The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Big Bolts New pics of Emily with bed finished

Just posted new pics of Emily, (1964 GMC 4000), on webshots. Bed is finished. Several coats of linseed oil on yellow pine. Still needs new rear tires and mudflaps to finish the back end of the truck.

http://community.webshots.com/album/575056719ymZsDG

looks good

Looks great even if its no longer a fire truck. BTW: Just kidding about the firetruck part. LOL

Very nice, have you had a load on it yet?

I've used it to pick up a couple pizzas! lol

I need some stone to fix a section of my front walk, so it may see duty hauling about one ton of field stone. After that it will probably not see action until spring, when I need to mulch my yard. One trip now, instead of 6 trips in a Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Still need to make sides, I think I'll make some short solid sides about a foot high, and a set of stakes, even with the top of the cab. Over the winter I'll finish polishing out the door and hood lettering and work on the inside of the cab. I've kicked around the idea of diesel train horns, mounted under the bed with a small compressor, with a 35 gallon air tank hung like a round fuel tank. It all depends on if I can find a good deal on some diesel horns. It would be an attention getter, not to mention a source of air if needed, (any excuse to have loud horns, lol).

Looks like going back 45 years in time.

Thanks! I take that as a great compliment since that is what I'm hoping to achieve. The look, not actual time travel, lol.

Very good looking truck. I hope to get to mine next summer

Looks really nice! Is that pine? Does it have a finish on it, or are you leaving it bare?
Chris

Now that's one of the best lookin' trucks on stovebolt! Very original, looks like it just rolled off the showroom floor. The 1960 thru '66, along with the task force trucks have always been my favorite.
I've seen your thoughts on larger cast spoke tires (11R22.5) on a previous post, I think you are fine with them on the front but the clearance is not there on the rear. From what I can see by your pictures you'll need to raise the bed.
Again a great looking truck!!

James

Bed is yellow pine, with 4 or 5 coats of linseed oil. Each board is lap-jointed under the next with space for drainage, and fastened with 1/4 inch bolts through the cross sills. It is stored inside so it should hold up pretty good.

I'll probably just bite the bullet, the $800 bullet, and get new 8.25x20s for the rear. The fronts are in great condition. My thoughts on the 22.5s were if I could find rims with tires in good condition it might save some money and keep from winding the engine so much at 55-60. The bed actually has 1.5 inches more clearance inside the rubrail to the cross sills, unless using a wider tire that would extend out to the rubrail. The cross sills are currently about 6 inches above the tires. I loaded about 3 tons of block on it to see how much it would go down, it went down about an inch and a quarter. It still had another inch and a half before it would have been on the helpers. The wood spacer between bed and frame is 1.25 inches, and the u-bolts are long enough that another inch could be picked up there.

It sounds like you have plenty of room for the 11R22.5 rear tires. I measured a 8.25x20 and a 11R22.5, both fully inflated on rims, and found them to be at a height of 37 and 41 inches respectively...just an average indicator.
As for tire and rim sources try some local trucking cos and see if they have some in their boneyard. We have sold most of ours and got on average $35 apiece for good open center 22.5 rims. Another source are dry storage trailer rentals which lease out old dry vans no longer suitable for over the road use. Truck salvage yards are yet another source. As for tires the local large truck tire service centers may have some good used take offs that long distance trucking cos cannot use but a local trucker like yourself can.

James