36 Ford truck on Ranger

[MercuryMac]

Still with the flathead on the Ranger frame picture, I put power hydraulic brakes in this '36. The Ranger running gear already had most of the hydraulic system, so I robbed the vaccuum booster and master cylinder too. It just fit in there.

[MercuryMac]

I used the factory Z'ed frame in front of the cab and behind it as well as cut 1 1/2 coils from the front springs and flipped the rear shackles and hangers up-side-down. The cab is channeled a bit, but I noticed when I got in and sat on the seat with the steering wheel in place that I couldn't shift into 1st or second gear so I had to bend the gearshift away from the steering column. Now I can shift but my knees are right up under the steering wheel and I can't put them anywhere else without surgery. Just a note of warning, you guys with long legs that want a standard transmission. "Mock up your interior once in a while and sit in position makeing V-8 noises, while checking out the comfort." [pic shows Z's, if you use your imagination, and shorter front springs]

[MercuryMac]

I'm really quite happy with the Ranger frame fitting a '36 truck, but there are some little glitches. The first one is the flathead waterpump on the left side is very close to the power steering box. As you know the motor mounts are supposed to bolt to the bottom of the waterpumps, but there is no room in this case. [pic one]. Any other motor with side mounts would work better. I think I'm going to run into grief putting the left front fender on there over the steering box bracket.
I was pretty sure I needed a heater with a defrost system for those drives home in the fall. [looking up under the dash] There is some boxing built in between the two stage upper dash and then I made a louver punch and made two [defrost louvers in the upper dash]. This is a heater out of a tractor that was 24 volt, now 12. It looks O.K. in there.

[MercuryMac]

I always wanted to be cool and cool guys have banjo steering wheels, right? I got an original steering wheel with the truck pieces. I wanted to use the Ranger steering column for the multi-switches so I needed the Ranger hub in my wheel. Instead of just cutting the '36 hub out, I cut the radii out of the wheel at the perimeter ring. [pic 1] I cut the hub out of the Ranger, welded a big homemade convex washer to it and centered it in the '36 wheel. [pic2] I drilled a lot of 3/16" holes in some 1/4" by 5/16" keystock. 15 holes pretty close together and 15 a little further apart. When these keystocks were cut into three 1 1/4" pieces and three 1 3/4" pieces they each had five holes in them. I had cut a lot of 47 Ford choke rods into 7'' chunks and stuffed them through three pieces of square plastic about 1 1/2" long. The keystock pieces were slid onto each end of the five shiny rod combos. The shiny choke rod material won't weld for me but the key stock welded nicely to the perimeter ring and the big washer on the hub. [pic 3] Then I started to bodyfiller the wheel back to its former shape. [pic4] To cover up the hub and make it look original, I cut down a peanut butter jar placed it around the homemade hub and bodyfilled it, before latheing it down with a horse hoof rasp. After a lot of fileing with this and a finer half round file and then sandpaper, the wheel could be painted and painted. [pic5]

[MercuryMac]

Hi again. The box that came with the truck was pretty rotten so I whined to a friend until he gave me a Chev box that looked pretty good. Looking good with flat paint and feeling good with your hand are two different things, so I started heat shrinking the dents in the side panels. I could get the big ones down to small alright, but I couldn't get the small ones down to smooth. I eventually gave up and gave back the Chev box and ordered a Pro's Pick box and floor kit. It came in quickly and it is a lovely box, so I assembled it and mounted it on the frame. Next, I primed it and took some pictures. About this time the grille and aircleaner caught my eye. The air cleaner is a real '56 Olds batwing top fit on the Mercury bottom and converted to paper filter. Then the grille was worked over and primered.

[Sam_Fear]

Nice job on that steering wheel! Isn't that a twin I beam? Are your wheels cambered heavy no that you cut the coils?

[MercuryMac]

Hi Sam fear. Thank you on the wheel, I'm fairly proud of that. Sorry about the small amount of pics on the wheel, but I lost one completely of the keystock welded to the hub and the circumference, and two more could not be dragged over to this site. They were, the cutting out of the hub and spokes, and the banjo strings and little keystock manifolds all ready to put together. I got lucky on the twin I beams. The previous driver was mechanically stupid, and I have a lot of proof of this, but he didn't realize that he was running excessive positive camber, wearing out the outsides of his tires. The lowering of the springs was a benefit in this case, but it's something you have to watch for.

[MercuryMac]

I learned a lot about body work on this project, but was it enough to hide under a thin coat of paint. I was going to go with flat black because it is very forgiving on first attempt body work jobs. Then I got arrogant and thought I'd go 1 step shinier. Well satin black is more than 1 step higher so I learned some more right there, and that's the shiniest satin black I've ever seen, Whoa. Anyhow, I like the colour and it showed the body work was passable. The paintjob is mediocre but the body work is O.K.. In the third picture you'll see the taillights. They're '37 Ford car ones with the brackets made out of lawn chair legs.

[Sam_Fear]

You're not kiddin' about shiny! I can see the tire reflection in the last picture.

[MercuryMac]

Yea, Sam fear, That was a bit of a surprise to me. It was one of those screw-ups that you can learn to live with though. I was so pleased with the body work that shiny is O.K. and black is my favorite colour.
L.B.