Can you get the size engine from the VIN?

[Tracy L Willits]

I just bought a 1950 Dodge pickup truck. What can you find out from the serial number on these old  trucks? It has a model number as well as a serial number.  I have a 56 Coronet and a 52 Packard as well. I don't want to make a show truck out of it. I just like old cars and trucks. My plan is to make it into a driver.

[Spinneyhill]

http://www.t137.com/registry/help/partspages/SerialNumberGuide/slide001.html

[Tracy L Willits]

Thanks Spinneyhill. That was just what I needed.  I have a 1950 1 ton truck with a 230 Flat  head engine. Thanks again, Tracy.

Edited October 2, 2017 by Tracy L Willits
Put in wrong year, and engine. (see edit history)

[Guest]

http://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-the-curious-f-head-engine/

[Tracy L Willits]

That is not the engine in my truck. I thought that F head was Flat Head. I guess I was wrong. My Packard is a straight 8. I cleaned it up and tuned it up including refreshing the fuel system. That is the extent of my experience on flat head engines. I guess I have a ways to go!  I see that the F head has the exhaust valves in the block and the intake valves in the head.  The push rods for the intakes must be pretty long.  I corrected the engine as a flat head rather than an F head.  Thanks Trinindian.

[Guest]

Tracy you are very welcome.  You obviously have good taste in cars.  I had a friend who worked for both Rolls Royce and Packard.  He felt that the Packard was really the best car in the world bar none.  He felt that they, the Packards were engineered not just over built.

F head is/was not very common although the Hudsons and the WWII Jeeps certainly showed how good that configuration could be.   I would almost state categorically that 90% of the automotive people today couldn't identify an F head if they saw it... there were even a few F heads that had the exhaust valves in the head and the intakes in the block. 

Happy hobbying

[Tracy L Willits]

I am doing the body work on my Packard as we speak. It actually isn't too bad for being 65 years old. It needs floor pans and inner and outer rockers just like my Dodge.  The mechanical work is done-as far as I am going to go. It is not a show car, but a driver.  It smokes and has lifter noise but runs good. The smoking I can't do anything about. The lifter noise I am working on. The thing that gets me is that for my 56 Dodge Coronet I could only find floor pans and inner and outer rockers. I had to make the wheel archs-rears, and the dog legs in front of the rear tires. They still make Dodges today. I can buy anything for my Packard which has been out of business for 60 years! Just seems ironic to me.  I am not sure just what the Dodge truck will need. It looks like floor pans, I won't know bout the cab supports until I do the pans. All-in-all it's in pretty good shape for an almost 70 year old truck. I am going to make it look good and function properly and just drive it around town to the lumber yard and so forth.  For now I am going to put the Dodge truck into storage for the winter-it gets pretty cold most winters in Nebraska.