WTB: 5/4 ton unstucker wheel nuts

[Jon Skagfeld]

Originally Posted by rob love

I'm fixing up one of the old 1976 Chevy 5/4 ton trucks to use as a towing vehicle for my trailer/bren carrier. I almost have the truck finished (I just had to replace the cargo box, complete brake job, pack all wheel bearings, replace the windshield, replace the tires, rebuild the front diff, rebuild the transmission, replace rear shocks, replace the drivers floor boards, and about 100 minor jobs) but one thing I am missing is the extra long wheel nuts that go on the rear wheels to hold the unstucker adapter plates. If anyone has access to 8 of these from a junker, let me know and we can work out a deal.

Rob: If you ever, by chance, run across my old 5/4 CFR 29264, it has the extention bolts as well as the adapter plates installed. We were never issued the complete unstucker kit. There was a Deviation Record on the vehicle throughout its life.

[rob love]

Worse than having them on deviation record was actually getting issued the damn things. They came in a sandbag cloth bag, and always seemed to be rolling around the truck.


Speaking from a mechanic's perspective, ,many of us removed the plates and special bolts when we were removing the rear drums, and simply installed the normal wheel nuts. Saved us from dragging more than one socket for the impact to the job. Whether we threw them into the back of the truck or into the garbage can (the scrap metal bin was too far a walk for a few pounds of metal) was the mechanic's prerogative.

The original intent was to have a certain portion of the 5/4 tons issued or retrofitted with electric winches, but the choice of the puny Dana 44 for the front axle made any further addition of weight on the front impossible.

I got the truck through her safety yesterday, and took her for her first run yesterday towing the trailer with my old truck to the scrapyard. The 5/4 worked well, although the speedo crapped out and the oil pressure was a little lower than I would have hoped for. I sold the old truck for $100....almost enough to fill one of the fuel tanks when it runs dry.