Jeff Smiths 1946 Ford half ton pick-me-up truck.
| On the day of July 11, 1999 I picked up my first Street
Rod.(sort of) It is a 1946 Ford half ton pick-up truck. My dad (Bob Smith) and I found it through a friend of ours who wanted to give us the Flathead. He said that it was inside this truck that looked like it had been hit by every piece of machinery on the farm except a locomotive! He said that the Flathead was complete and in pretty nice condition. We bought the engine sight unseen, but when we saw the truck, it wasn't in as bad of shape as our friend claimed. In fact it was in very good shape. Hardly any rust, and no major dents or damage! It was located just out from Chestermere lake so it wasn't to far away from where it would end up being Street Rodded. |
As you can see we really didn’t just get a truck now did we! |
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This type of wrench comes in handy for those stubborn kind of bolts! |
So far (in this article) I have basically stripped it down. The trucks box has been totally disassembled. First, and of coarse we took the rear fenders off which required the "hot" wrench. The floor of the box is probably not what you’d expect. It is made of stamped steel to simulate the wood boards. When we got the floor out we started to take the box sides off. The box sides and front were riveted on so we had to drill them out, and that was quite the job, seeing as how they are all very hard steel rivets. They were attached to the box frame which we later disassembled. Now it’s time to move onto the front end. As you can see in the picture looking through the headlight hole we had to grind some bolts going through to the running boards. |
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| The bolts were bonded through the power of rust but there wasn’t much
work involved in taking the front end off. We carefully stripped down any
exterior features such as the headlights, the buckets, the grill, signal
lights, etc.
After all of those things were in the parts bin it was much easier to grind, torch, and turn the bolts off. Well that is pretty-much all I am going to tell you for this newsletter. I hoped you enjoyed going through the first stage of my truck as much as I did! So until next time... |
The floor of the box is made from steel, not wood planks. This makes it difficult when trying to take it out, especially when rust gets in the way. |
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Part 2, Part
3,Part 4,Part 5,
Part 6
Jeff Smiths Dad has his T Sedan for
Sale Here