Info needed: C15A 2B1 cargo bed rebuild

[Paul Edwards]

More work in progress

[Grant Bowker]

Sources for footman loops - I'm not really suggesting you buy in North America and pay the cost to ship but these may give an indication of what's available.

https://www.beachwoodcanvas.com/order/productlist.cfm
https://www.mcmaster.com/footmans-loops/ (McMaster are restrictive in where they ship to but their site is nice in giving dimensions.)

[Bob Carriere]

Nice job Paul......

I had rust in just about the same areas.......... I had to salvage the floor diamond plate patches from another spare cargo box. If you come up blank on the footman loops let me know as I am about to order 4 for mine and could reship to you possibly cheaper.

I removed and saved all the special rivited holders sued with the 1940 early tarp which had leather straps with a key hole for the pins. I will now have to rivet them back on .

I worked on my box using a large rotisserie that had a section of a CMP rear frame so that I could attach the box to the frame similar to actual set up.

Notwithstanding the rigidity of our installation...... after careful measurements we found the floor was not perfectly flat but was slightly curved front to back
which made fitting some of the side panels tricky. I am now stopped at getting the front head board panel and side drop panels done by a local fabricator as my bending brake is limited to 48 inches. I compared 3 separate cargo boxes.....all rusted..... and was amazed that the measurements were all approx. 1/4 inch more or less....... yet they were all 2B1....all had some slight differences of construction.

What thickness steel are you using???

Cheers

[Paul Edwards]

Thanks bob, we'll see if we can source the footman loops this side of the pond first.

I'll check with my fabricator as to the sheet metal gauge.

Here's more progress this morning, jigging up.

One more question; is the oval slots in the rear tail gate for rear lights to be visible when the tailgate is down, or are the holes for a boot hold for climbing on the bed?

Also I've seen a very original picture with just one slotted hole, is this an early bed or what?

Cheers,


Paul

[Jordan Baker]

The oval hole is for the tail lights to be visible when the tail gate is down.

[Bob Carriere]

As pointed out by Jordan they are meant to see the taillights when the tailgate is down........ for some reason the cab 11 tailgate is not intendedm to be held open as a flat surface. ....Very early model might have just one opening as they only had tail lights on one side. On the cab 13 they are semi circle and meant to be steps.

Now why would a Cab 11 be driven with the tailgate down????? just swinging in the breeze!!!!!

Paul the tail lights are mounted on the rear side of the 2 gal. fuel can holder.

Cheers

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Nice job Paul. Always good to see those early bodies being brought back to life. Seems their construction is more complicated than the later 2C1 bodies.

Originally Posted by Bob Carriere

On the cab 13 they are semi circle and meant to be steps.

The body you refer to has both the holes for the lights to shine through plus semi-circle holes as footsteps.

I have never seen pics of CMPs driving with their tail gates open. There is no means to fix it in the down position, it would flap, make a racket and eventually break.

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