VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1933-1936 Tail Light

I have the black oval tail light on the rear of my GMC 1/2. Which is the correct way for the lens to on the light? The raised circle on the top or bottom?

On top depending upon what truck you have.

What year and body style in your GMC? .
34 - 39 Panels had glass lens on top of oval taillight. 34 - 39 Canopy Express had the tail light bulb sticking thru a grommet on the bottom. .

good Luck

It is a 36 1/2 ton, long bed. The taillight rests on the grommet on the bottom.

The pickup trucks had the license plate on top, so bulb/rubber grommet is on top. The lens has the round raised portion of lens is at the bottom (helps focus the brake light output). The taillight/brakelight bulb is at the bottom of the lamp housing. The 1936 1/2 ton trucks only came with one length bed; the 1 1/2 ton pickup had a long bed. Some of the US Army trucks had different length beds.

35 pickup man -

Good information on the taillights, I have wondered about this myself. Do you have a picture of what the tailight bracket looks like and where it mounts? My '35 has a model T taillight and I have acquired an NOS chevrolet taillight housing and two lenses, one has a bowtie and the other has "Chevrolet" written across it. Any information you could provide would be great.

Also, for what it is worth, the GMC's did offer a long bed 1/2 ton in '35 all the way through '55 first series. I have seen several of these and Dunfire has a fine example of an original truck with the factory long bed.

I may have part of the bracket missing. My bracket bolts to the frame on the left side with the license plate underneth the light. I have seen a bracket on another 36 GMC that had another bracket bolted to the frame and it raised the taillight and plate bracket up about 4 to 6 inches. That truck had a rear bumper, so I assumed that was the reason for the addtional bracket. Reverseing my bracket will not give enough clearance for the plate to fit next to the bed wall.
Ken, if you need a picture of my light, let me know. Thanks for the kind words about my truck.

The lens with the "Bow tie" is for the Trucks and the "Chevrolet" is for the Cars.

There are also differences in the way the glass was cast through the different years. 1935 Standard and back have the entire bottom half of the lens raised while 1935 Master and up have a raised circle in the lower half. Don't know if the truck lens had the same changes, but would guess they did.

Mike :)

Mike,

Thanks for the information on the proper lenses.

If anyone has a picture of the proper taillight bracket and mounting arrangement, I would be most thankful for a picture of same. :)

KenB
Do I understand you to say that both rims you describe will fit the bucket you have? The only bucket I have seen to match the black rimmed "Bowtie" truck lens, mounts with two studs permanently mounted in the back of the bucket.
If you have a bucket with a single threaded hole mounted at an an angle in the back of the bucket, it is the 33-35 passenger bucket ( perhaps Std. Series only for 1935). The lenses will not interchange on these and the buckets are very different in their shape as well as the way they mount.
If you have bucket which will accept either lens, then one of your lenses is a type I have not seen.
Mike