VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1929-1932 1929 LQ Trucks - so it begins

Greetings,
I have no specific question here, just formally marking the occasion. In 2013 a friend of mine and I collected three (3) 1929 1.5 ton LQ trucks to restore. All three were located in Dillon, MT. Two were supposedly originally used by Beaverhead Lumber company (one of which is lettered out as such). The third truck was converted to a static farm implement to operate a Beaverslide for lifting hay onto tall loose haystacks instead of compressed bales. I think the first two were flatbeds, but the third looks like it was a hood/cowl only (if not, that is all that was left when we got it).

I have been reading the forum off and on over this time and have undertaking a varied of small projects, but primarily working "on the shop" rather than "in the shop." One truck has been disassembled at this point and the others two are having the engines pulled at this time to assess their condition.

The goal is three functional trucks at some point in time. Two will likely be stake beds, while the third will probably become some custom vegetable huckster or a jitney for parades.

What is the point? Well, I have this photo of my grandfather in a suit and fedora sitting behind the wheel of his brand new 1929 LQ truck when he was picking it up right after he had the family construction company name lettered onto the side of it. Of course, the company went belly up by 1932. The truck probably does not exist anymore, but the photo does and one of these trucks is destined to replicate it.

Thank you all in advance for the endless hours you will spend reading and responding to my questions. I have learned an enormous amount reading this forum over the past several years and hope to share my progress as we go.

Howdy and welcome to the forums!!

Great pictures and a wonderful story. I'm looking forward to following your journey!

Cheers, Dean

To save yourself some time there has been a 1 ton pickup bed advertised in the G & D. I suspect it is an 8' long step side pickup bed. Last year I saw a 55 2nd series pickup with the same configuration. a pretty rare item. Special order.

Yeah :) Welcome to the official forum !!

I am glad you opted to post your story here and share the journey. As noted in out discussions they are really cool trucks and looks like you guys will have a bunch of fun restoring and working on them. I am really interested in seeing the recreation of your grandfathers truck.

a friend locally here has a partially restored 1929 1 1/2 Ton LQ that he has been trying to sell me for years now. i told him once i get a bigger garage and get my 1929 Sedan on the road and in maintenance only mode i may consider it

For some body ideas for the third truck, there are a few places on this site that have cool pics of them.

For example, below is a scan of the January 2005 cover of our monthly magazine, the Generator and Distributor that features a 1929 LQ Canopy Express.

In the technical article section of the main VCCA web site, you'll find a scanned a copy of my 1928 Hercules Chevrolet Bodies catalog. I believe Hercules offered roughly the same styles for the 1929 LQ chassis. Below are a couple of pages from that 64 page catalog.

To access the entire catalog as a PDF, log onto the main VCCA web site (https://vcca.org/default.aspx), go to the Members Only area, then to Technical Articles.

Cheers, Dean

I have a pair of doors like on this Chev panel body;

Thank you all for you feedback. This will be a long journey. I will try to provide updates with some degree of regularity. I think the general updates should go under the Projects section and technical questions should go here. I will shift to that.

I have seen the Hercules body photos and like them. I imagine something like that will be what we settle on.

We were initially working on the one truck with the stake bead but are now probably going to work on them in parallel. The three engines are off to a machine shop soon and the two conventional bodies will be built at the same time.

I have a number of other project cars in the barn so sometimes I get distracted but these trucks are consuming my attention right now.

FYI, there's an article in the October 2019 G&D (page 18) about an LQ whose stakeside bed and cab wood was built from Chevy plans. Good photos too.

You can see this past edition of the G&D on the main web site by clicking on the Members Only pull down menu and clicking on G&D Magazine.

Cheers, Dean

Thanks

1929 with a 1930 dash?

Well, off to the machine shop

I took one of the engines apart several years ago to learn. I typically do all my own work from body and paint to mechanical, but Babbitt bearing seem like and outsource item.

I know the one engine I took apart had a few small cracks in the head (not much of a surprise). I put that one back together and have the other two joining it.

I stripped all the accessories, rocker assembly, and tappets. The plan is clean and assess first. The first engine had enough wear on the mains to justify new Babbitt. The valves had a remarkable amount of wear.

I expect all three will have bore/hone, new pistons, new bottom end Babbitt, resurface block and head as necessary. Of course, some crack repair. New guides and cut valve seats.

Will let you know how it goes.

There was a supposedly rebuilt 1929 (i believe actually a 1930) head on ebay recently. May still be available.