Bob & Moe Stone's 1959 GMC 860

At the ATHS (Baltimore-Washington Chap) meet at the Mt. Zion Old Time Days festival in Mechanicsville, MD, 4 Sept, 2005: 

           Fresh off  a three-year frame-off restoration, here is the latest effort of  Bob and Moe Stone -- a father and son truck collecting and restoration team from Southern Maryland.  

        The truck is a 1959 GMC 860 road tractor with it's original I-6 671 Detroit diesel, 10-speed Road Ranger, 3-speed Eaton twin screw rear axles (4:57 ratio).  Bob says Moe did most of the work.

        "He's pretty particular," says Bob.  "We went through and redid the whole truck top to bottom.  We started with a short wheelbase, single rear axle truck.  We cut the frame right behind the cab and added in most of the frame from a second truck that had tandem axles on it.  The truck now has about a 220-inch wheel base."

        The truck is all original except for the rear axles, frame extension and the brakes.

        "We upgraded the air brakes to modern type airbrakes," Bob adds.

        Also, a local welder custom fabricated the piping for the twin stacks behind the cab.  The Stone's also added a spring-ride driver's seat.

        "The original driver's seat was just bolted to the back of the cab," Moe says.  "That wasn't going to be comfortable, so we cleaned up a more comfortable seat.  It's correct, though."

        Surprisingly, the truck's sheet metal was pretty solid.

        "A good bit of the cab is aluminum," explains Moe.  "We did have to cut out a rear corner and add a good one in from the other truck, but other than that we didn't have to do much."

        Even the original vacuum wipers remain.

        "The driver's side wiper doesn't always want to park right, but all we did to the units was clean them," he adds.

        And clean they did -- one feels like taking off boots before climbing up into this sparkling cab.

        The truck will probably be on display at Parlett's Farm festival in Hughesville, MD in October.

        And oh by the way, it doesn't have power steering....

 Submitted by John Milliman
Baltimore-Washington ATHS