>Regarding the under the bed spare tire carrier, was that an available item
>on the 50 trucks? Was it a dealer installed or factory item? Got a guy
>looking for an under the bed spare tire carrier for his original restored
>50, anyone know where or if they can be purchased? --wayne
good luck on that one! the ski-jump slider mount was on the deluxe
pickups - i'm not sure if it came on the regular models. the factory
parts manual i have shows it (section 7.608 - although the picture
shown is slightly different) , so should've been factory option. you
undid a special bolt from the rear valence panel, and slid the tire
carrier down a little ramp; you then unbolted the tire from a
'cone' doodad that held it on the carrier. all this was to prevent
the 'gentleman farmer' suffering the indignity of crawling in the mud
to fetch his spare.
as for availability - i looked for FIVE years for one.
outside of houston was a car 'restorer' who made things shiny and
sold high; he had a 50 deluxe with a complete slider unit... and a
side-mount fender spare!!! offered him $300 for the unused slider -
he said 'i'll sell ya the whole truck for 30K.'
i found half of the carrier welded to the back of the cab on a
junked truck in a texas oilfield. it had the little 'cone' welded to
it; i ground the carrier off the truck and then ground the cone off
the carrier. some new paint and viola: halfway there.
i crawled under every truck in a truck graveyard near mason, texas...
found the pin that goes IN the slider, but nothing else.
finally, i paid grant g something around $100 for JUST the carrier,
but nicely restored and painted.
the fact that i had all the pieces for this rare item was actually a
big selling point when our second child forced us to part w/ the old
truck. they are hard to find since most folk ended up just throwing
the tire in the bed, apparently. last one i saw on ebay went for
$350, complete but rough.
http://www.ckoon.org/truck/lastride.MOV
craig
former caretaker of steph's 1950 3104 5 window deluxe.
oletrucks is devoted to Chevy and GM trucks built between 1941 and 1959
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