1934 ford hot rod truck.

Yeah it’s points related and chassis related stuff. This car will be registered as a ‘reconstituted classic’ so all the parts have to be original and from a short span of years to fulfill the relevant criteria and get it signed off by a club.
I’ll cover it a bit more as those parts go together and explain the bits that have been done to jump through any hoops. I’m in discussion with the guy who will sign it off to exactly what it will get signed off as, as all the running gear is a few years newer than the cab, as was tradition. As long as it gets a pre-war dated v5 I’ll be happy enough though, and it will reflect more accurately what the car actually is so no issues down the line.

Tbh I don’t really watch any media of other people building hot rods. I have clear ideas of my own and don’t want to be influenced by other people or fashion. I will do historical research as to how it was really done back in the day, but that’s about it.
Indeed a lot of what I have done on this car goes well against popular opinion as to what does and doesnt work on a 34 pickup (as does shines).

The iron trap stuff is fairly traditional from what I’ve seen. I saw the one where they dragged some 60s survivor out of somewhere and where laughing at how it was put together, it was a bit hairy if I remember rightly!

They’re really helpful pics, thanks for sharing.
I find third party ‘casual’ shots are a lot more honest about a build than the polished pics taken for promotion. Every builder, no matter how good they are, has bits they’re not happy with on a build. The pics taken of it tend to reflect this- certain angle or areas are not covered.
a third party tends to photograph things differently. I think it stands up well on those shots. Some bits I wasn’t sure on actually look better there.
Seeing it in a more everyday setting is cool too. It shows what a visual assault it really is compared to press shots that tend to show it in a more abstract fashion.

Bookmarked, even though I've seen more than most of this already

This is going to be incredible.

That seat. That seat is pure magic.

Special privileges...

Another thing I’d already got before I knew this was happening was the motor.
It’s 1947 59AB code flathead v8, left over from the 47 truck/ranger project.

Flathead ford v8s ran from 1932 to ‘53, over (broadly) 3 capacities. 59ABs are from 1944(ish) to ‘48, 239ci, and are arguably the most desirable flathead, as they had some technical improvements to oiling and bearings internally, but still looked fully ‘early’ unlike 8BAs and 8RTs. The 48-53 BA/RT code engines had different bellhousing patterns and a ‘conventional’ distributor in a different timing cover, rather than the odd thing mounted directly to the cam that flatheads are known for, making them instantly look more modern.

I had it running briefly before it came out, and it seemed to work okay-ish. It got mildy damaged in the fire but not much. Latent heat rather than actual flames. The thick layer of caked on texas desert dust stuck to oil clag acted as heat insulation, as did it still being full of oil. That and it’s a massive lump of cast iron so can take some heat. Carb and fuel pump went a bit funny and that was it.

I stripped it down to a short block, wire wheeled it all clean and checked it over. I made a new adapter for my heavy duty engine stand to do this.








Other than a bit of a step at the top of the bores I can’t find anything wrong with it, and knowing it did start and run ive just cleaned and painted everything and put it back together for now.

Paint is ford Brunswick green.


I happened upon a pretty tasty twin carb manifold for a 59AB locally so I bought it.


It’s made by hexagon tool, from Detroit.



That’s says patented 1947!

The story behind these is pretty cool. They’re another part dripping in history. The guy who designed and developed them worked with Henry Ford as a consultant on his ‘30s Indy car racers, designing the inlets and other speed parts. Postwar he patented the designs and started selling them.
You can still view the original patent online.
But how did he manage to patent something as generic as a bolt on inlet manifold for a flathead? There were tons of people making them so what made his special? The answer should be obvious to anyone who has a flathead- the carbs are mounted back to front. This allowed two things. The front carb to be mounted further forward, to even out the intake runner lengths, and secondly the stock generator to still fit in its normal location.all other twin carb manifolds have an additional bracket to side mount it, or mount the carbs above it.

Overall, really trick stuff.

I’ve got a couple of decent 94s and some scoops for it now to compete the setup. The linkage will have to be made to suit.


With everything mostly cleaned and painted and mocked up motor wise, it’s looking pretty nice.

That is the plan. Stainless steel is awful stuff to manual work though so it’ll Proably get done in aluminium.

You know full well I mean a build thread 😉

Is it on its yet?
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How ‘bout now?

So, I’ve got the majority of a chassis, I’ve got a motor.
I’ve also got front and rear axles, suspension, springs, brakes, gearbox, etc. but hadnt really taken any pics of them. They will appear as I start covering them in detail.

What’s really missing from the party is a body. The bit that makes this thing an actual 34 pickup, cos at the minute it could wear a few different body years and styles.

This is the slightly more convoluted part of the story, as it involves 2 pickup cabs (well, 1-3/4) to get to what I’ve got today.

The first thing I purchased was this-


It’s a 32-34 cowl, no firewall, bottom rotted away and a pretty nice roof skin. These pickups are pretty odd construction and although the lower sections are welded together, the roof skin bolts on. I’d seen it come up for sale a couple times and discounted it, as had everyone else, as where the hell do you find the other half over here? All you could really do with it is stretch the roof and build a woody.

That was, until I got wind of slightly damaged rear panel for sale down in Devon. I managed to track down the seller and get some pics out of him. Turns out it was not only a cab back panel, but a sub floor and some repair panels too.




This corner was about the extent of the damage. Which to me was nothing really.


This was the original of of his cab. There’s a few 33 pickups over here but not many. His came with a second back to replace this one with the crunched corner. I’m quite amazed anyone would have gone to the effort, I knocked it straight on about 20 mins. But at this point I certainly wasn’t complaining!

Then some highly stressful logistics ensued. I drove done to London and picked up the front section whilst a courier was sent to Devon for the back. It had to be shipped stood up, but the seller was good enough to knock up some Heath Robinson woodwork to prop it up and protect it as much as possible. I was still massively worried about shipping such a panel via palletfreight though.
If anything went wrong I was screwed, I had nearly £2k in this lot.

Two days later, massive relief when it turns up undamaged. Unpack it and prop all the bits together-




Then sit in it with a brew making brum-brum noises for a bit.

Not believing my luck this far with managing to source the cab back to make the front end viable, I decided to go all-out and advertise for some doors.
I could bring them in from the states for about £600 for a passenger door and a grand for a drivers (they’re always knackered so command more money), but I thought I’d push my luck here first.

And that’s where things got really interesting....