A friend removed the body and all sheet metal from his 1938 1/2 ton maybe 10 years ago to restore the chassis. he now has a complete rolling chassis. He retained the hydraulic conversion done years earlier by some previous owner, and installed a later model flathead. We also removed many extra leaves from the springs. The truck had been a plumbers truck and was fitted with racks to carry pipe--and extra springs to carry the loads. So that much is pretty much done.|
He has been stumped on the body work, and hasn't done much for several years. I offered to help, so now most of the Sheetmetal for a '38 1/2 ton is sitting in my garage. I can handle the repairs and primer work and that will keep me busy for a while.
HERE IS WHAT HELP I NEED------
I need anything I can get regarding how the body gets re-assembled. Also, it would be great to know what all the holes in the firewall are for. There are two pretty much on the centerline and not quite at the bottom that look like they could be for heater hoses---except there was no heater, and I don't believe Ford offer hot water heaters in '38.
The LF fender has a rusty mass where i would expect it to bolt up to the lower grille shield. Nothing like this is on the RF fender. I have the lower grille surrounds or shields but nothing seems to correspond to the rusty mass. I will post some pictures, later. I think i can safely remove it.
One more question---I assume ( hate that) that the body NEEDS the frame for support and without the frame and wood supports, it will not be rigid enough to align the doors. I really don't want to paint it, and then find there are alignment issues when we go to mount it on the frame. What is the best way to handle that?
Any pictures of how the body and fenders etc are to be assembled would be greatly appreciated.

 

Here are some pictures...
First is the RF fender with that rusty blob I mentioned.
Then a detail of the rusty blob. It looks like a old repair--a brace that was brazed on probably to support the lower grille valences. Does that seem correct?

 

Here are some pics of the front fender flange:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...nt-fender.html

 

Thanks
I am adding those images to my library.. Maybe I will have some pretty good documentation before i start to assemble.

 

You may want to ask these same questions on the Ford Barn 32-53 forum.

 

Thank you. I did not know about that site.