Wes’ 1952 F3 Daily Driver

I’ve always had the dream of owning a ’49 Ford F1. One day while perusing the Manitoba classifieds, I came across a green ’52 F3. The truck had a Chevy powertrain, duals, a homemade flat deck and stacks. The truck, though not exactly the style I was into, looked really neat. I decided it could be a fun daily driver and thought maybe I could even put a dump box on for collecting firewood. My very supportive wife agreed to make the 3 ½ hour drive out to see the truck on her birthday. We brought a trailer along in case it was just as cool in real life.
The truck definitely needed work, but the started project was a good place to begin. I spent hours looking through the LMC catalogue and seeing all the things I could change to make the truck road worthy (and pretty). Over the next two and a half years, my vision for the project changed. I found too many things that had been done differently than I would have done them.
We decided to place the truck on a Ford Ranger frame that I had sitting around and scrapped the dump box idea. The truck now has a Ford V6 with fuel injection, power steering and power brakes. I would like to have used a Ford Explorer for its width, but I could not find a two-wheel drive donor truck with a standard transmission.
My son and I spent many hours figuring out the wiring harness to merge the ’52 ignition switch, start button and gauges with the sensors and computer of the Ranger.
We used a differential from an Explorer giving us the width we needed to fit the wheels in the fenders. We also gained rear disc brakes in the swap. The 3:73 gears also allowed us to use a taller wheel/tire combo.
We built a box using many LMC parts.
We purchased a bead roller and had a lot of fun making our own running boards. Forming the running boards turned out to be a fun family event as my daughter cranked the bead roller and my wife and son helped me feed the long pieces of sheet metal through the roller.
We used a set of LMC’s stainless steel bed strips to hold down the oak planks. A battery box hides below the bed since things were now a little tighter under the hood. We added stainless steel cargo tie-down anchors to secure loads, so they would not slide around and scratch the varnish.
We liked the sublime green paint color that had been used on the cab and decided to stick with it. This was my first paint job ever. I painted the truck in the shop at home and it turned out better than I expected. The truck has become more of a “show truck” instead of the work truck I had planned.
My first summer with the truck has been a lot of fun. With COVID-19 cancelling car shows, I had fewer opportunities to take it out, but I enjoy driving it to work, or taking it to town for ice-cream whenever I have the chance.