The Truck Body Part 1- an Odyssey in Wood!

One of the most important parts about a truck of any type is its ability to carry things. Presumably, in a large type of box or carrying contraption attached to the vehicle somewhere. The Standard B ‘Liberty’ was nothing special in this regard, but for those of us at the First Division Museum, finding out the details of something presumed to be so simple was far from it!

Wooden Cargo Bodies
Loosely based on dimensions of previously produced horse-drawn escort wagons of the late 1800s, the cargo bed or ‘body’ of the truck as it is frequently referred to in source documents, came in two variations: wood and steel. The wooden body was the first and most prevalent style used and approved by the government design board for the Quartermaster Corps in 1917. It was used on most Type 1 Liberty Trucks produced during the war and built at the International Harvester Corporation’s Deering Plant in Chicago, IL. So far as my research has yielded two other companies, JG Brill&Co. of Philadelphia, PA and Kundtz & Co. of Cleveland, OH produced the wooden cargo body.

The floor of the wooden cargo bed had two large removable panels which allowed for maintenance access to the drive train and rear drive transfer case avoiding the removal of the bed entirely from the frame in the event of work needing to be done. After some in-depth observation and study from multiple surviving wooden cargo bed examples, our own restoration team discovered that all wood used in the cargo body was tongue and groove which made for a much better fit and longer lasting body. This allowed many originals to keep warping to a minimum for far longer. This small but important detail is one often missing from other restored trucks as most originals having rotted away are rebuilt, often to simplified modern specs and with modern materials. The 1917 specs mentioned specifically the types of wood to be used and where on the body:

“The sides, head, and tail board and floor to be of best quality yellow pine, poplar, cottonwood or gum. The side stakes, bolsters, sills, top bows, and ridge pole may be made of best quality white oak, ash, rock elm, or hickory.”

All fasteners and hardware for the bodies were made of cast iron produced by the Eberhard Manufacturing Co. in Cleveland, Ohio. Paint was also applied to the beds, depending on the manufacturer, by a large dipping-vat method of chaining-up whole completed sections of the body and submerging them in paint. (see upcoming posts on paint for the Liberty truck for more info on that front!)

In making our own truck body, Tom Bailey of Firebrand LLC in Woodstock, GA has been working hard to assemble and complete a cargo body with new wood and original hardware (fig.3). Our type 2 Liberty truck now has a wooden cargo body using components from two partially surviving cargo bodies which have been restored or partially reproduced to ensure the most historically accurate truck possible. Tom has taken great pains to ensure the wood used is the proper type recommended by the War Department, as well as being tongue-and-groove boards which interlock allowing the cargo bed to keep from warping less than many restorations done with standard treated 2x4s. The wood used throughout the truck on our type 2 is majority poplar with white oak interspersed for structural purposes as outlined by the War Department in 1917.

This, to the best of our knowledge, is one of the most accurately re-built cargo bodies yet done on a surviving Liberty Truck. As of April 2018 the body has been affixed to the frame (see fig.4) along with the seat box bringing the truck one step closer to completion as well as finally looking more like a truck!