Similar. FWIW

Wow, that gives me some inspiration. It would be really neat to re-create a truck like that.

No windshield--no side curtains. Either it was a sunny day vehicle or somebody got really wet and mud-splashed when it rained.

I'm curious Richard. From the look of the two sprockets in your photo I'd guess they have about a 2:1 ratio, and even if my guess is wrong they certainly gear down quite a bit. So, obviously (I think) you have a low enough ratio in Ford planetary low to make a Ruckstell unnecessary (at least that's my guess). What about your top speed? It would seem you'd just crawl along with the engine running fast, at a pretty slow rate. Do you have some sort of overdrive, maybe an auxiliary transmission? Or, perhaps the planetary and the chain drive deliver all the speed a chain can handle?

Another great photo Jay! Looks like 1916 by the partial year written at the edge of the photograph. You know, as crude and primitive as that looks, if you really think about it, a lot of similar loads were still hauled and delivered by means of a wagon and a team of horses in 1916. And those horses consumed their normal amount of oats or whatever, every single day, whether they left the barn or not! Trucks like the one pictured had to be a really major step forward for any business. Also, final drive train reduction between drive sprockets was also a good design in some ways. In fact, many farm tractors, even up to this day, were/are designed with final drive train reduction exactly the same way, except using "bull gears" instead of chain/sprocket like this truck. One reason it's good design is that EVERYTHING including engine and entire drive train could be made lighter/smaller/cheaper when a large part of the reduction is all the way back almost to the drive wheels, instead of further forward in the drive train with auxiliary transmissions and such. Well, enough "thinking-out-loud" I guess, but then that's one reason you share all the great old photos, right Jay? FWIW,....harold

Henry,Some of the early race cars were chain drive and they went up to 100 mph!Bud.

Well Bud, I guess that would indicate my chain drive speed concern is invalid.

Of course you're right. I didn't think of them.

Henry, a quick count of teeth suggest 2:1 is about right. This Form-a-Truck is not a Smith and is installed on a 1915 Maxwell. I know Smith adapted conversions for several other vehicles. This uses a standard 3 speed. I have not driven this vehicle yet as the T's keep capturing my time. Maxwell rear axles were very weak but this one survived very well. I imagine the loads were heavy but maybe the low gearing made a difference.

I wonder if that is a full load and how many cases are on it. I can count 9 cases on each row but how many across (2, 3 or 4)?

...Is it:.. ((2 * 9) * 2) = 36 cases
...Or:.... ((2 * 9) * 4) = 72 cases

How high could they stack them? Could they go to 3 cases high, or 4, or what? Anyway, it does not seem like very much by today’s standards.

I know that people didn’t drink as much pop as they do now where families go to the grocery store and buy boxes of 12 or 24. When I was a kid in the early 1960s, my family rarely bought more than one carton of six. Our grocery store allowed folks to swap out the bottles with different kinds so everyone in my family got to choose their favorite brand. I remember going to an aunt’s house when I was a kid and seeing an entire case of Coke in the kitchen. I thought she must be rich! I didn’t know it was possible to buy an entire case.

Was chain drive really necessary to haul soda pop around ? I have hauled twice that
weight in bricks and sod with the OEM build and Truckstell with no issue at all. Wassup ?

What a great pic. Said before but I text these to my mom's iphone. She is very sick and 77 and loves all the pics I send her daily. She looks at the people but comments on the model t s and loved the coke truck. Thanks Tim

One thing about chain drive is that it puts the tourge on one axle and the weight on another.Bud.

Burger, another reason as well as what Bud said, most all of the car/truck conversions were chain drive which, I imagine, would be much easier and cheaper to build. I know that there was at least one conversion that used a conventional rearend, but I don't know what it was. If you look at the old trucks, chain drives were used well up into the '50's maybe longer. Pacific built a tank retriever for the Army in the early '50's I believe that was chain drive. Dave

I think it was the Jewett truck conversion that did not use chain drive. No relation to Paige/Jewett automobiles.

The big thing about the low speeds of trucks in those days was the extremely stiff suspension on those rough roads. You just couldn't drive much over ten miles per hour with a load. So many things are all about what you are used to. Ten miles an hour was fast compared to a horse team and wagon that could barely do six with a load.
Drive carefully, and enjoy, W2

Wayne,

What you say about ear.y trucks having stiff suspension is very true. Even our TTs have a very stiff set-up on the rear axle. Without a heavy load, you'd bounce all over the place on a rough dirt road at pretty much anything above 10/12 MPH. The only reason we get away with 30+ MPH in them now is because we have paved roads to drive on.

Nice hard rubber tires. No need to carry a spare.

Henry,

Trucks may ride a bit smoother with a thousand pounds or two in the back. But if those hard rubber wheels hit a pothole much over 10 mph, they would launch a few of the top cola bottles out of the top cases!