The front suspension is based on a spring-behind-axle configuration with a tube axle, hairpins, steering arms, and friction shocks from speedway Motors. the front brakes are the so-Cal speed shop kit without the drum covers and backing plates.
As it turned out, ray's son, richard, just happened to be near driving age. Presuming the roadster would be a fine ride for his son's senior year, ray bought it in april 1971. he paid $1,000, or, in today's money, $4,825.
While ray bought the pickup for his son to drive during his senior year, that arrangement failed in May 1971, two months after the transaction. Despite his father's admonition to not even start its engine, richard presumably took a friend for a ride in his new toy. as the story goes, the car lurched and richard nailed the throttle rather than the brake, plausible considering the cramped cockpit and awkward pedal placement. Whatever the case, the neighbor's garage door stopped the pickup, bending its frame, axle, grille shell, and header Milestones pipes in the process. as punishment for defying his father's orders, richard never again drove the pickup.
Since ray had neither the knowledge nor inclination at the time to repair the damage, the pickup sat. Upon recommendation of his friend, Jim harvey, ray later commissioned Brea, California's Ken stevens to repair the now-aging hot rod. Ken took possession of it in april 1976, straightened the frame, installed new front suspension, and fabricated new header pipes to replace the damaged ones.
Raul Jara, present owner of roberto's auto trim in Costa Mesa, Ca, stitched up a more contemporary interior around a glide engineering seat. ed once plated the F-100 steering shaft and left it exposed, but ray used a limeWorks speed shop column, drop, and turn-signal assembly.
The new suspension consisted of a fabricated droppedtube axle in a four-link arrangement. it used conventional rod-ended bars for the two lower links and stubby arms from a transverse torsion bar as the two upper links. Ken delivered the pickup that following september in operational condition yet without provisions for shocks or plating on the pipes. in a bid to gain some cockpit space, ray swapped out the flat, rubber-rimmed Cragar or Bell Auto Parts wheel for a dished-spoke, wood-rimmed job; however, the heavy firewall setback made driving the pickup difficult. Despite the chassis repairs, engine problems flat-out sidelined the car. As a result, nobody can remember if the torsion-bar suspension even worked at all.
The car sat until 2001, at which point steve Cody stepped in. he offered to take the ailing hot rod to his lakeside, California, home and bring it back up to what ray called safe, driving standards. "i told him i'd like to keep it on a budget," ray said. "i thought we could get it done for about $10,000." A combination of elements, however, rendered that idea improbable, if not impossible.
But, before we get into the rehabilitation, we must warn you purists and historians; due to a mixture of damage, missing parts, a few concessions to drivability, and a few more to personal taste, ed's car didn't go back together exactly as it came apart. it's well done, no doubt; it's just done to suit ray.
When steve Cody reassembled the bed, he raised its header panel to match the side rails' height, a change that let raul attach the tonneau cover to the bed itself.
Even if steve and ray decided to retain the primer-spotted paint, peeling chrome, and splitting vinyl, they couldn't have just overlooked the engine. leaking copper head gaskets, the culprits that sidelined the car decades earlier, locked the Jahns Milestones pistons fast within their bores. When I first heard from Steve, he'd already rebuilt the engine, a spendy proposition in itself since steve sleeved the existing block rather than replacing it.
As if that wasn't expensive enough, he had to come up with a new induction system, as decades earlier ray traded off the six-pot intake for a standard two-barrel job, "... my first mistake," ray admitted. steve's fortitude scared up a castiron Cadillac 3x2 manifold, and by rebuilding a stock 2g Rochester himself and by using linkage, air filter housings, and two 2g end carburetors from Vintage speed, he recreated a simpler, more tractable induction system.
The pickup also suffered some questionable construction over the years. exercising a common method for the time, the pickup's initial builder carved out everything but the lower edge of the Deuce K-member to accommodate the set-back transmission. steve, in turn, removed the hacked K-member, replaced it with a Chassis engineering X-member, and boxed the framerails.
Steve replicated Ed's flat dash panel, yet forewent the raised and filleted pad and vinyl topping. Instead, he used a cast-aluminum Vintage Speed job to carry the finned theme into the cockpit. Those aren't the big-block stewart Warner gauges that ed ran; they're the company's latter-day Wings.
Presuming ray wouldn't appreciate the '39 gearbox with its 26-tooth Zephyr gears, steve traded it away to a local wrecking yard (no, we wouldn't tell you even if we knew which one). in its place is a wide-ratio Muncie four-speed, adapted to the block by stacking Wilcap and offenhauser adapters. steve converted the banjo rear axle to open drive with a hot rod Works kit, split the rear radius rods, and mounted their forward ends to the chassis with speedway Motors hardware.
