Car Talk: The Model A Pickup
To continue the story of the Model A pickup, there wasn't much there when I started. Basically I got a 1931 Model A frame, a '31 pickup cab and the front half of a box. It sat on an original front and rear end assembly.
First to go was the rear end. It was replaced with a '48 Ford rear end mounted under the Model A rear spring. Next to go was the stock front end replaced with a ’48 Ford front end that was reversed, suicide front end, and the brakes were left off. Well, we actually did that back in the 50's because we felt rear brakes would stop most lightweight hot rods. Of course you relearned braking techniques and a real panic stop would still be a thrilling ride. Just lock up the rears and try to keep them behind the front end. Of course we had nothing on today's drifters, if you're into that.
I did the modification to the front of the frame for the suicide front end with a piece of round steel tubing and six inches of three inch angle iron. It looked something the sketch shown here. Shocks were used '54 Ford items off Dad's car. Well, we used them to get the pattern done and always intended to put on some new chrome ones. Never did get any cash to buy chrome.
Now to the power. A '49 Merc provided the engine and a '35 Ford the transmission. Yes the old tranny had to be shifted with some grace or it would grind a pound or two off the gears. But, in this light weight we could use second and third without any problem In fact second gear would give all the tire spin you could handle, if you dropped the clutch around two grand. A really short Ford torque tube drive shaft handled the power delivery. The reason it was really short? We moved the firewall back to just ahead of the door post and put the flathead under the cowl. Looked pretty good and gave us about a 50/50 weight distribution. Of course long legged drivers found it a bid uncomfortable.
Last, we dropped the cab over the frame about six inches in the back and eight inches in front. Rather than deal with finding parts a wooden birch wood box was built. This was the only finished component on the car. With a couple of coats of sealer it looked real good. The rest of the cab never got beyond sanding and primer and as mentioned before none of the chrome ever made it to the car.