The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Guide, but not a hunting guide.

Nothing is simple, is it!!

In the 1951 Chevrolet Accessories Installation Manual there isn’t a single really clear
view of the 986360 switch. The only clear illustration shows how the flasher is mounted
and it only show a small portion of the switch housing. It appears that the flasher is
mounted inside this switch and the section of the switch doesn’t look at all like the one
pictured in your 1951 Truck Data Book. Also in several of the sketches the switch
appears to be mounted at 12 o’clock on the steering column and it looks like you should
reach thru the steering wheel to turn the switch on and off, I have to assume that it is not self canceling.

The 1952 Chevrolet Accessories Installation Manual clearly shows the self canceling
Guide unit. They list two part numbers for the accessory, 986551 and 986636 and it isn’t
clear what the difference is. My guess is that one is for the light duty trucks and the other
is for the heavy trucks. The casting is very similar to the Guide 6004 used on the
passenger car. The difference being in the way they are mounted to the mast jacket. One
clamped with a strap and the other with the clamp cast into the housing. Also the wires
for the truck are exposed and not enclosed in a loom cover like they are in the passenger
car. It is a self canceling unit also.

The 1953 manual shows the exact same installation that the ‘52 manual shows.

1954 of course was the first year it was actually offered as a built in unit.

So in the end, as I mentioned earlier, I think the unit for the car will work on the truck and
look period correct.

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL