Hey S-N-S, I'm pretty sure all of us who were half-considering buying that parcel delivery are glad to hear it ended up in a good home. It is awesome that you are so enthusiastic about getting an old work truck running, and that you plan to use it as a delivery vehicle.

As far as the stuck flathead goes, sorry I'm not much help. I haven't had to deal with a seized flattie yet - mine has yet to start, but it does turn over. However, there are a lot of great guys here who have lots of experience bringing flatheads back to life, and I'm sure they'll be happy to help you out with this problem.

 

A local milk truck (I think). Pretty solid for Maine.

 

I agree with Mike (badger_hound). At least the truck ended up in the hands of someone that will take care of it and bring it back to life. If you ever get overwhelmed, then get a hold of me.

Besides, I already have two Panel trucks to deal with. I didn't really need another delivery vehicle. Although it would have been cool to have a mini-fleet.

 

truckdog62563: ok. good to know - thank you for setting me straight! yes, the tires say 17"

 

I finally got some time to work on the truck - So far I have pulled the old rusted plugs (5 came out semi-easily after soaking in WD40 for a few days... one wouldn't come out after a week and i was afraid of breaking it off so I got some liquid wrench and soaked it overnight...that did the trick), filled the spark plug holes with Marvel Mystery Oil to work on the siezed engine, replaced the old plugs with new plugs with anti-sieze on the threads (to help prevent sticking in the future), drained the oil, pulled out the oil filter, drained the gas tank. I've also scraped off a few pounds of oil and dirt build up around the engine so I can actually see all the bolts and seperate parts. Thats it so far - I figured I would let the MMO sit for at least a week and then try to turn it over by hand.

**On a worse note... While cleaning the engine I noticed something that almost gave me a heart attack - the rear of the engine is not bolted to the frame - and it doesn't line up with any mounting holes. I'm not entirely sure what the rear engine mount shoudl look like, but the bracket that's currenbtly there just looks wrong. I'm not sure if this means this is not the original engine, or if the rear engine mount is missing for some reason, or if this has seriously damaged the engine. Is everyone else as horrified as I am about what the engine is resting its weight on!? (see first few images below) I'm hoping there is a good solution to this - please help with any advice!



(REAR ENGINE MOUNT APPEARS TO BE MISSING/INCORRECT)



(BEFORE CLEANING OFF OIL & DIRT BUILD UP)



(AFTER CLEANING OFF OIL & DIRT BUILD UP)



(NEW SPARK PLUGS WITH ANTI-SIEZE ON THREADS TO PREVENT STICKING)



(ENGINE & BATTERY ACCESS COMPARTMENTS IN FLOOR OF CAB - AT REQUEST OF USPS)



(REMOVED OIL FILTER)



(OIL FILTER)



(OIL DRAIN PLUG)



(DRAINING OLD OIL)



(OIL FILLED ONE AND A HALF BLUE BUCKETS)



(DRAINING OLD GAS FROM TANK - SMELLED STRONGLY LIKE VARNISH - YELLOW COLOR - 1 GALLON)



(OLD GAS DRAINING - YELLOW COLOR)

 

YUMMUY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! gotta love them old fluids. just wait till ya drain down the tranny !!!!!!!!!!

 

I think that you have the wrong transmission in your truck. The repair manual has this setup for the F3 parcel truck, and shows a heavy-duty 3 speed transmission with a downward-angled rear mounting bracket (for 1951 on, at least):



Since your truck is a 1950, I'm not sure what was standard/optional for parcel deliveries that year, but I don't think it would have the transmission mounted parking brake or the remote (column) shift. Your truck does seem to have the correct transmission cross-member however (f2-f6?), which is different than the one in my truck (1949 f1), even though we seem to have the same transmission:





My guess is that your truck originally came with a transmission with a rear mounting bracket like this f2 four speed that havi posted in this thread ( https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...nsmission.html ):



Also take a look at the photos of transmission cross-members that mtflat posted in that thread for comparison.

Good luck!

 

thanks for all the pictures and links! i'm posting some better pictures of my transmission cross member - that definitely looks original... the vertical plate (engine mount?) bolted to the top of it doesn't though. my transmission cross-member is flat in the middle... it doesnt have that curved dip as you have pictured above.

does it seem i could just get the correct engine mount and everything would be ok? or does it look like i need to swap out the whole transmission as well as get a new rear engine mount?

the Vin on the engine bay plaque tells me its a 1950 - its passed the vin cut off for '49's... but how to tell if the engine is original? ...or what year it is? someone left a note in the truck that said they did "engine work" in 1985. I don't know if this is the original engine or if they just swapped out the transmission.















(MOUNTING BOLTS ON BOTTOM OF TRANMISSION CROSS-MEMBER)

 

I believe you are correct about which transmission my truck originally came with - It appears I should have this rear engine mount bolt pattern in order to be able to bolt it right into the existing holes in the tranmission cross-member...

what would you do if you had this situation on your truck? Would you just get a whole new tranmission? or try to get this one to work somehow?

 

You have three choices to remedy your issue. First choice is to fabricate a bracket on your existing crossmember to mount the current transmission properly. Second choice is to replace the existing crossmember with one from an F1 (all 48-52 F1 trans crossmembers are the same), which would allow you to mount your existing transmission properly. Third choice is to change out your transmission to the correct style to properly mount into the crossmember.

Finding a stock F1 trans crossmember could be challenging as they're not readily available. I may be able to help you with the third choice.

As for your engine, there's no way to tell if it's the same exact one that came in your truck. There was no "numbers matching" with Ford vehicles at that time. However, your engine is stock for 48-51 trucks that originally came with flathead inline 6 motors. The original transmission likely gave out and was replaced with what was available or could be found at the time.

 

thanks 51PanelMan!

Did you recieve my email about coming up to check out my parcel delivery?

The third option sounds awesome - I would like for this project to be full of as many original parts as possible. Bolting an original transmission directly to the original cross-member sounds great.

let me know if it seems you may be able to help out with an original transmission - or possibly a good place i can start looking for one?

 

does anyone know what goes between or if anything between the tranny mount and crossmember as mine has the big rubber block inside the crossmember with the two bolts sticking up as my bolts were loose and they have a lock washer and a castle nut with a cotter key so i persume that something was there

 

Here is a set of Hood trim since you are missing all of yours. 1950 ford f1 hood trim | eBay

 

Found this on google images.

 

Put a modern 300 6-cylinder ,5 speed in it, update the brakes . Most people arn't going to know unless you pop the hood .