material for 55/56 Ford station wagon

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steve fritz

Well-known member
I am looking to replace the floor material on the back end floor panels of my 55 Ford project. The original flooring material is some kind of mason board , only about 1/8 inch thick. It is glued to the metal structural panel. It has long ribs about 3/4 inch wide running the from front to back direction. Material has a reddish color finish . I would attach a picture of the old stuff , but have not had any luck with attachments to these messages.
Anybody have an idea where to get this panel material or a good substitute?
Thanks!
Steve
 
Also ....one more question on the station wagon interior.....what material is used , if any , to cover the inside of the wheel well housings on each side of the back compartment?
Steve
 
The stuff is called "decking". Try SMS.



https://smsautofabrics.com/


Can't remember if it was SMS or not, but one of the places I checked back when I redid my Ranch Wagon only had decking for 55 chevy wagons. I restored mine using minimal filler, glazing putty, lots of sanding, Gravel Guard (for texture) and plastic based rattle can paint like Fusion. Didn't look exactly original but it looked fine. Same procedure on interior surface of rear wheel wells, but I had to take off original coating (kind of hard to do.)



Instead of Gravel Guard you can use SEM Chip Guard.
 
JimNNN......thanks for your reply. So you didn't put any decking material down , but painted the metal instead?
If so , did you top coat with an interior color to match the rest of the interior?
Steve
 
I have a '55 Courier sedan delivery wagon and they differ from the station wagon models in that the Courier only had 1/2" exterior-grade plywood finish sanded on one side. But I have seen the material you speak of on a few of the station wagon models and tried to figure out what that was. It is certainly unique to anything I have seen offered. Also, the Couriers do not have any type of upholstering in the cargo area. The wheel tubs were simply painted metal and the walls were clad with bare 1/8 inch thick tempered Masonite.
 
steve fritz said:
JimNNN......thanks for your reply. So you didn't put any decking material down , but painted the metal instead?
If so , did you top coat with an interior color to match the rest of the interior?
Steve
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Steve, I wasn't able to find NOS or repro decking, so I restored my old decking. Like you I can't get my photos on this forum, so I can't show you pics. Though I couldn't find any decking material for a '54 Ford, there may be some out there for '55 Ford, but I can't say.



Again, I restored my decking material, not the metal underneath. It was cracked and weathered, but still all there. If you have big gaps or are missing material, restoring won't work. Mine doesn't look factory original, but it looks presentable. I first tried to do it in a nontextured finish - smoother like the original - but that looked awful. You could see every flaw. The interior surface of my rear wheel wells turned out ok using the same method, but I had to get that thick existing coating off first. Hard to do.



The back floor on my car didn't match the color of the rest of the interior, so I didn't have to match. Tried to find a color that sort of matched what I presume the existing was when new. Kind of reddish like you say. (Actually reddish brown. I think they were trying to approximate the color of wood. I googled later Ranch Wagons and it looks like they were tying to match the color of the interior. They didn't match in '54.)
 
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JimNNN said:
The back floor on my car didn't match the color of the rest of the interior, so I didn't have to match. Tried to find a color that sort of matched what I presume the existing was when new. Kind of reddish like you say. (Actually reddish brown. I think they were trying to approximate the color of wood. I googled later Ranch Wagons and it looks like they were tying to match the color of the interior. They didn't match in '54.)
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That is interesting in relation to the policy they used for painting the interior of the Courier wagons in '55. The floor was un-painted 1/2 inch plywood. Most Courier wagons that came off the line that year were painted the standard Mainline series "Medium Coppertone" interior color (which matched the plywood pretty good), and somewhat matched the bare Masonite cargo area wall panels. The dashboard, seat skirts and window interior garnish mouldings were also painted this same color, except mixed with fine metalflake, otherwise, same color. This "Coppertone" color was used for the interior regardless of what the outside color was.
 
Dave, here's an approximation of my car before it was refurbished. Not sure about the cargo area on this one, but tailgate is just like mine: dark brown metal with lighter color decking. (See the interior photos.) The rest of my cargo area was like that too, when original. It's close to that now, but not exactly. I think most '54's were like this, but there may have been a difference between Mainline and the other higher models.

https://www.findcars.com/alrg.php?q=926297&enlarge=13&wtype=


Here's a pic of my car (after I refurbished it) that I was able to post on the AACA forum. I describe my car as "in the spirit of the original, but not a literal reproduction." Expense and comfort kept my from making an exact copy of something that rolled out of the factory.



0298_LI.thumb.jpg.5a880eba665dc27f06126a911bd9afc1.jpg
 
JimNNN....nice 54! What was the interior wheel well humps covered with? Was it just interior paint color or was there some kind of fabric material glued to the metal housing?
Steve
 
Steve, when I first purchased the wagon you have, there were still a few remnants of the coating on the rear wheel well housings inside the car. The best I can describe it was like an undercoating, maybe 1/8" thick at the most and slightly smoother than underbody undercoating. Then it was painted the same blue body color. It wasn't any type of cover or fabric/vinyl that could be applied or glued on.


Sal
 
JimNNN....nice 54!
Click to expand...
Thanks Steve.

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[FONT=&quot]Sal is correct. As far as I can tell, my Mainline Ranch Wagon came also from the factory with that stuff that he describes: about 1/8" or maybe slightly thicker coating that dried very hard and, when the car was new, it was probably pretty durable. I'm pretty sure it wasn't some sort of pre-formed shell that was attached after the fact, but I could be wrong. It looked like it was a substance applied to the interior surface of the wheel wells. As I recall, it had a slight texture to the surface. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The coating cracked over the years and the problem was that the edges of the cracks curled outwards severely with age. I knew I was never going to recreate the original or fill in the cracks adequately, so I did what I described above (same as with decking.) Again, taking the coating off was hard. Used a putty scrapper type tool. Some of it came off easy and some of it didn't.Sanding will work, but I personally don't like breathing in unknown dust from the mid-20th century and masks are tedious.
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[FONT=&quot]PS. I just now found this on facebook for people looking for decking. Looks promising.
[/FONT][FONT=&quot] Won't let me link to facebook, so the guy's contact info is:[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Mike Hess[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot](916)802-2904[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?id=133149676743109&story_fbid=1956505971074128
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[FONT=&quot]He has this info listed publicly so I presume he's looking for customers.
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[FONT=&quot]The pic looks to approximate what's in my Ford, but I can't tell for sure.
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