Restoration: D750 Ford—Part 31
Deals on Wheels' resident restorer Lyndsay Whittle is back with updates on his latest restoration project
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At CRD Automotive; now in the expert’s hands
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2052 indeed, I thought to myself. That cheeky editor! I’m going to have words with that so-in-so when I see him next. But after I’d made myself a cuppa and lowered my blood pressure to a level that would be acceptable to my doctor, I reflected on the comment and took stock of the actual amount of time I’ve spent on this project, especially over the last few months.
With apologies to those poor folk who’ve been following this project, I must explain to the people who don’t know the story, the reasons behind our Ed’s sarcastic form of wit, to which he chuckled and blamed on a minor typographical error.
With a number of relatively hefty restorations under my belt over the past eight or so years, when it came to looking at possible timeframes to get all the work done on the D Series restoration, I couldn’t see it going past a year, maybe 15 months tops.
Given that I’m now up to twice the expected time for completion and no, I haven’t finished it yet, I guess the Ed’s comments can be fairly justified. In all seriousness though, I must say that it’s becoming a bit of an embarrassment from where I’m sitting, too, so much so that just before Christmas, I took the bull by the horns and loaded the D-Series up on a transporter and took it to CRD Automotive’s workshop in Avondale.
Those who are familiar with my restoration stories will have read about Colin Dunn at CRD quite a bit, as he has provided a lot of help to me in the past, going so far as lending me his transporter for a week to go halfway down the South Island to collect a truck and its donor and bring both of them back to Auckland.
Not only did he lend me the truck, but he also paid for the fuel. I couldn’t have done it without his generous help. The truck that became the result of that trip was my previous restoration, an FGK Morris that once was a milk truck but has morphed into a little tow truck.
Part of my reckoning on the 12 to 15 months it should’ve taken to finish the ‘D’ lay in the fact that the FGK was virtually a ground-up restoration where I had to replace the entire undercarriage of the cab, along with designing and building the tow truck part of the body, all of which was completed in around the same amount of time it’s taken to get this far with the ‘D’.
Oh, and I forgot to say that the Morris had to be re-certified because it hadn’t been registered since Adam was a cowboy, to coin a phrase almost older than the truck and its owner combined.
The ‘D’ by comparison had its registration on hold, thus no need for re-certifying, the cab looked reasonable enough and was never going to have to be removed to carry out any repairs, plus it was a tipper with a decent deck that didn’t require too much physical work.
To further add to the ‘no-need-to-do’ list, because the deck could be raised hydraulically, it should’ve been easy enough to get at the majority of the chassis to give the whole thing a good clean and paint.
When I bought it in May 2016—almost six years ago—I’d driven the ‘D’ (well almost, but it’s too long a story) about 20km to my storage shed and have driven it around my mate’s farm periodically, just to keep things working, at which times, the brakes appeared to work okay. They may have not passed the testing station’s vicious brake test, but they did seem to stop the vehicle with reasonable force.
I must’ve been building up a stock of vehicles to be restored at the time I bought the D, because, at that stage, I’d just had my first restoration—a K Bedford certified and the FGK Morris was in its early stages of restoration. Talk about being a tiger for punishment. Some would say just plain thick, but on with the story.
By the time July 2019 came around, the FGK Morris was on the road and registered, there were several other minor restorations in the can, along with, you guessed it, several more acquisitions to go in the shed for future events of self-torture, so it was finally the D Series’ turn. We were off to a flying start.
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Before
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Despite an interesting holiday to sunny California interrupting proceedings, the engine and engine bay had been cleaned and painted with there being no perceived need to remove the engine, and the rest of the cab bits were coming off by the time October had arrived.
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After
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In January 2020, we came across our first unexpected stumbling block when quite a bit of rust in the front of the cab and the footwells presented themselves. As I can only throw around 20 hours a week at this job, this setback causes perhaps a month of delay, but it’s not so bad, as we’re six months into the restoration. However, it’s looking like that later prediction of a 15-month timeframe is closer to the mark.
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The cab rust was worse than it first looked
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Come April, we’re back on track (more or less), and the cab rust is taken care of, and by July, the cab interior is painted as is some of the outer cab and all is looking good. By the time we arrive in July 2020, yet again I’m re-evaluating the actual time this job is going to take, as we’ve already reached my original best-guess 12-month completion date.
While the cab is painted inside and out, there’s still a month’s work to put it all back together again, it’s looking like that 15-month timeframe is going to be more realistic. The next three-month period comes around pretty quickly; we’re at the 15-month mark and still no sign of the finish line.
Deciding to give myself some wriggle room, I now set a timeline of 24 months, which will take us to July 2021—plenty of time I reckoned. And then a huge mishap occurred when I forgot to remove a trestle and damaged the front of the truck.
I find the panel beating-side of the equation easy enough, but I mess up the respray and have to repaint the majority of the cab, which is what you get when you’re too tight to employ a professional.
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A new manifold in the making
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We do have a few successes along the way, as we get all the electrics going, and my mate Murray manufactures a new exhaust manifold. But July 2021 comes and goes and by now, I’ve come to the realisation that this is going to take around the same amount of time as my largest restoration to date—the FGK Morris—at around 34 months.
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Time to take it to see the professionals
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Because of failure upon failure on my part in being able to get the brakes working after removing most of the air-assist system for cleaning and painting, I’ve resorted to calling in, or in this case, take it to the professionals to sort out.
I’ve had to resort to this measure, or we will still be at it, as the Ed untactfully puts it "on track for completion in 2052", at which time I’ll be aged 102. And that your honour, is the case for the defence.
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