Body Work and more Body Work

After starting out with high hopes and getting the cab and engine fitted into the 1998 frame in early November the guys started on the body work.

I expected the body work to take 10 to 14 days with the 2 guys doing it.   However  the body work seemed to move very slowly and mostly on weekends.  I came to find out that they were only working part time in the evenings but even at that I expected things to go faster that they were.  Week after week I would stop by and saw little progress on the body panels.

 The owner of DNA was only at his shop part time and it was clear that without direct management the body guys were not putting much effort into the project.  Eventually what really frustrated me is that the body guys logged hundreds of hours against my bill but did very little for way too much money.  It became clear they were shafting me, and I became angry!

After a month and a half at the end of December  they had primed and sanded the cab about 80% of the process to be ready for paint.  For over a month they had been  charging me outrageous hours but not producing much.  At this point I did not what them to continue on the project, they were terminated.

Since this time I have learned that a good body man could do the priming and sanding on this truck in about 8 days for about 1/4 the cost of what I paid for the labor for the pictures below.

Halloween and Metal Work

During late October I was traveling outside the USA and returned just in time to set up our annual Halloween surprises.  For the last 15 years I have celebrated Halloween with lots of music and props, over the years my collection has grown and how includes flaming pumpkins, an 11' anamatronic reaper Demon and lots of props.  A few pictures below.

Since I had been traveling there were numerous business issues to take care of before I could get back to working on the truck project.  

DNA had disassembled the old truck and sent it to media blast, when it came back there were numerous holes in the body that would have required significant repairs.  They are well connected and were able to find a 1946 Cab that had some of the parts we were missing and they disassembled that and sent it to Media Blast.  

Then they wen to work and dissembled the 1998 Dodge 3500 truck and disposed of the unwanted cab and bed.  When the 1946 cab came back from media it had a few holes but was in good shape.  Then came the slow part, working to fit a 1946 cab around a modern Cummins 5.9L engine that was 3 times the size of the original engine while at the same time finding the right placement for the body components.

In order to get all this to fit the Engine had to be removed off its mounts and moved back on the frame about 6" and down about 4".  Then the nose of the cab had to be stretched 5"  to accommodate the big inline Diesel engine.  Jake Winterton fabricated new mounts and welded them in, he also fabricated mounts for the cab to allow it to fit into the frame.  

The Frame itself was too big and had to be cut almost 9" to fit the cab, even after stretching it.  During the process the cab and fenders came off and on the truck many times.

Once everything fit and cleared the Cummings 5.9l 12V engine was sent off to Court and his crew at

Outlaw Diesel Performance, after consulting with Court I decided to upgrade the injectors, timing plate, exhaust, and intake.   When its done I hope it looks something like this.

The Turbo will be upgraded to a 61mm 950cfm Turbo which should result it about 550 HP 850 Ft/lbs of torque in a modern Diesel engine.  

Two weeks after Halloween I was finally able to stop by and see the progress.  While Dan had kept me in the loop this was the first time I could check on the progress myself.  Here are some of the pictures from my visit that day.

This is the 1946 Dodge cab sitting on the 1998 Dodge Frame with  5.9L Cummings engine out.  You can see the doors from the 1947 fit perfectly into the cab of the 1946 model.

On the left side of this picture you can see the 5" extension in the nose.  They used 5" cut from the front of the original hood to weld in place and the made a custom center piece with hinges to attach it together

The fenders required a pie slice to expand them properly to fit on the frame.  Lots of hand pounding and welding here.

This is the passenger side fender that needed the same expansion and the body had some rust as well

The original 1946 dodge used a wood floor board this will need to be replace.  This picture shows the custom cab and engine mounts as well as the work on the floor to attach the body securely.  Eventually a custom shaped cover will be made to fit over this hole.  The engine will come into this opening about 3 to 5".

Progress seemed painfully slow but a fair amout of trial and error was required to get everything to fit

Design Theory & Finding a Donor Chassis

My father currently lives in Whitney Idaho and his primary heat source is a wood stove. In order to feed the wood stove with enough wood every fall my father and brothers go logging every year.

My last gift to my father was a Stihl Chain Saw model MS-361, which is a high performance chain saw. He has enjoyed the saw and uses it regularly during the fall and winter to cut wood and prepare it for the stove.

Sine the one time a year my Father needs a reliable truck is when he goes logging I decided to turn my restoration truck into an high performance logging truck, and since his favorite brand is Stihl chainsaws I decided to use the Stihl colors as inspiration for the color scheme for the truck project.

My Goal was to have the project finished by Christmas, which was about 9 weeks away.  Dan said it was an aggressive goal but would push his team to get the project moved through quickly.  Normally projects like this take 6 to 12 months and guys often spend years on restoration projects.  Dan took the challenge and ran with it!

Since my goal was to build a reliable truck high performance truck, I could not use the original chassis or engine.  Modern Dodge 1 ton (3500) trucks use the Cummings diesel engine, which is a great engine but it has way too much power for the 1947 Frame and Chassis.   I wanted the look of an old truck with the performance and power of a modern truck.  It would require buying a modern 1 ton truck and using the frame, and power train but fitting the 1947 body onto the modern frame.

The owner of DNA Automotive, Dan White and I discussed many options for the design, he was confident that he could fit the 1947 cab onto the modern frame.

