Now that the weather’s getting nicer and I’m starting to get motivated on restoring my ’53 3100 again I have a couple of questions. Maybe this should be about three different postings, but I’m going to try to lump them all together.

I’ve noticed that a lot of the parts catalogs for this truck list a part called a “Roll Pan”. What’s a roll pan? Did my truck originally have one or is it an add-on? Is it used instead of the rear bumper of do you need both? The picture in the catalog doesn’t look like anything I took off of the truck when I disassembled the truck bed. Of course it may have been removed by a previous owner and I just don’t know what it is.

Seat belts -- I've read the threads on these (both lap and 3 point belts) and just thought I’d ask if anyone had any more recent information, pictures or advice from an installation that they might have done on this model truck.

While disassembling the doors in the basement over the winter I destroyed the passenger’s side vent window pivot stud. You know, the threaded stud that extends down from the vent window frame that holds the glass. I was more careful on the driver’s side and that one turned out alright. Anyone had any experience replacing this stud or know if this part is available anywhere? I would expect that this piece may have been used on a lot of GM vehicles so a non-truck part source would probably work if I can get some cross-reference numbers.

For anyone doing this in the future, don’t try to unscrew the nut on the end of the pivot stud. After you get the window frame out of the door, use a “nut cracker” to cut off the nut and then replace the nut with a new one.

Finally, I need to find a heater flow valve. My truck didn’t have one when I purchased it. The heater hoses went directly from the water pump to the heater. This means that the heater was on “high” all of the time with no way to stop the flow of hot antifreeze. I checked the StoveBolt swap meet page, but none were listed. This seems to be a particularly difficult to find part. I’ll post a “wanted” ad, but wanted to find out if anyone knew of a source for this part first. Is it possible to use the valve from another GM vehicle on the 3100?