Recently in what can only be described as a moment of insanity I paid real money for a pile of crumpled rust that the owner represented as a 1939 3/4 ton. The good news is that most of it is there (but broken) and it appears ranch fresh. Baling wired on the tailgait was a 1951 New Mexico license plate. Probably the last time it ran. As I start to work my way through the truck, a couple of small questions come to mind. What did they use for an interior rear view mirror? I don't see one in the catalogs and many of the pictures of trucks I see don't have one.
I assume that this truck originally had artillery wheels but they are unfortunatly long gone. It has one wheel, however, that appears to be a heavy duty 16" x 4" wheel. It is drop center and has an eight spyder center as apposed to the four spyder center of the half ton. It look simular to the split rims that I see described in specs as optional for 3/4 tons of this vintage. Any idea where it came from? I found one more in a friends junk pile.
Another observation is that this truck didn't follow the rules when it was assemble. Instead of having small wooden bed blocks, there were one piece blocks that went all the way across the bed. I'm learning that factories didn't have just one correct way of doing things.
The fun begins. I may be getting to know Barry Weeks more then I would necessarily like to when it comes to missing parts.
