Mail truck photos

Steve Wastler

Steve Wastler

Well-known member
Posting a few pics of the mail truck for those who would like to see more. In my search for an unrestored small bodied mail truck I ran across about 5 others unrestored at this time. Being a wood guy, I thought it be best to get one while there were still a few left to restore. Was very pleased to find it has most all the original mail truck parts, and the chassis has a lot of correct late 31 parts still on it. Can't wait to have it run under its own power.

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Thanks for the great photos, Steve! She's beautiful!

So much of the wood still good enough to be used as patterns. And so much wood that looks like it could be directly salvaged and restored without replacement.

Or- are you planning on all new wood?!

All the best on this amazing project!

Earle
 
Thanks for the kind words, I have wanted a mail truck to restore for many years and can't help but grin when I open the garage doors. Yes, lots of wood good for patterns, but not good enough to use. I had hoped to find one I could use the original wood, but there aren't many left like that.

I will most likely make a new body, all white oak, using the postal service standards. Thanks to the Postal A's there is a lot of information that has been found in the postal archives. Once completed one will not be able to tell it is a new body.

We are trying to compile a current owner registry, so if any one owns one or know someone that does, have them send info to myself or Dan Perla at www.postalas.org it will help with the re organisation of the dormant special interest group of the Postal A's.
 
Custom

Yes, this truck does have the roadster cowl. It is, in mail truck terms, an early 31 with a body by york hoover these bodies have a rabbet at the cowl to fit over the provision for the roadster cowl door reliefs. The second or late 31 cowl, body by mifflinburg have a commercial cowl, which has a flat flange all in the same plane making it a flat fit to the body, no rabbet needed for the cowl and body to meet.
 
Great pictures and you do have your work cut out for ya. I take my hat off to people who take on such large projects as this. good luck it is alot of woodwork.
 
what a great find and great pictures. must be nice to have all the hard parts with it...good luck on the restoraion
 
Sorry to ask this-but what is the difference in cowls? I thought that all cowls were the same-except the open cars that had folding windshields. Is the rabbit referring to the thin strip of metal on the top of the cowl?

Mike

p.s. nice car/truck and can't wait to see pics of her done.
 
In late June '31 Ford was introducing the commercial cowl, which was supplied with the basic "stripped chassis" model #75 for a "body by others" builders. It (commercial cowl) had a flat rear surface that would bolt directly to the flat front surface of any given "body by others" body. There was no provision for a door needed at the rear of the cowl as was needed in the roadster cowl.

The thin metal strip at the top of the tank was a finish piece on the york hoover postal body, the mifflinburg body did not need this.
 
The rebate he refers to is the "step" at the vertical back edge of the side cowl panel ,it also has the two slots to take the roadster/pheaton front door hinges.It is about 1/2" wide and1/4" deep.Open a roadster door and you will see it. 28/29 did not have these. My 31 AA wood cab truck cowl has these even with the slots for the hinges which were never used in this AA application. In England if you had the "flat" cowl you got the rebate but the indented cowl you did not. Apologies if I partly answered a question asked of the original poster.

John in cool cloudy rain on the way England.
 
John, No apologies needed.

"In England if you had the "flat" cowl you got the rebate but the indented cowl you did not." are you refering to the firewall in this sentence? if so, the firewall for both cowls on the U.S. 31 mail truck were of the indented type.

Things really got confusing for the body builders at the time, the orders were in place many months before the orders were filled. Many part changes from Ford over the time periods involved.
 
Wow. What a great project. So nice that you've got something so complete. The first thing I thought of was how good it was that the trim piece over the gas tank was still there. I bet that would be a hard piece to come by.
Can't wait to see progress pic's.
James.
 
Steve - Been a while since we spoke by e-mail, but I noticed that your truck still has the rear latch lever intact. Could you by chance trace it so that we might have one made for our '29? Thanks in advance for any help you can render. I'll try to see if we can get some pictures up of our '29 in progress. Thanks again.

Dick
 
To clarify I have never ever seen an indented commercial cowl here with the rebate but maybe they did exist . Model A sales had virtually ground to a halt in the last months of 1931,killed by the Depression and the horsepower tax. Commercial vehicles were taxed differently and AA trucks were built into 1936,these had wooden cabs and the indented cowl with no rebate. Sales picked up and thousands were built so quite a few of these cowls survive in various guises. We did not have a mail truck like yours here.This cowl was used on buses,vans and regular trucks after early 1932 when the steel top indented cowl Budd cab was phased out.Very few Budd cabs were built I know of only one survivor .

John in rainy afternoon England.
 
Steve,
Looks like you've made quite a find. The restoration should be straight forward, since the truck is all there. Since you're good at woodworking, it should be a piece of cake.
I seem to remember that I saw a nice restored "A" mail truck at the Owls Head Museum in Maine a few years ago.
Perhaps they can be of some help with advice on the restoration.
Best of luck.
Rog
 
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