Your correct Tim, about the drawing, the Assembly Manual does show a '54 bed, I was looking at the drawing date which is '53. Obviously they took the drawings for the new model year, which were drawn the year previous.
I am not looking for just any old side mount for mine, I have a sturdy channel iron with two studs, side mount already welded in place on the driver side that holds my 7.00-15 bias ply just fine. I'm going to cut the mount off when I do the body work this summer and wanted to install a mount that was a copy of a factory mount.
I have seen one ‘53 that had a factory mount. Looking behind the tire it looked like it consisted of a few tubular brackets, and a couple of angles with slotted holes, but the guy wouldn’t take the tire off so I could photograph it. Seems to be the story from everyone that has one. I don’t understand what the problem is with popping off two lug nuts for a thirty second picture taking session.
You bring up an interesting point, that '53 was the first year for the side mount. I had not heard that before, no doubt if that is true I will stop asking for a picture of one. If I were the owner of a 1950, 3604 in '53 or '54 the first time I saw the side mount, you'd find me down at the Chevy parts counter ordering a side mount. I'm sure that it wouldn't take much to adapt it to my pickup.
For 1950, you say that’s not factory original! It’s the same old story, original to what time period of the truck. Most of the accessories were not factory original, such as the visors, inside mirror, fog lights, radio, spotlight, and on and on. Old Whitey was our new car guy and that’s all he did was install accessories, Accessories were added by most owners over the life of the truck, so it's not to far fetched to think that a "Genuine GM" Chevy side mount was one of the improvements/upgrades. I know this to be true because I was a Chevy parts man from 1959 to ’64 and sold a ton of accessories and parts that people added to their rides. We even ordered and installed accessories from the Western Auto and local Autoparts stores if the customer wanted something that Chevy didn’t make.
The concept of fabricating a part to look like a factory part is difficult for some people to understand. I hang with a bunch of guy that build street rods and they can’t understand spending days and weeks restoring a Huck brake system when Summit or the like sells a disc brake kit to upgrade your project.
Small detail, but when I look behind the side mount on my truck, I’m gonna see a tubular bracket screwed to the box. And one more thing, under the bed I will have a spare rim mounted on the drop down, slide out carrier.
Denny Graham
