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

While I was working on the interior trim the weather turned cold again so I had to hold off on some of the work that I needed to glue so I decided to work on something I could do in a cold shop.

The first thing I worked on was to figure out some side mirrors. first, I wanted them to look clean but stout. second, they needed to be out far enough to see around the bed, but I wanted them to be able to retract so I could fit into (relatively) tight spaces or when parking. I ran a piece of 1 1/2" tube steel inside a piece of 1 3/4" tube steel then welded a vertical arm to that and will mount a standard truck mirror to that. It will have a threaded nob on the back side so you can slide it in or out and tighten the nob to hold it in place. I'm going to mount it to the door with a fairly large plate inside to keep it from flexing. It will extend from 10" to 16" and that's enough to see down the side of the bed.

Next, I decided that I did want a front bumper. But when I got rid of the original chassis, I was lacking in foresight and left it on it. I'm not sure how I could have made it work with the tilting cab, but it might have saved me from having to fab one. I googled COE trucks and started looking to see what I liked and came up with a design that I liked. Then I started building one.

I'm prepping both the mirrors, and the bumper for paint and will have pictures of finish product when they are done.

The last thing, the sun came out for a little while last weekend, so I decided to take it for a short drive around the neighborhood just to test things out. It drove good and short of a couple little adjustment things I was very pleased. All the lights and gauges work like they are supposed to. It ran and shifted on que and the brakes work great. I still have some work before it's really road worthy but It's Insight.