Hot Rods 32 Drag Truck 60's Style

Just found this pic on the HAMB, fun idea. Would be cool to neatly cut the top off, mount some latches and turn it into a bit of a sport coupe/carson top deal. Oh the WILD ideas in my head! hahaha

 

I like the bed shortened. Didn't think I would.

Dave

 

Picked up some more parts. Cowl vent area has a piece of sheet metal tacked in, but the flange and all are still there. Will be converted back. Vent I grabbed looks decent, should clean up good enough.


My original 32 grille is sectioned 4” and doesn’t look right. I’ll be saving it for another build. I took a shot and grabbed an eBay $200 grille. It’s not great but not awful. Plenty good enough for a driver in my eyes. Spent about 2hrs fixing the bars; they were all loose, bent etc. Sprayed it quick with a single coat of red oxide, that’s likely the color/look I’ll go after with the whole truck. Also test sprayed some junk wheels with graphite spray, will likely go that route on my tt’s for that magnesium look.

 

Found this pic from when I found the 32 cab. This is what I saved it from.... I’d say I’m giving it a better life.

 

That's hideous.... Glad you snagged the cab..

 

Luv it , great project. Here is my little truck , been on the road 20 years this year.

 

That's killer! I've been toying with the idea of going fendered....can't find a local complete set for a decent price but keeping an eye out. Full fendered, channeled, fenderwell headers and tucking pie crusts sounds so right. Being that mine is on an A frame, I'm thinking 30/31 fenders would be slick.

 

28/29 fenders would rule, especially with big/littles and rake.

 

@-Brent- What makes you say 28/29 over 30/31? Also, really happy to have you following along on here. I've followed your build on here as well as IG (I believe Von Hartman did a lot of your work?). Killer coupe, I have a coupe body that I almost started to go the same direction on until this one fell in my lap.

 

28-29 front fenders curve with the tire tighter instead of sweeping back like the 30-31, many like the look better.

 

Yes, Ryan built the chassis for the car. I was happy we could work together because our interests and style are similar. The chassis came out really great.

As far as 28/29 fenders, the front fender shape isn't as open as the 30/31. The opening is shaped closer to the tire/wheel.

If you're adding fenders, they would certainly suite this truck's awesome 60s vibe.

Examples:

30/31





28/29



See what I mean?

Still any fenders would rule on this truck. Love the plan.

 

Awfull! Great save

 

Very cool, I'll be watching this thread! I have a 32 Ford pickup with a real good body and fenders that I'm going to start working on as soon as I can finish my Chevy!

 

So some of you may have seen a past thread of mine where I was looking for a 30/31 roadster, before I acquired this cab, and a buddy was selling a very clean 30/31 coupe that I couldn't pass up. I grabbed that and was going to build it but wanted to heavy chop it, like 7" but came to the realization it would be miserable to drive yet that's the only look for a coupe that really gets me going. So I worked out a deal to trade it for a roadster body but waiting on that to come to fruition.

Anyways, roadsters are my soft spot and always on the mind....

Last night I came across NealinCA's build threads around his closed cab pickup he converted to a rpu with a 31 roadster upper dash rail, stanchions etc. Spent all night reading this threads, absolutely blew my mind and love the look. Looks slick and has my mind going back to a rpu. If you zoom into the pics, you can see the pillars and all on my cab are rough. However, I won't hack up these doors, they are pretty decent. The roof it's fair share of pinholes but it's not awful. There is no glass so that would be one less thing to buy. But it may be a crazy idea so it'll probably stay a hardtop. Then this old timer called me who I found when researching the history of this cab, he used to own it in the 80s and is still in the area. We struck up a friendship, awesome guy to know. He called me and said his buddy has a rough 32 cab he wants to part with and some of what is good may help me with my cab. So that's got me going back to the rpu idea if some of those parts are better suited for that route. Going to check it out this weekend. Stay tuned!

 

Cool looking project. Love the initial stance. I like when the beds are shortened to be equidistant on both sides of the rear tire. This "balances" out things. Headers look good too.

 

Scooped up a parts truck today. Local, 5 mins away from my house and been sitting behind this old shop for 30yrs. Cab is rough, back and roof are detached from rot, passenger door is . But the cowl is near mint, cowl vent fully operational, 32 heavy front axle I believe, dash still has the gauges, full pedal set, 17” wires and a single 40 wheel I believe. Frame seems savable, bottom is knife edged bud sides and top are solid. Also a single hood side, rough commercial grille, and rear fender. Just took it all haha. Will use what I can for the pickup and the rest will be saved for a future build.