 I spent 3 weeks pouring over Co-part auction looking for a Dodge 3500 with some body damage but an intact frame and engine. I could never find the perfect truck and when I found some that might work and we couild drive to pick up then I lost every auction as the prices quickly climbed over $20,000 and the entire process proved to be a waste of time.

After several weeks of looking locally on KSL and other places, I found a local dealer who had a 1998 Dodge 3500 Flatbed utility truck for a price that fit the budget.  Since we were on the clock I bought the truck and Ashley Wheelright, drove the truck to DNA in Ogden.  It was never to be seen again.

What to do for my Father?

Every September I host a large paintball game in the Logan Utah area called Aliens in the Rockies .  My Father has been kind enough to help me with the event since he retired a few years ago.  As we were preparing to take some trailers from my house up to Logan my Father was climbing into my truck and he noticed the hood of an old car across the street behind my neighbors fence.  His curiosity was piqued and he immediately went to check out what it was.  He is not much of a car guy so I'm not sure why it grabbed his attention, but it sure did.

As he climbed on the fence and looked over he came back to the truck all excited and explained it was a 1947 Dodge truck just like the one he moved to Georgia in, and then of course he regaled me with the entire tale yet again on our hour drive to Logan.

1947 Dodge Truck behind neighbors fence October 2013

...

Exactly 2 years later in September of 2013 I was thinking about my Father and I felt that I wanted to do something nice for him as a Christmas gift, something that he would really enjoy and then I remembered the incident with the 1947 truck that had happened about 2 years earlier.

The two events coalesced in my mind and I realized that I could make my father very happy by restoring this old truck from his youth.  The very truck his own father had driven cross country to Georgia and then back to Utah the following year.  I had the opportunity and ability to restore a lost family heirloom.

The irony is that for 12 years one had been parked across the street from my front door.   That cannot be coincidence, so I started my quest to see if I could afford to restore the Truck and how difficult it would be to accomplish my goal of restoring the Truck by Christmas 2013.

In the 2 years since my Father first noticed the old truck my neighbor had divorced and moved away but left the old truck sitting behind the fence on the side of  his X-wife's garage.  I contacted my neighbor and inquired if he was willing to sell the truck.  He bought the truck when he was 16 years old and had owned it for 27 years. He was unwilling to sell the truck, because he had dreamed for years of restoring it and putting a Chevy Big Block 572 with blower and making it a classic Hot Rod.  (Pictured Right)

I thought my Restoration project was dead before it started.  I am not the type of person that takes no for an answer and after some persistence and continued negotiations he realized he was never going to be able to restore it because of his situation and agreed to sell the me the truck on the condition that I get him pictures when it was restored.

A few days later my neighbor and I dis-assembled his fence and he pulled the old truck out of his drive way and 20' up the street in front of my house.  By that night it was moved to DNA Automotive in Ogden to begin the restoration process.  Here is the picture from October 5th 2013.

Family Stories of Moving to Georgia

My Grandfather William M. Turner homesteaded in Jensen Utah just outside of Vernal around 1914.  By 1956 he was Married and had several small Children.  His father Harvey Turner asked William and his family to come back to Georgia and help run his chicken farm so by June of 1956 Grandfather packed up his family and moved back to Georgia.

The family packed up their entire household into a 1947 Dodge Farm truck and started for Georgia.  I imagine it looked something like this.

Here is an article in the Vernal Express about it.

Vernal Express 1956-06-07
by Mrs Nile Ainge

The Wm turners move to Georgia

The William Turner family left Saturday for Gainsville
Ga. to make their home en route they visited in Denver
with mr. turners sister Mrs Martha Reddick and family an other Sister Cozeta Thistle of Grand Junction also met them in Denver.
...............

My Grandfather had a sister in Denver and the family must have stayed with them.  I assume Grandma called  Mrs. Ainge to give them the information that appears in the Vernal Express newspaper since it references the stay in Denver.  The article did not address any of the rest of the trip from Denver to Georgia which is where things get interesting.

Driving across county in 1956 was slow, there was no interstate freeway system and most cars were unable to go fast.  The Dodge truck had a top speed on 45 miles per hour under the best of conditions.  Durign this trip it was loaded down with household goods which was a heavy load for the old truck.

The engine in the Dodge was 250 ci  Flat head Engine had around 82 HP.  The picture below shows two shift levers.  The taller lever was the transmission shifter, a 3 speed manual.  The second shift lever was for the rear axel,  the axel contained a set of gears that allowed a hi and lo gear.  Low gear would be used around the farm and to go uphill.  The higher gear would have been used on the highways.  Due to the relatively low engine horsepower and the leaf spring suspension it would have been a slow bumpy ride on the way to Georgia.

After leaving Denver the truck broke down before they reached the Kansas state line.  My Grandfather being my fix-anything pulled the truck to the side of the road, took the family car back to Denver for parts and overhauled the engine on the roadside, a few days later they were on the road.

Somewhere in  ? Nebraska ?  the truck broke down again and this time there was no saving the engine after some frustration they removed and replaced the engine with a 1953 Plymouth Engine, my father always gets excited  to tell this story because he helped his father with all the work and it was a very traumatic experience for him and the family.

I have heard this story many many many times from my father and he has even re-enacted the story at our first William Turner family reunion.