Scott Ward's 1951 1.5-Ton Chevy Dump Truck

16 March 2007
# 1882

From: Scott :

            I just got my latest addition to my Big Bolt collection this week. This truck has sat for a while but within a couple of hours of being mine, I got it running -- running good enough to move around the property under its own power. This is actually good. We are going through some warm weather while still having frost in the ground so there is nothing but soupy mud right now.

            Any way, Joe Haverland, a heck of a good guy BTW, advertised the truck right here on the 'Bolt. Since he was from close by, I inquired about it just for the heck of it. Obviously, I didn't really need another truck so I had my Dad check it out to see if it was something he may get some use out of.

            It was more than he wanted to take on, so we decided, regrettably, to pass on it.

            Well, Joe, being the sensible man that he is, decided that it would be better to "unload" this truck to someone that would make good use of it rather than let it slowly rot away (his wife may have helped with this realization, too ). He offered it up to me for what he paid for it and after some consideration, I went for it.

            There's a steel dump bed on it that I will put to good use.

            To top this all off, he had a buddy wanting to put a new heavy duty truck through some towing exercises to see how well it would do. He hauled the old girl to me for the cost of fuel. They cleaned out the truck, loaded it and bound it down and delivered it to me and unloaded and helped me get it onto the property. AND seemed happy to do it. It's hard to beat us midwesterners, I'll tell you!

            The truck doesn't come with much history. Joe bought it, hauled it home and let it sit without much investigating. So, I think what I have is a 1951 1.5-ton (never mind the 6100 emblem on the hood) Chevy with a V-8 conversion done quite some time ago with a steel hydraulic dump bed. Running the numbers on the engine, it appears to be a 4 barrel 283 from a light duty pick-up.

Scott Ward
"48bigtrucks"
Stovebolter # 4443
Center Point, Iowa [an error occurred while processing this directive]