1930/31 pick up with a sports coupe cowl??

[mullskull]

i finally got around to replacing the roof wood in my 31 pick up...

much to my surprise when i removed the what i believe to be the original wood, under the header there are 2 chrome plated brass nubs that stick out .. they appear to be locators for a convertible top, so that got me thinking that my truck was built with a sports coupe cowl???

aside from a patch panel on the back of the cab the cab appears to be original...or so i thought...

needless to say the wood kit for a closed cab pick up doesn't fit.. specifically the header-
the corner brackets don't line up with there corrosponding holes, and the visor sits high.. both seem to be about an inch too high-

more helpful information...

i've never done this before-
i'm far from a Model A expert-
i'm doing this blind, meaning just with common sense, no directions.. it seems pretty cut and dry... famous last words-
and...
i cut the two locators off..
hopefully i didn't shoot myself in the foot by doing that?!?!

so, my question for the experts out there is this..

what header should i use??
or
what am i doing wrong??
did they give me the wrong header?
#A-1027 from Classic Wood Products

here are some pictures for reference....

thanks in advance for your feedback


Rich-

[Bob C]

Don't know what you have but I don't think it's a pickup cab. Looking at the bottom left
picture I see what looks like a package tray under the rear window and the pickups didn't
have this.

Bob

[mullskull]

Bob...
there wasn't a package tray there, just the horizontal cab brace...

[Bob C]

It doesn't look right, could you post a better picture.

Bob

[Ray in La Mesa]

The locater pins look like the ones on a 1930 68B cabriolet/A400 convertible sedan cowl header rail, the top hold down thumb screws engage the notch. Might be worth your effort to find another cowl and sell this one to a cabriolet/A400convertible sedan owner.

[SteveB31]

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Your cowl is from a Cabriolet rather then a sport coupe. You will have difficulty fitting the header wood because the header wood was made to fit a pickup cowl. Cabriolet cowls are different on the top as well as different in other ways as they were made by Briggs , not Ford. I would like to see some pictures inside the cab to see if it is also paer coupe, cabriolet ,pickup or?.. could you post more pics so we can give better advise?

[mullskull]

well this clears up so questions.. doesn't really help me too much... since the cabriolet has no visor, i'm guessing that there is no wooden header either??

it's way too late to change the cowl.. the sub frame nor any other part of teh cab seems to be pieced together..

the visor was brazed to the A pillar... and yes i did cut the locators off...

what would some other tell tales be from inside the cab???

this truck is more of a HAMB build.. as it's far from original..
reversed firewall, 324 olds , a metal floor, that's just the tip of the iceberg.. way too much time invested to turn back now...

any suggestions of how i should go about fitting the header??

i figured that my question had a better chance of being answered here, at the barn

[mullskull]

According to the serial # it appears to be a late November of 1931..
the truck came with a wide bed, and the firewall was the earlier style(no indention)
the title i have is from 1963...

do you think that this is something that someone pieced together a long time ago, or something that was made at the factory with parts that were laying around.. since 32 was a model change year?

all of the sub frame had original rivets holding it together...
the wood was totally wasted that was in it.. i guess tomorrow i can try to piece the old parts together for reference....

rich

[mullskull]

it looks like at some point in time there was some metal work done.. the top of both A pillars are leaded in....
'again is this something that would be done at the factory??

[Roadster62]

The subrails on a Cabriolet were wood so I'm guessing a lot of fab work was done to connect things. How well do the doors fit? Interesting to see how Ford parts can be mismatched and built into something. Bob

[mullskull]

The doors fit pretty good, nothing grossly out of alignment. . It almost looks like they fabbed in a cabriolet header rail. ... see the lead work on the top of the a pillars? Bob, does your windshield attach to your header? Also is there a height difference between ccpu & a cabriolet windshield?? What are some other differences between cowls? All the sub rail stuff looked to be original.....
I'm pretty curious as to who did what here, and why!

[mullskull]

so it looks like the rest of the cowl is ccpu/coupe... and at some point someone grafted on the cabriolet header rail.. perhaps they were trying to make a cabriolet pick up.. why they would do that i have no idea!

now i just need to decide if i'm going to modify the wooden header, or put the header rail back to how it's supposed to be-

anybody have photo's of the header rail area minus the wood??

thanks for all your contributions...

[Bob C]

Here are some more pictures I have of different peoples projects.

Bob

[mullskull]

thanks Bob...

i think it'll be less work to modify the wooden header than remove and replace the header beam...

rich-

[Model A Man]

may be it was a cowl from a town car or town car delivery.

[mullskull]

Whatever it is or was , the header beam was defiantly fabricated in... the lead work and visor contest to that...