Junkyard-bound ’41 Ford Undergoes Amazing Transformation
Living next to a junkyard paid off for this FTE member. But it also paid off for his incredibly lucky 1941 Ford truck.
If there’s one thing that never ceases to amaze us, it’s the talent and resourcefulness of our Ford Truck Enthusiasts members. There’s quite simply no project too large or truck too far gone to save. Take Roger Walling, for example. He just so happens to live pretty close to a junkyard, which led to him taking possession of a 1941 Ford in a scenario one could attribute to pure fate.
“Someone left this in my yard a while back. He was headed to the junkyard 500 feet down the road and he thought I could do something with it.”
The cool old 1941 Ford work truck had obviously seen better days. But it couldn’t have landed in better hands. The OP just so happened to have a 1988 GMC van sitting around that he didn’t have any use for. So he decided to chop the body off of that and mate the entire rolling chassis up with his old Ford body. Talk about one heck of a project!
In case you were wondering, that extra axle isn’t functional. And yes, this project involved a lot of fabrication.
“It does not have two differentials. The first axle is for show only. It is a 3,500 lb axle with only the weight of the tires on it.
For the door restoration, I used a piece of 1’8″ plate formed to the door contour in order to reinforce the hinge area and bottom. The inside bottom is a replacement panel. This was welded to the plate 3/4″ above the bottom, leaving the bottom of the door 1/8″ thick to resemble the original thickness of the door. A strip of 16 gauge was welded to the curved section of the bottom.
Note the plug welds along the rounded edge of the fender. They are holding a piece of 1’2″ round rod shaped to the entire fender opening. I later filled the gap on the inside of the fender and sealed with a metal bonding adhesive to keep the water out of the seam. By the way, the truck was once owned by the company on the door that carried stone for the building of Washington monument.”
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