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last winter my dad picked up at 620 GMC truck. This weekend I went to the farm and we played with it a little bit. Here are some links to YouTube videos of some of the outcome. This is a 1954 former us air force truck.
vid one
vid 2
vid 3
lift bed. low oil

We may go for more hydraulic oil in the morning and I may have another video after

Nice truck. Sounds great.

Is the engine a 503, 477, or 426? I have a 630 with. 503 engine.

Ed

Ed, how did the head gasket change go, once you got the water glass patch freed up?
Jerry

Looks like very little work to fix that one. The cab parts down to a half ton will fit. The front end is unique to a 500 to 600 series, but it appears to be in good shape.

That scissors lift bed was used to raise cargo to the side of planes like the KC-135 that had a big loading door about 10 feet off the ground, as well as other similar aircraft that did not have front or rear cargo ramps for loading. I believe the KC-97 which would have been in use in 1954 also had a similar type of cargo door. The C-124 had a front ramp and clamshell doors that opened up under the nose of the plane.
Jerry

We fixed a few leaks in the heater hose connections tody. After that we filled the water tank with water, drained the old Gas out of the tank, Put 10 gallons of gas in the tank, put a new in line gas filter and routed the new electic fuel pump from the Peak Tea Tank (Bottles are useful) and connected to the actual fuel tank. We started it up and ran the beast for about 1/2 hour. We did not find any other leaks. We filled up the hydrauliic oil tank and tried the lift bed out. Raised up without any issue. It raised up perfectly evenly today. It was just low on oil yesterday. We had issues with the bed lowering again as all the mechanisms need to be greased and oiled. A bit of pressure from the Payloader took care of that quickly though.

My son and I are driving back home from my Parents place today so I can't post the pics and videos now but I thoguth I would type an update since my 16 year old is driving .

The truck drives great. Breaks of course do not work. We will take care of that quickly. The deck of the bed needs a bit of work. The lumber yard that had it put the racks in the front and back and welded the tailgate in place in the back. We are going to remove the racks and free the tailgate so we can put in a stake bed the same hight as the tail gate (rougly 2.5 feet). I think it will look cool.

My dad has it up on Bisman for sale to see what anyone would give him for it. But I think we are just going to keep it on the farm. If we can rig something up to raise and lower the deck from on top then it would be neat for changing light bulbs in the shop .

I will post pics and a couple more videos on the truck tomorrow.

Ed, I am not sure what the Engine is. The block casting number is BD 2191762. The Casting number behind the distributor is 2191324 and has 737 just under that.

I figured I should post about this truck since it started so easy and it is fairly interesting.

Last thing. It has SAC GAFB on the back of the frame. From what has been pointed out to me now, probably originated in Glasgow, MT which is much closer to where my Dad purchased it.

Thanks for the interest. Lots of pics and a couple videos tomorrow.

Jerry, putting it back together, had the head milled some, just found a big crack in the intake manifold today which I will have to get welded up, so, I am stalled for a while. Turned out the valve guides were worn, had to get new cast iron ones made, found new ex. valves in CA, so head is back on, plenty of valve to piston dome clearance with milled head. Put in all new head studs from ARP. Thanks for asking.

Chris, SN starts out with displacement, I.e. 503xxxx, found stamped left side, just ahead of firewall, on top of crankcase, hard to see with all the dirt there.

Ed

Did you find the big hole burned in the intake heat box under the carburetor? I believe I did a temporary patch on it before leaving Tennessee, or at least I intended to- - - - -don't remember if I got sidetracked and forgot about it or not. Doing the fix on the front wheel cylinder pistons sort of took up some time I didn't expect to spend before heading for KC. Fun trip, though!
Jerry

Would "GAFB" be Glasgow Air Force Base, then? Would make sense, being local to Montana and having SAC (B-52 and KC-135) assets there about the right time frame for a truck of that vintage.

There are some Zoomies over on Steelsoldiers.com who can probably give you some insight on that truck (if the Stovebolt Zoomies don't mind some back up).

Fascinating truck!

Even if it is Air Force ...

That makes much more sense. I was looking it up and everything pointed to GoodFellow base in Texas, but As I search today Glasgow is showing up. I will have to edit my first post. I will get some pics up shortly.

Here is a video of the Bed Lifting up. It lifted nice when it had hydraulic oil. Never mind the leak under the engine, it was just a heater hose.

Lifting up the bed.


If you pay attention you will see parts of the GMC 473-D diesel and the GMC 650 Single ax tractor behind the white trailer.

Here is a video of how we got the lift bed to go down. Things need a bit of grease and use.
Pushing down the bed.

And here is a Photo album of various parts of the truck. I realized posting this that we seemed to put much more interest in the Lift bed and the Mechanical functions of the truck than in the body or cab itself . I will see if my dad can find the ID plate to get the model number of the motor sometime this week or next weekend.

Enjoy.


Phtobucket Album of the truck

Jerry, that is the hole I want to get welded up by someone who knows what they are doing. At least the ex. heat is in the cool position, SS shaft(must have been replaced sometime) is seized in casting so hard to disassemble, hope to get it welded as is.

Another topic: can I disable the governor under the base of the carb. by just putting pipe plugs in the intake and exit holes?

Thanks,

Ed

It's been a long time since I've worked with that type of governor. I'll look through some of my older shop manuals to see if I can find some infortmation on it. I believe there needs to be some internal modification of the distributor to disable it.
Jerry

Back on topic:
Chris, that is a cool old truck! You don't often see a lift set up like that. I hope you are planning on keeping it.

That truck is amazing. So what size is that engine?

My dad is going to look to see what the engine size is sometime this week. Once he finds out he will let me know and I will let you know . As far as if he is going to keep the truck time will tell. He has it up on a website for "sale" but I think he was actually just trying to see what kind of interest there is in that truck. He is not very computer literate, at least he thinks he is not . The guy can send picture texts with the best of them. In any case. I am pretty sure that he will end up keeping the truck. I am trying to talk him into replacing the windows, fixing the seat, and returning the Bed to it's original condition. Once that is all done it could be useful to have a lift bed truck at the farm. I know of at least 15 or 20 times I could have used one in my youth on the farm.

It could be a 426, 477, 503, he is going to look for the SN which has the displacement as the start.

Ed