I’ve been looking for an original under-bed spare carrier for my 1950, 3504 since I first brought it home almost two years now. A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by a gentleman from sunny California that had one. He was answering a plea that I had thrown out over at VCCA for pictures of one. Fortunately for me it was an early type with the sliding rail and unfortunately for him, he had a later AD that needed the swing down diagonal carrier.
http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2922328220098611668MxYocS We struck a deal and he boxed it up and a couple of days later big Brown dropped it of, all in one piece. Except for a broken J-hook and missing nut, all the pieces were there and straight. I had really expected a heavily rusted hunk of iron that I would have to blast and fill to make it look presentable but to my surprise it was really in great shape and it still had about 70% of it’s original paint on it. Amazingly under the California dust it only had some mild surface rust to deal with and after a good scrubbing, wire brushing and an encounter out back of the barn with the pressure pot and some silicosis, I had all the makings of an under bed carrier.
One little catch though, it was off of a 1/2-ton instead of a 3/4-ton! Now here’s where a few of our Bolters came through with some pictures and measurements of partial 3/4-ton carriers and it was enough for me to put all the pieces together and re-engineer the unit into a 3604 version. After studying all of the new pictures and the ones in my archives, and a bit of fitting up to the frame it became clear that the only difference between the two was the sliding rail. Another “Mother Trucker” from out west had posted some pics of the two versions and this confirmed that the rail mounting was the only variant.
After removing the welds in the milling machine the old track mounting brackets were popped off and the remaining welds were cleaned up. Which left me with a bare track to mount up to the 3604 frame. Making the new front bracket was straightforward; it’s just a simple angle bracket with a couple of holes in it and it just so happened that I had a sheet of 12ga. in the corner. The rear stand off bracket was easily formed from 2” stock in my leaf brake and the two were arc welded in their new positions with 6013 just as the original brackets had been. And going against my years of training I even left some of the weld spatter around the welds, just as the original one had on it.
Silica sand leaves a wonderful satiny surface for the new paint and a couple of coats of Rustoleum Semi-Gloss finished it all off.
http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2037784080098611668XNOlYl I also had a bar of 1/2” HF round stock for the J-hook and after another session with the Bridgeport I had a bending fixture for the 5/8” radius bend. A few inches of 1/2-13 die twisting and that was done. Thanks to yet another member I had a good picture of an original nut and that was made, yes once again, from some 3/4” hex-stock that I just happened to have on the shelf.
http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2825111170098611668hqepeK Over the last couple of years I’ve managed to find a few extra 15x5.5 two-piece rims that were in nice shape and one of them is mounted up on the new carrier. I won’t be keeping any rubber under there because from all accounts the truck was delivered with only the bare rim.
http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2599737040098611668YMlMZk So now I can chalk off a one more item that the old gal would have had when she was delivered back in the fall of 1950 just as the Korean War was ramping up.
Hope this will help some of you dudes with the 3/4-ton AD’s that want to put them back the way they were.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
