Cool McCool's Garage

For the past month I haven’t gotten any one task DONE on the truck, so it felt good today to actually go out and FINISH something.  I’d bought a pair of ’47-53 Chevy truck bumpers from “Chev’s of the 40’s” a month ago,  today went out and got the mounts made front and rear, and temporarily mounted the bumpers.

The fronts were a little harder than I’d thought.  The original bumper mounts were a little to short, so I lengthened them.  There was also an interference problem, in that with the radiator shell mounted, the rear bolts were totally inaccessable.  “Solved” that by welding 5/8’s bolts to the inside of the frame and trimming the back of the left hand bracket 1/2″ to clear the steering box.  I made some extensions to support the outer ends of the bumpers,  and it all ends up looking like factory issue.

The rear was much easier.  I made a reinforcement bar from the same 1/4″ x 3 flat stock the front brackets were made from, and made simple stand offs to weld onto the Reese hitch mount plates.  The rear bumper is tucked up fairly tight to the rolled pan, looks great, and the hitch reciever is just below the bottom of the bumper.  Perfect!

The Chevy bumpers look right at home on the Diamond T.  Being rather plain, they look stock, and they are certainly an improvement over the huge, heavy aluminum channel “tow truck” type bumpers it had on it when I got it.

Now, it’s starting to look pretty classy.  I’m about ready to pull it completely apart and start painting, so here’s one last look before it’s spread all over the shop!