[elky] Re: '29 Chevy (was: Ford) truck

  • From: Ray Buck <rbuck@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: elky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2011 20:59:19 -0600

Yeah...I think we might have to get out the wet noodle for 40 lashes.  :)  Here's my take on it:  It's a 1-ton which makes it undesirable as a street rod...mostly.  There are more and more "farm trucks" or commercial vehicles being rodded, cuz the half-tons are pretty rare, especially 30s Chevys cuz they used so much wood in their construction that a huge percentage of 'em rotted away and they were scrapped.   Having said that, I think it'd make a WAY kool hot rod hauler, the other option (which I see frequently enough at car shows) is to do a full restoration on it...which would be much harder than makin a hot rod. 

But picture this:  A big block motor, truck gearbox and rear end, duallies in the rear and a tilting bed to drive the hauled vehicle on and then add A/C and all the comfort goodies...and haul your car to the salt flats.  :) 



The photo above is a 39 COE (Cab Over Engine) but it's been given the treatment I had in mind for the 29. 

Now...there is a HELL of a lotta work to be done on it.  Complete frame off, replace frond & rear suspension, steering, drive train...and then you could start on the rollback bed.  It would be a LONG-term project and you'd have to replace just about everything on it.  You'd pretty much have the frame (which might need rebuilding...grinding out rivets, replacing any badly-rusted pieces, squaring it up and welding it back together) and the body (second verse, same as the first) with everything else bought/adapted/fabricated. 

There's the middle of the road approach, tho.  That would be to make it roadworthy, then maybe use a 292 sicks and a B/W SM420 transmission (the granny 4-speed from 60s /70s pickups) and make it a "fun truck," more or less a "traditional rat" if you can say something like that.  Not the current Goth or "suicide rat" that seems to have taken rat rods over the top, but a "traditional hot rod," using whatcha got to make it run and enjoy.  You could make a flat bed outta 2x12s and add the tilt feature later if ya wanted.  But that's still a lotta work. 

Is it worth it?  My take on that is that it's worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.  If you're considering buyin, doing a cosmetic "fixer-upper" on it and then selling to turn a profit, I don't think you'd make money on it.  This is a terrible time to be selling anything.  Bleeve me, I've been trying to sell a whole lotta stuff and I'm coming up empty on everything.  Nobody's buying.  It's a buyer's market, not a seller's. 

There are a coupla trucks of that vintage on eBay and for a fully-restored flatbed, the asking price seems to be somewhere between $10 and 16k.  I'd bet a rather large sum that there's more money invested in the resto process than that if they're recently done.

So there ya have it...for what it's worth.

r

On 9/25/2011 7:46 PM, Saul Marsh wrote:
Oops it's a Chevy truck.  I might have just forfeited my elkylist membership :)


From: Saul Marsh <saulmarsh72@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "elky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <elky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2011 8:45 PM
Subject: [elky] '29 Ford truck

Ray, is this a good deal?  just suprised to see something like this in Wichita.  Not shopping for another project.


Saul
'76 GMC Sprint


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