Narrow Bed 78-A Info Needed
 

I'm looking for anyone with an original pickup with the narrow bed (78-A), or even just the a narrow bed that has the original bed skid strips. There was a rivet in the outside strips even with the center pan in the bed. If you have just some original strips without a bed, that will work also.
Trying to see what type of rivet filled this hole.
See photo.

Re: Narrow Bed 78-A Info Needed
 

My March 1929 CC pickup (avatar) original unrestored strips shows a punched hole at this location - no rivet. This is in line with the left/right centerline of the "pan" which shows a rivet at this location attaching the pan to its TWO strips.

I suspect ALL strips were "pre-punched" with centerholes for their entire length and then these centerholes were expanded to squares, or used to land rivets IN THEIR REQUIRED LOCATIONS.

Now "The Pickup Book" (blue) has an article within by Mac Hils, who of course has a long history with the Model A pickups. Page 146 upper left shows a picture of the underside of a completed/restored bed before painting. This picture shows a square headed bolt at this location. NOT what my bed was/is.

This Blue Book reprint is a repeat of a 1981 Volume 25, Issue 5 Mac Hils "Restorer Article." There are an additional pix or two that apparently didn't make it to the book reprint.

Funny, elsewhere in the article, Mac shows perhaps another bed from the top - this one shows NOTHING at this location - although it may have the pilot hole that you can't see in the reflection.

I suspect on that bed the punched pilot hole was left unfilled and painted - like my bed.

There is another more recent article which appeared in The Restorer magazine at Volume 52 Issue 3 p. 44 titled "Restoration of the Model A Pickup Narrow Bed." This article the author Douglas Cox "breaks down" the bed to component pieces COMPLETELY, and reassembles it with bolts before rivets. The pictures don't really show the rivet/hole/area of question but it is a most enthusiastic restoration and Mr. Cox has a lot of pertinent description of things you wouldn't necessarily be paying attention to.

He addresses the center most rivets thus:
I suspect the center pan and the two crossing strips were riveted as a "unit" before assembly, building up wood from the edges of the bed and building "in" before bolting the square bolts. Just as they have come apart in my case.

Joe K

Re: Narrow Bed 78-A Info Needed
 

Joe, thankyou for your thoughtful reply, we really appreciate it. Your thoughts mirror our thoughts, and we have seen the articles you mentioned.

We know there were rivets installed in those holes on assembly, and at this point we are looking for actual examples of original strips to determine the type of rivet that was used. We only have photos of the heads of the rivets, but not the underside.

We are basically trying to determine if it is a split rivet, or a solid rivet. The Mac Hils book lists it as a split rivet, but we are trying to verify for ourselves by some original surviving examples.

Re: Narrow Bed 78-A Info Needed
 

To me it seems like the rivet, if there is one, should be the same rivet used on the pan attachment. The later article has a material list of sorts which might help.


Joe K