Ed Roth Cool '56 Ford

[Wild Child]

As a fan of all the cool 1960's custom cars, one of my favorite builders was Big Daddy Ed Roth.  In the Model Cars section I recently posted my Ed Roth cars with Shop front display, and I mentioned I would do an additional post on the '56 Ford shop truck build.  This truck came out pretty cool overall and features a highly detailed engine, hand painted woodgrain bed, custom painted and pinstripped dash top and face (as original), and a nice, glossy,  pearl white paint finish.  But the main points I wanted to touch on is the difficulty in doing some things related to this build.

First  you will notice this truck has opening doors, which is cool but also poses its own problems.  The doors, once put in position with hinges in place, fit terrible.  There are long hinges that glue to the door, then are held in place by a section of the inner fender.  Problem is, if put together correctly, the front of the door pops out too far and looks bad.  Leave the back fender well a bit loose, and the door flops around all over and fits terrible.  The solution was to leave the back fender well a little loose, or not fitting tight, and then glue a wedge in the top area of the hinge prying it back a bit.  This moves the door inward at the front, then keeps it at least reasonably snug.  Overall not perfect, but pretty nice.

Second is the wild flame graphics.  If you are not a drinkin man, you might be after doing these!  There are over 20 different sections which must all be aligned perfectly to each other over multiple separate body panels.  It will take nearly 1/4 bottle of Decal Sol and a lot of patience, and probably a couple afternoons.  Because of all the various body contours, and the fact that many of these flame decals roll around the edges of the wheel wells and hood, I found there were just too many variables to get these things to lay down nice.  My solution was to trim the decal a little around the rolled edges, then just brush paint around the edges of the wheel wells and hood lip.   Another note is that from the pics I have seen, the hood emblem was either not on the truck, or painted over.  My suggestion after doing this truck is to just sand it off first so the hood flames will lay down nicer.

Hope this info helps for anyone doing one of these kits. You can modify my ideas to come up with your own solutions to some of the difficulties in doing this kit.  But it really is a cool kit.

[johnyrotten]

Fantastic looking 56. Great looking woodgrain bed, and engine compartment. 👍👍

[ChrisR]

Nice.

[Zippi]

I like these ole 56 Ford pickups.  Nice job.  

[espo]

Great looking finishes and congratulations on getting those decals down. I bought one of these kits a while back, and as you pointed out the door problems was the reason I have put off doing anything with it yet. 

[Wild Child]

6 minutes ago, espo said:

Great looking finishes and congratulations on getting those decals down. I bought one of these kits a while back, and as you pointed out the door problems was the reason I have put off doing anything with it yet. 

  Yeah Dave, doors are a pain.  Fit them first. I cut off the inner door pins on the backside of the door the hinge goes to so I could line door up, then glue hinge to wherever the best location inside the door was. I used Amazing Goop because it sets fast, and I can pull it apart if I need to.  When I put the truck together, the inner motor compartment side inner fender rears go over hinge to hold it in place.  After a couple trial runs, I determined that the front edge of the door was not ever going to fit right that way, so I left the rear part that covers the hinge a little loose, or not tight to the hinge.  The hinge moves around like this but seemed to fit more flush to the truck.  So I wedge glued a small bit of leftover plastic in the top area of the hinge (on the door side) which pushed the door inward and made it fit fairly well.  Trial and error, and a bit of patience, will eventually pay off.  Once you get into it, you may even come up with your own way, or yours may even fit better.

And we have not even got to the flame decals yet!!!

[ncbuckeye67]

Beautifully detailed! Very nicely done.

[PappyD340]

Very nice build!

[slusher]

Great looking Ford!

[Bullybeef]

Impressive build of a tough kit, I have a set of the decals stashed away to possibly go on a foose pickup. 

[eajonesgue]

This posting is quite timely, as I am in the middle of building this very kit.   Here is some of the history I have uncovered on the internet.

The truck was originally bought brand new by Ed Roth in 1956 and he painted it white with the red flames, pinstriping and some advertising information for his business.  The car was sold soon afterwards, repainted and then eventually sat for over 50 years.  After a few different ownership changes, the car was given to Galpin Motors to do the restoration, which was completed in 2017.

Below are three sites that have additional information, if you are interested.

Motor Trend Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth barn find

Kustomrama Ed Roth 1956 Ford truck

Jalopy Journal forum on Ed Roth's truck

[eajonesgue]

Further to my previous posting on this topic - Photos of the original truck are almost non-existent and in black and white, so I will be trying to recreate the restored car.  I only found one photo online of the restored engine bay, so there will be some 'artistic license' used throughout

My ambitious list of ideas to correct and detail this kit includes:

- wheels and tires from AMT 1953 Ford pickup (but not the hubcaps).  There does not seem to be any other parts that are usable.

- drum brake backing plates from a mold of the ones from the Tweedy Pie, and then cast in resin

- scratchbuilt leaf springs on all four corners (fronts are done).  The kit had 4 leaves (leafs?) and photos of some restored trucks have 8 leaves.

- poseable steering added, almost done

- a club member has printed three sets of painting masks as I hope to paint the flames instead of using the decals

- engine detail will include scratchbuilt exhaust crossover pipe, generator and brackets, pulleys replaced with machined pieces.  I have already corrected an issue with the exhaust manifold in that it is too long.  Using a metal hacksaw blade, they were cut in two places and glued back together.  Locating pins were also added.

- I haven't even thought about the doors yet

[Wild Child]

23 hours ago, eajonesgue said:

This posting is quite timely, as I am in the middle of building this very kit.   Here is some of the history I have uncovered on the internet.

The truck was originally bought brand new by Ed Roth in 1956 and he painted it white with the red flames, pinstriping and some advertising information for his business.  The car was sold soon afterwards, repainted and then eventually sat for over 50 years.  After a few different ownership changes, the car was given to Galpin Motors to do the restoration, which was completed in 2017.

Below are three sites that have additional information, if you are interested.

Motor Trend Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth barn find

Kustomrama Ed Roth 1956 Ford truck

Jalopy Journal forum on Ed Roth's truck

Evan,

Thanks for the input and info.  I have seen a lot on this truck thru the years on the net both before and after the restoration.  When I built my '56, I used a few good pics I had seen over the years, though I did take a couple liberties on my build.  Here is some useful info.

1-The hubcaps in the kit are indeed correct spinner caps looking at my original pics.  They are a little small as they should cover the entire wheel though.

2-I used the rear bumper for visual purposes, but Ed did not have the bumper on in any of the pics I have seen. Looks naked without it though.

3-The truck came with a single exhaust, but sources I know who knew Ed claim he had duals on at one point.  However, none of the rear photos I have ever seen have ANY exhaust pipe outlets showing, so I do not know what you would personally deem correct.

4-The dash top and front face had custom paint applied.

5-My motor compartment does have the correct hoses, line, linkage, oil tube and chrome air cleaner.  Motor color I chose.

6-I did trim the mirror down a little, just looked hideous as tall as the kit mirror was.

  Also, there is a Work in Progress (WIP) section here that you can post your project and show everyone what you do throughout the build.  Hope this all helps a little, and good luck on your build