Rather than retaining the heavy engine setback, steve understandably mounted it in the stock location to gain interior space. he replaced the questionable '70s front suspension, but instead of using a Ford tube axle and recreating the hairpins, he bought a spring-behind-tube kit from speedway. he also forewent the car's existing F-100 draglink steering in favor of a Vega cross-steer arrangement.
Steve used a bead-rolled steel replacement from Direct sheet Metal in place of the polished-aluminum louvered firewall. While Ed originally built the floor from an old road sign and plywood-itself an iffy practice yet one that redeems itself with historical precedence and charm-steve replaced it with another DsM piece. Whereas ed built his own dash by filleting a smaller oval sheetmetal panel to a larger panel and cladding the assembly with vinyl, steve fabricated a new dash from sheet steel and fitted it with a ribbed dash insert. in lieu of the vintage big-block stewart Warner gauges is a set of retro s-W Wings-type gauges.
Phil Whetstone of Miracle Design applied the pinstriping of which there is a copious amount keeping the roadster pickup in touch with its heritage.
Part of the car's original aggressive look came from that ultra-low bed. For that, the original builder (remember, we don't know for sure) eliminated the bed floor and trimmed the bed walls to conform to the frame's arch over the rear axle; Ed, in turn, first concealed the seam with a pleated panel and later a louvered panel. When steve rebuilt the car, however, he recreated the lower part of the bed and raised the whole box. He, too, made filler panels; however, they fill the gaps between the flat-bottomed box and the arched frame. Whereas the rear pushbars were once directly behind the tailgate, they're now below it as a result of the raised bed. steve also replaced the chromed tailgate, an element that dates back to at least the car's '56 build, with a reproduction piece.
The car now wears its third crimson hue, a lighter metallic color that Ford calls laser red. in place of the 6.40-15 Firestones and 7.60-15 inglewoods on Mercury wheels is a set of chunkier BFgoodrich radial whitewalls on wider Wheel Vintiques wires. leather stitched in a contemporary pattern was used rather than the characteristically '60s narrow-pleated and generously rolled naugahyde job.
Despite the changes, ray retained ed's side nerf bars and even commissioned John West over at Dan Fink Metalworks to recreate the scavenger pipes, a job made easier due to the newer engine location and illustrated in the July '06 street Rodder.
Damian sanchez of roberto's auto trim is seen here putting some lastminute touches on a carpet pad.
Retracing The Steps
Considering how far removed this car is from ed Ducazau, both in time and in construction, it's entirely plausible to ask why i dedicated so much of this story to him. that's easy: he played such a pivotal role in this car's history, and, from a gearhead's perspective, a car is merely an extension of its owner's personality. i suppose you can't really separate the two.
In keeping with his club's name, ed was a bit of a renegade. he seemed to have that grab-'em-by-the-balls attitude, and i believe he built this low-slung, over-carbureted, and slicktired iron to represent that ethic-even if more for appearances than actual performance. i believe his car bore that conviction under his care.
So, too, is this story about ray allison. Whereas ed was a teenager when he built and rebuilt this car, ray is in his seventies. Whereas ed was presumably enthusiastic enough 134 www.streetrodderweb.com to deal with such a cantankerous induction system, ray obviously isn't (and who can blame him? apparently ed hardly drove the car, according to susie Ducazau). Whereas ed never needed a true bed since he never drove the pickup farther than the local drive-in, ray uses it to stow stuff for overnight outings. Most importantly, whereas ed could contort his teenage body into a pretzel just to drive the car around the block, i speak from experience that even i, at half of Ray's age, can hardly fit in a stock roadster pickup body.
Ray enlisted John West of Dan Fink Metalworks to recreate the scavenger pipes, a job made easier due to the newer engine location.
I bring this up specifically because in this new age where we faithfully restore historical cars that remain, recreate those that have long since passed, or flat out create those which never existed, a lot of people may take issue with ray's approach to ed's old pickup. this is more than speculation; initially the preservationist in me selfishly wished Ray and steve would've more faithfully adhered to ed's designs.
But, there are many things more important than just my opinion-or yours or your buddies' for that matter. First off, while ed's pickup was likely a cool hot rod for some time before he bought it, even he changed it. second, ed's old pickup is still a hot rod-a pretty nice one at that. third, it's actually on the road accumulating miles-again, something it never really did in sufficient numbers, according to Susie.
Most importantly, however, is that ray, the present owner of the car, built the pickup to suit himself. if anybody could legitimately take issue with that, whom could it be other than the guy who built it in the first place?
I'll leave you to answer that; after all, you, too, sort of know ed. if anything, you should at least know the way he felt about making his own cars match his personality.