The Stovebolt Site Forums Project Journals Completed Journals 1951 Chevy COE Car Hauler on a P30 Chassis

With all the essentials in place I think it's time to share my original concept drawing with everyone. I know it's not a Dave Kindig original, but it gave me some direction and a much-needed goal to strive for knowing it is going to be a long process. Also, it was way easier to change things with an eraser than a cutting torch until I had the look I wanted.

While I was working on moving the running gear and spotting the COE cab, I was also looking for a doner truck or cab for the upper cab. I followed Craigs List and stopped and talked to several guys that had first series AD trucks sitting on their property between home and work that were covered by weeds or looked forgotten. All said they were planning to restore them, or they placed a greater value on them than I did. There were four trucks that I asked about back in 2018 and they are all in the same place they were then just worse shape. I hope they get saved. Eventually one showed up on Craigs List just outside of Portland, Oregan about 150 miles south of home. It was a cab only with some surface rust but by the pictures of it didn't look too bad. My son and I drove down on a Saturday morning to take a look at it. We found it was in just ok shape. The corners, bottom of the doors and the floor were for the most part gone, but the rest of the cab was for the most part solid. It was sitting on a pallet and the gentleman was very motivated to have it gone. We made the deal and he set it in the back of my pick-up with his forklift and we were on our way. A couple things that convinced me to purchase it and take on the metal work was that it came with a clean title and it was already off the chassis. After what it took to cut the motorhome apart, I was over that.

I got it home and wrapped a strap around it and lifted it out of the pick-up and kind of held it up in place where it would eventually go. There is an old saying that it was a face that only a mother could love, now I understand that. To look at two rusty cabs sitting on a mostly empty chassis it wasn't that pretty but I got excited.

First thing I did was cut the firewall out of the rear cab and start trying to align things to see how they would fit together. I would get it where I thought I wanted it and put a half dozen Teks screws in it to hold it in place. Then I would walk around it for a while and check it from different angles. Then I would climb a ladder and look at it from other angles and if I still liked it, I would open a beer and watch a little football and then do it all again. When I finally got it where I still liked it after beers and football, which took almost a month of weekends, I started building the permanent frame under it to secure it to before I started welding it up.

Working under both cabs trying to figure out how to support them while climbing around the engine it was time to call an audible. So, I decided to make it a tilting cab. By putting the pivot just behind the grill and it being so long to the back of the upper cab, along with it being elevated, it didn't have to tilt much to get stand-up access to the engine. I'm sorry I don't have pictures of this but there will be more to come. I wasn't sure what I was going to use to lift the cabs at this point, but I was leaning towards air bags. But for now, I just welded a lifting eye to the rear of the subframe and used the overhead to lift it when needed.

Next, I will be working on the cabs.