The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Big Bolts 1946 2 Ton Flatbed Wood

The truck was shed parked it's whole life so the racks and bed are in very good condition. It was used on a wheat farm for harvesting.

The question is did the floorboards ever come tongue and groove?

The dirt has wedged itself between the board edges. When scraping out the dirt I feel the tool move easily across the bottom as if it was running on top of a smooth surface as if the tool was running on top of the tongue. It looks like it's tongue an groove though it is hard for my eyes to see it that well.

The truck came with two sets of racks.

The open rack that is as high as the cab roof.

Then another rack that was solid wood. Though this rack was made with two different width boards. The wider boards were permanent. The narrower boards were removable.

Each narrower board had a vertical metal bracket that was affixed with 1 center bolt so that the ends of the bracket would rest on the wider boards.

When that bracket was turned 90 degrees so it was parallel to the boards you then could remove the narrower boards and convert the closed sided rack to an open sided rack.

Both racks were painted red, with the rear racks white with each board pin stripped between every vertical post. Red boards had white pin stripping.

Pin strip design was 2 horizontal lines and 2 curved vertical lines crossing over the horizontal lines.

=)===(= imagine all of the equal signs were connected.

The white racks had the same pin stripping though it was blue.

The metal frame around the bed floor was red and also had white pin stripping. Though more of a loop design.

I am surprise the truck came with 2 sets of racks and that they were that detailed. I think this truck had been sent to the dealer and had this lift bed and racks added before the dealer delivered the truck to the customer.

Name stamped into the wood racks said Great _______, I forgot the second word and the way the racks are now stacked on the garage floor I can not see it now.

Most of the trucks were outfitted by the dealer with various flatbed/dumping/hauling set-ups to meet all the different needs of commerce through out the USA. The flatbed boards that left the GM factory were not tongue and groove. They used metal strips that sat recessed in grooves of the wood. The metal strips were higher than the wood deck thus ease of sliding items around. There a many pictures of this set-up on this web site and the sites that sell trucks. Of course GM did sell trucks with a stock boards and paint jobs. If you search vintage chevy truck ads in Ebay you will see them.

This sounds like a custom truck body,and every state of the union,had different makes,as well as PTO, frame shortening/lengthening,/hoist installations,as well as fire apparatus,and service bodies. When a GOOD truck body shop installed a truck body,(box/hoist),it looked like the truck came from the factory with that set-up. My '48 KB3 has about the same design on the grain box,and it was built in Kansas.

As mentioned, there were many different brands of aftermarket beds available. I've seen quite a few, some with the fancy pinstriping you referred to. I would also guess that your bed does have tongue and grooved floor boards. They were made to haul grain without having it leak out through cracks in the floor.
Also, it could be possible that the "open" part of the rack that you referred to could have been installed above the other part for hauling cattle, then folded down for hauling grain like this one. Both my brother and a neighbor had those. I believe they called them combination boxes.