I went to work on the broken shock bracket on my 59 extended cab truck,
and learned something new. The upper front shock mount brackets on Task
Force trucks were apparently redesigned for the 1958 model year. The
"new" used bracket I installed on my truck came from a 57 frame, and
looks to be a much better design. The 59 bracket is much more flat,
while the 57 bracket has a deeper channel design. I looked at other
truck frames I have around the yard, and found that the better brackets
were on both 57s, and the lousy brackets were on a 58 and the 59s. The
GM replacement brackets I bought long ago are the newer lousy design
also.
So, if you have a 58 or 59 truck, and you do a lot of driving on rough
roads (I live on a dirt road, and also did when the brackets broke on my
other 59 long ago), you may have your upper shock brackets break off
sometime. It wouldn't hurt to take a look at them, you may be able to
see a crack forming just below the shock mounting hole. The crack forms
from the middle, then moves to the edges as the bracket breaks off. You
might be able to reinforce the brackets by welding some steel bar or
angle iron on them, but it would probably be better to replace the
brackets with the earlier design, if you can find some. Also, I drilled
out the rivet holes to 7/16" and used that size bolt to attatch them, so
they would be as strong as possible.
I took a picture of both brackets and put it on my web site:
http://www.primenet.com/~jforbes/
Also, I discovered that the front shocks from Chevy Duty are actually
just Monroe-Matic 31000 shocks, which my local parts store can get, but
they are not listed in their catalog as fitting these trucks.
Jim
oletrucks is devoted to Chevy and GM trucks built between 1941 and 1959
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