this hot rod back to a stocker, we made the hot rod parts work, and that made it fun. Faded paint and dulled chrome, but it wasn't a rat rod. If I slavishly just made it exactly like it was, I would feel like a poser.

So I am going to use what I can from the farm. The International Harvester truck parts fit into that vibe perfectly. My father in law loved/hated that old Cornbinder and kept it around on the farm bacause of that. It may end up looking a little different, but Im OK with that.

I kind of like the idea of a Model A/Cornbinder hybrid.

 

Go for it, and let us see the end product.

 

I found a set of gauges that I think will work well with the Cornbinder dash. The original gauges were pretty messed up from the fire, so I didn't salvage them.
The gauges that were in the Model A before were Stewart Warner curved glass. very cool. I had nabbed up an aluminum panel to house them in, and mounted it all in front of the original dash. The model A design had the fuel tank in the cowl, sitting right above your knees. seems scary nowadays, but was pretty normal then. Ill put another tank in the bed, similar to what I had done before.

So heres the gauges I found:

there still Stewart Warner, but they're 2 large dials to go into the cornbinder dash.

But , as you can see, they're not quite big enough.

they're 4& 5/8", and the openings are 5.1" or so. So I need to fab up a panel.

 

oops. my photos didn't make the trip- ill try again.

the gauges.

 

I found a photo of the interior before the fire, and it shows the dash really well.

as you can see, I didn't have any room under the dash cuz I didn't cut out the original tank and gauge panel. Im not going to make that mistake this time.

 

I pulled the cowl out of the new cab I purchased, and Im going to use my new cordless wizzer to cut the tank out of the cowl panel.




And yeah, I don't have a shop anymore, so Im doing this in my backyard.

Goddammit, I miss that shop. Goddammit.

You can see the wheels that Im considering using, stacked up right next to my bench. I really like the old kidney bean slotted mags.

 

And a lot of noise later.....

My neighbors are gonna hate me the next few months.



That little cut off tool is really cool, by the way. They only make it in a 12 volt, but it did great.

And when I opened it up, a but of a surprise.....



That is more sticks and twigs and dirt than I would have guessed. It had been heavier than I expected, though, so that explains that.


A little clean up, prime and paint, and I have more room under dash. Not sure if I will get rid of the fuel filler hole or not. Theres a slick lift-up vent panel on the Cornbinder that I could use. Maybe.

 

Back to the dash- I got some stainless to make a bezel to mount the gauges. The soft curves on the dash made it kind of difficult to get a good template.



after a second template and cutting the stainless to it, Im still not happy with the look (or the fit, but its just roughed at this point).



It needs something. I was thinking bezels around the gauges, so maybe cutting rings out of stainless. but I am thinking I would like to do an engine-turned finish.

I had some stuff to do it, but not sure if it was lost in the fire. So I will go find it in storage, or make some new stuff. I think I'd like to make a jig to do that.

I had a great little CNC program for doing engine turned finishes, but I dont have access to a HAAS mill right now. (Its a super-easy peck-drilling program with a dwell-time set into the bottom of the peck.)

So I need to do it old school. A stainless brush, grinding paste, and maybe a jig of some sort. Ill research it and think about it some, and Ill post what I come up with.

 

Wish you luck getting it back together. Sorry the fire took away some memories.

 

I feel your pain, had a fire in my shop this past October....glad to see your rebuilding!!

 

Damn- that looks familiar. Are you rebuilding that pickup?

I hope insurance treated you good.

Which reminds me-
EVERYONE! make sure you have insurance on your projects even if they're not running!

Home insurance only covers parts- not a vehicle. For instance- if you have the bed off your pickup to work on it, and you have a fire, home insurance might cover the pickup bed. But the truck itself is up to the car insurance.

Ask me how I know.

 

well, its been awhile and I thought I should do something to get me back into the swing of things. So I went to the farm with the intent of retrieving anything I could haul back.

I don't have a engine hoist, but I figured I could manage something. the engine mounts were such that I thought I could wiggle the frame around the engine and trans.