Ford FAT No.9 Restoration

[Phillip]

Hi Keith,

Body number is confirmed as 147. The stamping is faint and has proven difficult to photograph (tried chalking etc) but you can clearly make out:

29.Q.F.A.T.
147 ->

Thanks, I'll take you up on the offer of photos in due course. I'm a fair way off but still have not worked out how the timber all fits into the rear section.

[Phillip]

I managed to get out of the house and down to the shed on Monday night for a little de-stress and relaxation in the form of assembling the offside crew door.

The inner skin of the original door was almost non-existent but from the scraps that I have, I worked out that they had used a cut down standard door inner skin. A new inner was made from a spare drivers door so to start the original outer skin of the standard door was removed by grinding the spot welds off around the seam (a "fun" job) and the hinge end lopped off.

A filling piece was bent up and welded into the corner where the wheel arch starts and another piece welded along its length to the same angle as the original to create a new edge where it hinges on the 'B' pillar.

The inside plates that hold the window curtain brackets were removed and the door was then stripped of rust and given a coat of killrust grey (because it was handy).

In doing this I noted that all the doors have never had a coat of paint on the inside and can only put this down to war time economy.

The brackets for the window curtains are not in the same place as the normal doors and so new holes were drilled and and the inner threaded plates welded into place along with a stengthening plate that runs down the full length of hinge side.

The original outer skin is all one piece with no welds so I had a new outer skin made by a local (and tolerant) sheet metal fabricator, using the original for a pattern.

The slot for the door handle was cut out with the angle grinder and a dremel (what did I ever do without this wonderful little tool) and an original piece of bar welded into place to hold the tinplate cover.

The new/ old inner skin was fitted to the new outer skin and the edges folded over using the tried and trusted method of a flat surface and a heavy hammer to lock the two halves together.

Hinges were screwed into the new door and the new 'B' pillar has been tacked into place pending completion of the other side.

[Keith Webb]

Wonderful work Phillip, the passenger side second door also has an open top box added to it for the first aid kit.

[Phillip]

Cheers Keith,

I salvaged the original first aid box holder of the door, the door was completely rusted out all around it but the holder itself was in excellent condition.

Does anyone have a photo of the First Aid Box that goes in the holder?

[Euan McDonald]

Hi Phil,
About time we saw progress!
I have been looking for years for the correct first aid tin and one turned up at Corowa a couple of years ago but another MLU'er snuffled it from under my nose.
I did however get a pic.

[Phillip]

Thanks Euan,

Yes it has been a long time coming, but worth the wait (I hope). Its taken a while to get life settled down but the time has been well spent.

I appreciate the photos, how often have we picked things up and putty them down not knowing what they were?

Regards

[Phillip]

Slow progress this week. Both B pillars are now complete and are shown next to the originals (or what was left of them).

As much of the original parts as possible (grab handles/ rifle clips etc) have been transferred to the new pillars. (The red paint is over flow from an internal coat of primer paint).

The 3/4" holes are a pain - they are used to get to the nuts holding the door hinges but spanners for the nuts are bigger than 3/4" ! Also, once welded in place, anything that drops down is lost at the bottom. Hmmmmmm.

The second photo is the near side crew door inner skin. Ive put this up to show the de-rusting process. 24hours in a caustic soda electrolysis(?) bath turns the rust into a black powder and when hit with the wire brush comes up very shiny. Nice. I'm a convert to this method despite shorting out one battery.

Finally, I've tried a different photo format, hopefully they will be bigger now.