1976 k20 rear tow hooks

[Jcfcamaro]

Does anyone have any information or dealer ads for 1976 rear tow hooks?

[1976gmc20]

I personally don't remember anything like that from back in those days. I worked for a dealer 1974/1975. Most pickups had a rear step bumper so there was plenty of metal to attach a hook, or loop a chain over the trailer ball.

[Jcfcamaro]

I seen on here awhile back someone had a dealer advertisement for tow hooks for the 65/66 trucks and it showed the front tow hooks and rear that could be ordered. Hoping someone might have the same type of ad for the 76 time period. Pretty sure 67-72 offered them also.

[SilverMiner]

Originally Posted by Jcfcamaro

I seen on here awhile back someone had a dealer advertisement for tow hooks for the 65/66 trucks and it showed the front tow hooks and rear that could be ordered. Hoping someone might have the same type of ad for the 76 time period. Pretty sure 67-72 offered them also.

I've never heard of or ever seen factory rear tow hooks. You can review wonderfully scanned dealer brochures, sales docs, and accessory books for 1977 here http://www.brochures.slosh.com/pdfs/1977/ Nothing I could see mentions rear tow hooks, but I'm interested in learning otherwise.

I can imagine the factory front tow hooks could be installed in the rear, but I've never actually seen it done.

[bhc41051]

I'd bet there's something in here.

[Jcfcamaro]

Originally Posted by bhc41051

I'd bet there's something in here.

Is this a book you have?

[Jcfcamaro]

I'll tell my story. In my small town of 700 our fire department had a new 76 k20 grass fire truck. It had a small water tank in the rear of the bed and our department used it until the mid 90s .Then they put it up for sale to buy a new truck and one of the surrounding towns fire department bought it and painted it red from the original color lime green. Fast forward, they sold it to a guy who fixed it back up and removed all the fire dept stuff like clearance lights,spot lights,pto gear box, water tank ect. It's a very nice k20 now. It had front and rear tow hooks. The front are definitely factory, but not sure about the rear. They have the same lime green paint showing through like the front hooks so I'm guessing they came with the truck when my hometown bought it new.

[1976gmc20]

Originally Posted by Jcfcamaro

I'll tell my story. In my small town of 700 our fire department had a new 76 k20 grass fire truck. It had a small water tank in the rear of the bed and our department used it until the mid 90s .Then they put it up for sale to buy a new truck and one of the surrounding towns fire department bought it and painted it red from the original color lime green. Fast forward, they sold it to a guy who fixed it back up and removed all the fire dept stuff like clearance lights,spot lights,pto gear box, water tank ect. It's a very nice k20 now. It had front and rear tow hooks. The front are definitely factory, but not sure about the rear. They have the same lime green paint showing through like the front hooks so I'm guessing they came with the truck when my hometown bought it new.

Most, or nearly all, brush trucks like that ran the pump off a separate small engine rather than a PTO, so they could do "pump and roll" operations and the pump rpm would be constant (according to how the throttle was set). Structure trucks often use a PTO because they park them while pumping.

Back then it was fairly common to have a single slide in water tank unit, with the pump and hose reel mounted on top of the tank. Those were sort of a pain because you had to get the pump to prime itself, and you had to climb up on top to rewind the hose every time you needed to move the truck.

Anyway, I agree those rear hooks were almost certainly installed when all the fire equipment was added, and the truck specially painted. You would be surprised how often we get trucks stuck in the mud when fighting fires, though you would think everything was dry!

[MJN]

While this post is mostly about '67-72 front hooks there are some images of rear hooks on the second page. The factory medium duty truck front tow hooks can easily be installed on the rear of a pickup and appear factory.
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...w+hooks&page=2

[Dead Parrot]

Very possible the your FD purchased the truck from a company that specialized in taking stock trucks and setting them up as FD ready vehicles. That company could have installed the hooks prior to the final coat of lime green. Lime green was the "Next great thing" for FD colors in the 70s. I think the end result of that experiment was that folks had too many decades of Large Red Truck with lights = Fire Truck and that a Lime Green thing was something else despite the siren and flashing lights.

Does it still have a SPID? That would show the factory color.

Did the hooks come out through the bumper or bolt to a special bracket?