Hey guys. I have a 1948 B1B I've had for years that I'm finally giving some proper attention to. A little back story - I love and restore Air-cooled german cars. My dad has always been the one with the Dodge obsession. He has had many over the years but his pride and joy is a blackout '45 1/2ton he will be finishing up any year now. He had a friend with a local wrecking yard and I can remember growing up many cars coming in and out of the garage - some just to pull parts before being sent back to the yard, some were restored and sold.
Two of the many that came through were a red '48 dodge truck from Arizona and blue '50 dodge five window. Both had been parked for a few years, the blue one seeing the worst of it as rust had consumed most of the bottom six inches of the pickup. My dad planned on pulling the parts he'd use as spares for his '45 and send the two packing back to the crushing yard. Seeing the condition of the red '48 this perplexed me. It was a 50k original mile farm truck from Arizona and from the story we had been told, made the trip from AZ to Washington a few times. It was mostly complete with a little bit of rust from sitting in Washington, but in reality not too bad. I pleaded with him not to have it crushed. His main interest was in the '47 and earlier trucks - he considered this late and undesirable. To most people, I guess, it's not the prettiest truck nor the most valuable as 50's fords and chevys take up most interest rolling across the auction block. I always thought it looked plucky. With the squared front end and goofy moustache grills it certainly looks out of place with most modern vehicles. I liked it. He sent the Blue '50 packing and the '48 went back into hibernation.
Skip forward a good few years I get a phone call from him. He his moving from the property and taking his vehicles with him. I needed to come pickup that '48 I made him keep so many years ago. I did, and unfortunately had to put it back into hibernation. Very recently I've been able to put some time back into the old '48 and this is what I've come up with. I've repaired a few small cracks on the frame. I've also cut out the remains of decayed bits in the bed and rebuilt it with parts from DCM. I also gave it it's first coat of boiled linseed oil to try to preserve what's left of this old beauty. I don't want to mess with the appearance of this truck at all, I want to get it functional and driving safely with the original engine.
I am looking for the missing piece of trim on the nose and the bottom seat for the bench seat! I think I have the side hood dodge script somewhere. I'm also missing the radiator. The motor isn't currently running - I have three snapped exhaust studs to replace before trying to fire it off. Once running brakes and tires will be ordered in. Not sure if I want to redo the rims or leave them ugly. The truck is a low number '48 with a low number engine, I'll get those numbers tomorrow, but here are a few pictures. Few are from a few years ago, you can still see "parts" written on the hood from the wrecking yard.