’33 REO Speedwagon build w/ a twist

Very tempted to buy this from a mate of mine, not enough to restore to original and no grill but would make a great truck to tow my gasser with. Originally came from South Africa and believed to be only one in UK.
Oops, photos on another computer. Post pics tomorrow.

 

Here's a photo of the lower cowl after Dad corrected it to fit like a 1/2-ton pickup should. The lower reveal was a constant height. Dad created the taper and moved all the wood inside to fit. He had already made new wooden sills before he realized this needed to be done.



The rubber grommet is for the side mount spare. the internal bracing has already been moved from the sedan to the truck cowl.



The brackets on the front that look like crudely bent steel strap are original Franklin pieces that have been added to this cab.

 

Liking this thread! Will be a sweet ride; Thanks for the write-up.

 

Lot's of great progress on the Speed Wagon recently.

 

Dad copied an original heater and built this sheetmetal enclosure for the exhaust manifold. It doesn't get much simpler than ducting hot air straight off the manifold and into the cabin. These heaters work great.

 

The passenger side of the engine gets buttoned up with this sheetmetal. You can see the new heater protruding near the firewall, which does not yet have the hole cut in it for heated air. This reminds me of engine cladding under the hood of new cars these days, except this has a purpose. It directs the hot air (and leaking oil) down after the air is forced around and between the individual finned cylinders.

 

Here's a photo showing how nicely the '57 Ford 9-inch bolted into place. Check out the late model pinion flange that dad machined down to fit the vintage driveshaft.

 

The '57 Ford axle housing bolted right up to the REO springs. We sourced custom axles shafts to get to Ford truck wheel bolt pattern and used Ford truck drums on passenger car backing plates and brakes. This spacer gets the wheels out to their original track position and includes a groove for the REO wire wheels to mount correctly.

 

The third member had been robbed out of the '57 housing. When Dad bolted in the third member sourced elsewhere, and went to fill it with grease; there was no fill hole. The '57 had the fill plug in the casting. the later model must have been in the rear cover. Since we had to cut a hole somewhere, I suggested to Dad that he could sacrifice one of the inspection covers off of the pile of '33 REO housings in the barn. So, he installed this nifty little fill plug, just like the '33 REO.

 

sweet

 

I love this truck.

 

What a great project and so rust free damn cool. Roger

 

"Rust Free-take all you want." is what Dad always says.

We love rust free vehicles, but we don't often get them. This has been a nice project. We've been able to deal with any rust and make it seem like it was never there.

The sheet metal from the dry side of Oregon was pretty good. The cab did require new wood sills, which Dad reproduced expertly.


By using the best parts from the cab, the sedan, and left over parts from his 1981 restoration, he was able to maintain many original pieces like floorboards and even the firewall insulating pad. The big truck had the gas tank under the seat. The pickup will have the tank under the rear of the bed, so a floor for an under seat toolbox was built. You can see the sidemount brackets already installed in the cowl here.

 

Some new wood in the top and above the doors.

 

Doors that came with the sedan had better wood in them. They only needed a little wood in the bottom and minor rust repair.


Dad was sorry that the paint on the sedan doors didn't match the patina of the Oregon truck...


So they got stripped.


And now they magically match.

 

Here's another perspective on these "restored" doors. These splash aprons were picked up at Chickasaw swap meet. The hood was bartered in exchange for some Pierce Arrow parts and came from Wyoming-all with original paint. Only the doors have been touched up.

The photo below was a previous mock-up.

 

Good thread.

 

diggin' the hiboy look

 

Going fenderless would have spared us the greatest sheet metal challenge of this whole project. That was turning sedan fenders into pickup fenders.

We started with a huge gap between the sedan fenders and the pickup bed. (Pay no attention to the bolt patter from the previous fenders that were on this bed.)

REO pickup fenders are not only stamped out of unobtanium alloy, but they are also rather uniquely shaped for pickup fenders. It would not be as simple as just filling in flat sheet metal between the crown of the fender and the bed. Our approach to recreate the REO pickup fender was to join a pair of sedan fenders to complete the crown and bolt to the bed. We had one good set of sedan fenders and one set that could provide the needed curved parts. Those later fenders were 40% Lansing steel, 40% galvanized patches left over from someone's HVAC project, and 20% pop rivets, so they went to good use.


To finish them out, more parts from the donor fenders were used to bring the asymmetrical curved bead around the tail of each fender.

 

damn

 

Great work. Your Reo is going to be a real stand-out hauler!!! Thanks. TEB

 

Amazing work

 

This '35 REO Speedwagon in Colorado is still for sale if anyone is looking for a worthy project.

 

Indulgent? Yes, but it's fun!

 

Great work, turning out really nice!

 

Glad to see the truck is still progressing

 

Love this thread - lost track of it with the long gaps in between updates but love the project, the history and the obvious fun in the chase. The truck is looking great and I love the nods to originality combined with the twists you've incorporated.

Steve

 

Nice to see this back up.

 

Thanks. Sorry for the long delay in posts. Dad has worked on it steadily. I just don't often don't have time to post updates.

 

Thanks for posting. Top notch craftsmanship and a great looking truck.