 

That a great haul....

 

got it for a song as well! The grille shell found in the cab has seen better days hahaha

 

@-Brent- I was down by the truck today and test fit a really rough 32 rear fender I have. I forgot to take a picture but my god, I loved it. We looked at some 28 fenders on a roadster in the shop and you are spot on. I'm now on the hunt for 28/29 fenders in the NJ area. Thinking of going front and rear, maybe front fenders cut and probably not running boards due to the channel. If it looks funky without running boards, might whip up some narrower sheet metal ones with some louvers.

 

Suh-weeet!!

 

Ok so I've been sharing a lot of recent progress, but haven't shared any from last year in regards to parts that will come into play on this build. Some of you may have seen my coupe build that is on hold for this one right now, but much of my work there will be used here. So here we go, bombs away on some details/pictures:

The A frame that this is channeled over is a Chassis Engineering boxed frame with a 2" kickup that I got off a guy who bought it in the early 90's. He had it powdercoated but never used it, sat in his garage until I bought it off him last year. Not original, but it's a nice sturdy foundation, plus it had the forged CE axle that is representative of the 32 heavy axle. I hated the silver powdercoat job so I drilled out the axle:


I originally hated the CE in the middle and was going to fill it, but oh well, it's not original so why try to fake it. Then I had it powdercoated semi-gloss black with the rest of the parts that were previously this silver/fake chrome crap:


Found a caravan middle seat at a local junkyard for $25:


I had a 327 that was given to me by my uncle and tore that down. Found 2 cracks between the freeze plugs and it was trash so I was onto finding a new one. Was debating going another route but then a friend sent me a guy's number a town over with a complete, but torn down, 327 for 200 bucks. It ended up being standard bore and super clean so I couldn't pass it up.


Brought that block to the machine shop, had it cleaned up and the short block built. .030 over, comp xe268 cam, stock forged sj crank, approx. 10:1 compression. Nothing too fancy but should be a fun little street motor.


Then I found what I was planning the whole time, the piece that I will build the entire car around. An original Edelbrock X1 intake. I was looking for awhile and not a lot of them turn up, especially after they discontinued repopping them. One popped up for sale locally and it was an original, I was sold and had to have it. I ended up getting it for a great deal. It came with rochester carbs that need a rebuild, what appear to be older hat style covers and what I believe to be a complete Eelco linkage. I will be having the carbs rebuilt and then running frogmouths, if I can find some that fit on rochesters.


Found a set of cal custom valve covers that were covered in 5 lbs of gunk. Got all that off then lightly sanded and started polishing. In the picture where the two covers are on top of one another, the top is sanded and not polished at all yet while the bottom has been polished. Not perfect by any means, but way better than where they started. They kind of go with the whole vibe of the truck, kind of nice, kind of rough but looks like it may have back in the day.


Ok that's all for today! See I am much farther along than you may think!

 

I ran repop frog mouth scoops on my ‘34 for a while. If I recall I just drilled and tapped them for a couple tiny set screws at the base.

 

@Barbarian I found a set of 28/29 fenders. If you are interested, PM me.

 

@-Brent- Sent you a PM. Thank you !

That's what I was thinking. I've been debating taking a chance on Speedway's frogmouths that are around 40 for a pair. Cheap way to try it out I guess

 

@-Brent- I found a set of 30/31 fenders local that I'm going to check out this afternoon. The fronts are nice, rears have been crudely shortened 4-6". He's asking $400, I feel its a bit high but we'll see. All the 28/29 fenders are either trash or too expensive to start cutting up. He has running boards as well but we'll see if he throws them in or not if I haggle for the full set. I was thinking of not running, running boards but if I did always had the slotted commercial style in my head or a set of narrowed fabricated ones with louvers. May also louver the front fender where it swoops down towards the door and the rear of the rear fender. Here's some inspiration

 

Whoa!

 

Well we are going fendered now. Just picked these up


Look at these rears, they must have been molded in on a street rod or something. Atleast I saved them from that awful life. This whole build is turning into parts saved from an abusive past life

 

Looking forward to seeing them mocked up on your truck

 

Those fenders look really good, will clean right up & be a great addition to your truck... Nice score!!