51 F1 Rat Rod

I suppose it's time I played show and tell with my project. I originally perchased this 51 F1 for the 8BA flatty for $600, as I was planing a nostalga model A. But I got talked into selling the flatty for $500( big mistake) and decided to do something with what was left. Which wasn't much. Being a Canadian truck and even worse Ontario = rust. I hadn't really heard much of the rat rod sceen at the time and was looking for some insperation. So I looked at lots of pics and formulated and idea on how I wanted it to look.
Here are a few pics of what I started with.

I bought this truck around 1998 and had sat on it till 2002. At the time I was 39. I decided my path and started in the winter of 2002. The first thing I did was to lay out some tape on the floor just to get and idea of length and wheel base. Then I built a mock up frame from 2x4's. Man did I take a ribbing for that. Some guys in my club actually thought that was going to be my frame. Amatures . You may notice in the pics that there is some blue tape on the roof. I had been planing to make it a convertable originally, but later changed my mind to something I think you will find more interesting. More on that later. Here is a few more pics

The next step was to start cutting steel for the frame. Now this thing is long, 138" wheel base. I didn't think it needed it, but on my dads advise I used 2x5" tubing for the frame. However I did taper the bottoms of the rails from the fire wall forward down to 4" at the front. Some of you may notice that my frame table looks suspiciously like.... well, a frame. And you would be right. In fact it is a frame from a 47 White Truck that one of the other guys in my club was kind enough to let me use as a jig table. He had it set up on steel saw horses that could be leveled and it worked out fabulously. I used pipe clamps and C clamps to hold it all in place for welding.

Here are a few more pics of the basic frame layout. My Dad has never been a really big car guy but is a fantastic industrial mechanic and fabricator. He for some reason became very interested in this project and wanted to help along. Now I've been in the Auto Body trade forever and a good fabricator in my own right, but who am I to pass on 50 yrs of experience at my side. So I let him beg for a little while and then let him come and play.

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My idea for this project was to use as much of the original truck as I posibly could as far as mechanicals and suspension. To that end I will be using the original front axel converted to transverse sping and 4 bars, and the rear leaf springs with a few leafs removed, and a ford 9" rear end. So far the truck has cost me only $100 dollars (after selling the flathead) $125 for the rear end and $400 in steel for the frame, which I was able to get a good deal on since one of the club members works at the place where I got it. They also delivered it for free.

This truck has also become the classic mistake of changing directions, which is usually fatal to a project but in my case that is just engineering. Sometimes a better idea just has to be followed. You may notice in these pics that the front of the frame has changed a bit from when it was on the jig. I have also mocked up and started the engin mounts, trans mounts and X member. These to are now subject to change due to a better idea.

Now in these pics I'm working on setting up the porfile and starting to set up the front suspension. At my place of employment we had a Dodge truck come in that had both sides of the box punched in but the floor was still good so I scooped it. I also needed a set of wheels that had the right hight for setting up the front end. I managed to find a set of these ultra rare
"B.F.Woodrich Radial Tree A's". Now the story has it that these came off the famous Flintstone Flyer. As you may remeber Barny build the car and Fred raced it,and in their first race Fred overworked the original stone wheels and lost the race. After this they went to these high tech wheels.

Ok, here are some more pics of the work going into the front suspension. The first thing I did was to use some 1x2" tubing clamped to the frame rails and the tack welded to the axel. This held it centered front to back and side to side while I made all my critical measurements. We have a local rod shop here called Hortons that I had make up some custom length 4 bars. I also purchased the spring and hardward from them. This all cost about $250.

More pics of the front end. These show the brackets that we made up to attach the spring and 4 bars. If you study these pics you will notice that where the spring shackle mounts through the bracket allows for total adjustment of the caster angle. At this point I'm still waiting for some special shackle bolts to be Tig welded together so I can mount the spring. I'm really good with the Mig welder but I don't want to take any chances where safety is a concern. I like being on the top side of the sod.

