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So, what do
you do when you have a spare cowl lying around your shop with
no home. You feed several Rodfathers a few cold ones and
pretty soon one of them will say, I can make a car / truck out
of that! And so starts a new project for fellow Rodfather,
Dave Paddle. |
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| So you
have a starting point, the cowl. Not having the rest of the
truck you are free to design it yourself. Or in this case you
get Mike from MJ Sign Craft in Ridgeway to do it for you.
Nothing personal Dave but your crayon drawings on a napkin are
hard to work from! |
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Looks neat
with some colour on it but what’s with the name. Let me
explain that for you. Dave’s a big fan of different. No cookie
cutter cars with a small block chev for him. He knew where to
find a Pontiac straight 8 cylinder engine. That’s different.
But not enough. Let’s put the engine in the rear and put a
flat bed on it. Yea, that’s different. Even better, let’s use
the 3 speed standard transmission and the rear end out of the
Pontiac. Oh, did I mention it’s a 48 Pontiac FLATHEAD. |
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| Now is
where the fun starts. You add some steel to the cowl you started
with until you have the shape you desire. Not too difficult. Now
you need a friend that can cover it for you. |
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| We’ll
take it to Gary, he’s stupid err, make that a good friend, he
will help. Are you starting to see the concept drawing here?
Other than a slight difference in the shape of the roof, we are
sticking to the design as close as we can. |
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| Here’s
Dave building the frame. Steel tubing 2x5 inches should make a
strong frame, right? He tapered the rails at the front to help
lower the ride height as we are going to mount the front axle
with quarter elliptic leaf springs. Take a leaf spring, cut it
in half and clamp the thick end solidly to the side of the frame
so they point forward to the axle. The thin end then rests on
top of the axle where the springs would normally mount. Hold it
all in place with a hairpin or 4 link set up and you have front
suspension. That’s different! |
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| Here is
the semi finished frame on the deck of my shop truck. To give
you an idea of the size of this thing, the deck on my truck is 9
FEET long. I think the frame measures about 16 feet long. Even
with a short hood [about 24 inches] an even shorter driveshaft
[about 6 inches] this thing will have a wheelbase longer than a
6 man cab long box pickup. That’s BIG. |
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| Here’s a
picture from Dave’s garage. I apologize for the quality but
digital cameras can only do so much. At least you can see the
basic shape, and can see we weren’t kidding, this thing does
exist. It may take a couple more years as Dave is a big fan of
doing everything as frugally (read that as cheap) as possible.
If he can’t make it or buy it at a flea market he will scrounge
a junk yard to find what he needs. What you have seen so far
totals less than $500 total cash outlay. |
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| Another view of
this unique truck showing the mock up of its engine location.
The engine and transmission measure more than 5 feet in length. |
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| Here is a little
better view showing the rear axle location as well as the
engine. The engine is a little high here and needs to be lowered
to better align the driveshaft to the rear axle. |
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| The 1948 Pontiac
transmission has a unique shifter arrangement. All the functions
of the shifter are controlled by one rod and the electric door
lock solenoid mounted above it. Originally 2 rods came from the
column mounted shifter that WAS located directly above the
levers on the side of the transmission. Due to the length of the
shifter rod needed by the rear engine location, it was simpler
to use the solenoid to replace 1 shaft as they are about 9 feet
long. Small micro switches were adapted to the floor shifter so
it still operates as a normal 3 speed shifter would. BIG
driveshaft huh? About 6 inches of tubing between the yokes. Will
it work? We certainly hope so. |
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| Dave has decided
to deviate slightly from the original design by adding Model A
front fenders. As he gets older he is getting to need those
creature comforts like padded seats, windows and fenders more
than he would care to admit. What’s next, a heater? |
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| Here is the
truck rolled out in the daylight for a better look at the
progress. If you look closely at Dave’s Model A on the right you
may notice the windshield is slightly open. Truth is it is
seized in that position making for cool and occasionally very
wet rides. This explains his want of a closed cab truck. If you
need another explanation why he wants a closed cab see the build
up article on his 27 T. It has even less creature comforts than
his Model A. |
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| This should give
you a better idea what the length of this truck is going to be.
The wheelbase is OVER 160 inches, which is longer than a 6 man
pick up with a full 8 foot box. |
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| Here is the 48
Pontiac straight 8 in all its glory. New, probably had 75
horsepower; now 20/30 who knows. With all the spark plugs
installed, you can turn the engine by grabbing the lower pulley
by hand and spinning it. It doesn’t smoke and sounds good
running so Dave is hoping for reasonable highway speeds. I’m
predicting 50 KMH tops! |
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| The fenders are
from a Model A and are mocked up here with clamps etc. to see if
he likes the looks. The honeycomb rad and chrome shell are from
an early Pontiac and are just for looks and to mount the hood.
The real rad lies down between the frame rails with an electric
fan under it to pull air through it. This design was chosen for
the looks of the early rad but the cooling power of a modern rad.
Stay tuned for further updates as the work should start again in
earnest as soon as Dave quits fooling around with some bodies
SHINY car he has in his garage. |
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