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1936 International C-1 restoration


Guest 04mustang

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Guest 04mustang

Hi everyone,

I have been working on this truck for a number of years now (somewhere around 4-5). I am a long way from where I started at. This all began with me trying to find my great grand fathers old 36 c-1 truck. I had no idea what it was at the time. After a lot of research and asking several older family members I came to the conclusion that I was a 36 model c-1 (we already knew it was IH, just didn't know the year or model). I then began looking everywhere for what became of the old truck. In the mid 1970's my dad pulled the old truck up to his back yard from where it had been sitting since my great grand dads passing in 1952. It had been stored in a pack house with a shelter on the side covering and protecting it back on the farm. Dad pulled it up to the back yard with the intentions of getting the truck on the road again and preserving it. He was slow to work on it during this time and eventually a junk man came by and talked to his mother and convinced her to sell the truck to him. ( she had to talk it over with her 2 sisters as they owned part of the truck as well since it was in great grand dads estate). They sold it to the man for somewhere around $300. Luckily he did not scrap it, he kept it and over the years it changed hands several times.

By the time I went looking for it back around 2007-08 it ended up with a local fellow that was into hotrods. He had just bought the truck about 3 weeks before I showed up at his house.

When I got there he had already chopped the top and doors on it. My heart sank. I talked with him for several hours about my connection to the truck and begged him to sell my the truck at it was right then (he still had the sections that he had removed from the posts and doors and they were only tacked in place). He refused to. He was in love with the truck and I couldn't blame him, it was good looking truck.

I got to know him over time and he has helped my with my truck in doing body work, but more on that latter.

When he bought the truck it had a mustang II front end and some oddball rear-end. The entire powertrain was gone. He channeled the frame and notched it to put oversized tires on the rear. He built a new bed for it and put a small block 350 Chevy in it. What he did do was give me everything that was original to the truck that he wasn't going to be using. I got a hood side badge, door handle, glass for the doors and rear, seats, headlight buckets, radiator, hood latches and springs, and window regulators. He named the truck Alfred after my great grand dad.

I then made up my mind to find another 1936 C-1 to restore as my own and use the various parts from great grand dads truck to live on in this new truck( Alfred II ). I searched all over, and found what many people have, these are very hard to find trucks. Id find one in Washington state, or Colorado, but nothing on the east coast. I put an ad in the state Ag review looking for one by chance. It came and went and I pretty much thought that I was SOL on a local truck. But one day out of the blue I got a phone call from a fellow in Sparta NC that had one. He sent photos of it and we made a deal. My dad and I and my dads cousin loaded up and went to mountains of NC to retrieve the truck. I got the know the fellow pretty good, as it turns out this truck he was selling belonged to his grand dad when bought new, and had stayed in the family through all these years. He even had a copy of the original title from 1936. I promised him that it was going to a good home and that I would let him know when it finished.

Now one thing that was bad about this truck was that it had been sitting in a fat lighter barn for the last 40+ years and not moved or cranked, I guess this would fall in the barn find category. It was very complete with almost nothing missing at all, even the crank hole cover was in place. But the barn, with hay and moisture had took its toll on the old truck. literally every part and piece of the truck was rusted.

When we got home with the truck one of the first things I attempted to do was unstick the motor. Long story short, it didn't work. I took the rims off and sand blasted them, installed new tires and put them back on to be able to move the truck easier. We got the truck in the shop and began the teardown. It didn't take too long to remove everything, labeling parts as I went, taking photos for reference. I did manage to find some original paint in the cab behind the firewall pad, dark green, the same color as my great grand dads truck had been.

We took everything down to the frame and stopped at the rivets of the frame. We then began making many trips to an industrial sand blaster ( from a monument company that you can rent). Every part and piece was sand blasted. The smaller bits were cleaned up on the wire wheel when appropriate. We painted the frame with POR15 as well as the suspension. Then we applied a top coat to the POR15 to preserve it. Next came the task of putting it all back together. (PS we still aren't done with that part).

We took the engine apart and soon discovered why it was stuck. a valve had froze on a keeper going through the block. Nothing broken, just stuck. We had a local guy in his late 70's that used to work with international to rebuild the motor. I got the gaskets, bearing and other parts and he did the machining work. Amazingly the only thing the motor needed was to be honed out.

Ill let the photos speak for themselves about where we are currently, but that should just about bring everyone up to speed on the current state of the truck.

I am not a body man and therefore have to use outside people to help me.

It has been a long road but I'm getting there.

Thank you,

Corey

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  • 5 months later...

That's quite a story and a great truck to go with it. I'm currently working on a '77 scout that came from California and was passed to my grandmother, father, brother and now me. I hope everything turns out well for you and I can't wait to see what it looks like when it's completed. Are you putting any modifications or custom parts in it or keeping it all original?

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