I picked up this 38 chev nose at the Barrie (Ontario) Flea Market. This is all automotive stuff, runs for three days twice a year, you can't hardly see it all in that time. My idea is to shorten in up to fit between the hood and frame and widen it to match the hood. Then fill the grill area with modified 48 grill bars.
Yup, there's my dad. Possin again. lol

I was very surprised one day when I picked up the fall 2005 edition of Car Kulture DeLuxe and saw this pic on the first page. This is very much like what I have in mind....... only different.

By the way, did anyone notice the extra set of doors in the background in the last set of pics....hmmmm wonder what their for?

Interesting thing about this truck is that I didn't find another pic of it anywhere untill I found it again on another sight. Then low and behold there was this first pic. Very cool.......and then it seemed I was finding pics of it everywhere.

Alrighty then, here is where things get really interesting. Remember I had said that this was going to be a convertable at first? Well that idea changed in favour of leg room and keeping a roof over my head. You see my dad stands 6 feet 6 inches tall, and I didn't think he would look to good catching bugs in his teeth while ridin with me. The answer is...... drum roll please...... stretch the cab 4" in the doors along with chopping the roof 4" at the back. Tipping the roof forward just a little with a 1/4" wedge cut at the belt line, which gave me a 5" chop at the front. All this and gobbs of leg room. The beauty of the way I did this is, by moving the back of the cab back 4" I could then lean the A pillars back. Even though the overall chop at the front is 5" I only lost 1 1/2" of actual window hight in the front. I also chopped below the rear window so I have all kinds of vision and will be able to see the traffic lights out the front window without having to crouch forward or open the door. lol.

Now the second set of doors will be used to help build the new longer doors.

roddguy said:

I was very surprised one day when I picked up the fall 2005 edition of Car Kulture DeLuxe and saw this pic on the first page. This is very much like what I have in mind....... only different.

By the way, did anyone notice the extra set of doors in the background in the last set of pics....hmmmm wonder what their for?

Click to expand...

I like what you've done with your f-1! The grill should look really cool!
The Pork Chop Special is the truck that inspired me to go ahead and buy my 51 f-1 cab. Like you, the Pork chop is what I have in mind --- only different!

Thunder1

More pics.

You can clearly see the releaf cuts that where needed on the roof in order to bring the A pillars back out to meet the lower sections. What is a little harder to see, because they have already been welded and dressed, are the cuts in the top of the cowl that were needed to bring the lower half of the pillars back to meet the uppers. I also had to remove the inner roof section and the dash to make this move. They will be modified and returned. Althought I have been toying with the idea of installing a 55 chev dash

I had to clamp a piece of angle iron to the lower windshield frame, and do a lot of hammer and dolly work across where it curves down into the cowl so everything would roll back evenly.

A bunch of cuts, alot of hammer and dolly work to recontour the roof, and one 1/2" wedge of steel added was all it took to get the roof looking good.

My dad thought it would be a good idea to have disc brakes on this thing, and I do agree, but I really do prefer the look of the drums. Dad did all the engineering to fit Chrysler rotors on the original spindals, along with late 80's Buick calipers. He made up the mounting ring with the Mickey Mouse ears to pic up the calipers and I welded it all together. Then we sent them out for machining to make sure they where true to the rotors. Only took 10 thousands to get booth of them straight. We have however discovered an issue with the track width being a little to narrow, and I may yet have my way with the drums. Yeah right! Dad Has already said all it needs is a spacer to bring them out a little bit.

More pics of the brakes.

Ok, up untill this point all was going really well. All of this work had been done in about 7 or 8 months. However, it was riiiiiight abouuuut "here" when the **** hit the fan as they say. It was at this time when my wife decided she could do better on her own and left me with our 6 yr old daughter to raise on my own. Now I'm not winein, that's just the facts, but work slowed conciderably. I puttered away on bits and pieces, and collecting parts. Then in May of 2004 I had a back injury that landed me in the hospital having surgery to correct to problem. Lucky for me I found an excellent Doctor, and he did a good job, but I was totally out of commision for a year and a half. Then by 2006 I started slowly getting back into the groove renting myself out doing some fab work like on this 2002 Ford.