Hi everyone,
I recently came across at '47 half-ton panel truck for sale, but I have a few questions before I commit to it. Most of them were answered in the forum, but I still have one that I haven't yet figured out.
I went and looked at the truck last weekend. It's pretty rough, but I don't think it's that bad. There's a lot of surface rust, but it doesn't seem to be rotten through anywhere. Apparently it's from somewhere in the Carolinas, and I don't think it's moved under its own power since it came to Ohio, so it probably hasn't seen our wonderful road salt.
I know that most of the parts from the front doors forward are interchangeable with the pickups, so they aren't too hard to find. I'll also need a new set of rear fenders, and I found a place that sells fiberglass replacements (thanks to this forum, actually).
My problem is this - part of the frame from around the rear doors is missing. It looks like it was cut out, and a couple cuts were made into the rear part of the roof. It looks like somebody wanted to put something in the back that was too tall for the doorway. The roof shouldn't be too tough to patch, but I need to replace the door frame. Is there any place that sells them? The place that has the truck also has a junkyard full of old trucks and such, and it looks like they've got a couple AD suburbans in there, but I could only see them from the front and side. Do the suburbans have the same door frame, or does it depend on which type (clamshell or barn) of doors it has? How hard would it be to remove the frame from another truck, assuming that one of them has it in decent shape? And if they don't have one that's usable, amd I stuck trying to fabricate something to replace the original door frame?
Any information is greatly appreciated. I'm hoping to go and make an offer this weekend, if it turns out that it can be repaired in any reasonable way.
Last edited by Peggy M; 05/28/2023 8:12 PM.
