Hello,

Brand new to this forum and brand new to owning an old 1951 Ford PU. The learning begins.

I was looking to find out more about the VIN to start:

F3R1KC16634. I did a quick VIN search and it brought back this

VIN Format: 1951-1952 Ford truck

Decoding: F3R1KC16634

Digit Usage VIN Decoded
1-2 Series F3 F3 Conventional
3 Engine R 239 8-cyl
4 Year 1 1951
5-6 Plant KC Kansas City
7-11 Sequential Serial # 16634 16634
Serial numbers are sequential per plant

Is there anything more I can glean from this?

What month was it built?

How does one find out how many 1951 F3s were made.

By the way...here is a link to some pics of what I have. Open to advice, feedback, things to watch out for etc.

1951 Ford F3 - a set on Flickr

Thanks for the help

Mark

 

That is one nice truck!!!

Just start it up and enjoy. (Not the typical here at FTE) I would love to do this, but no way my wife would let me. She would tell me "you could get a new car for that price." I should tell her "That is what I'm getting with this"....

 

Agree, very nice truck. You're right on target with your VIN decode. There's no way to tell from the VIN when it was produced, and no way to know how many were produced in '51. There were 16 assembly plants back then and they all assigned numbers without regard to the other plants. Some plants stamped a code into the center of the cowl that can be decoded to give the assembly date. I'm not good at the decoding of those stampings. I have a '51 (St. Paul plant) that I know does not have that stamping.

I can tell you that an approximate build time period would be late March or April, 1951. I say this because I also have F3R1KC15275 that I know was #9 built on 3/12/51. An assembly line worker scratched this into the cowl.

I assume you know that your truck has been converted into a half ton. It has a shortened frame, half ton bed, half ton rear fenders, and half ton wheels/tires I'd guess. It retains its F-3 front fenders. For piece of mind, I'd suggest verifying that the VIN tag on the glove box door matches the VIN stamped into the frame. That is visible on the upper frame rail on the passenger side to the rear of the motor mount diagonal. I know that BJ does their homework on vehicles they sell, but did hear of one that slipped past them. Stu

 

Hopefully it's a bobbed frame rather than a frame swap. At least then the numbers will match.

 

That's one sweet looking ride Mark. Thanks for sharing.

DW

 

thanks for the reply guys.

Truckdog - I spent some time with the owner before I bought it. He explained how he shortened the box and he told me that the box and frame were cut. So the numbers *should* match but I will verify. He didn't indicate that the fenders were not the original but I guess that might make sense given the full size fender might not fit on a shortened box. I didn't actually specifically ask him.

Mark

 

The PO may have shortened the frame, but there's no way that he cut down the "original" F3 bed. The F2-F3 beds had raised bedsides and round stake pockets, as well as being wider than the F1 beds (note how the bed lines up with almost the outside of the cab in the pictures below). The bed on your truck has flat bedsides, square stake pockets and is narrower than the F2-F3 bed. This style of bed was on all 51-52 F1 trucks.

For reference, below is a picture of a 48-52 F2-F3 bed.




I have several hypothesis about your truck. The first is the truck started its life as an F3. Its frame was shortened to the F1 wheelbase and a reproduction 51-52 F1 bed (that is the only F1 bed available in repro - no 48-50 F1 or 48-52 F2-F3 beds are available in repro) and either repro f/g or original steel 51-52 rear fenders were put on the truck. The second hypothesis is that the truck was pieced together from various parts and trucks. The third is that the truck was an F1, but a title from an F3 was used to register it.

Some more digging is in order on that frame. The "VIN" should be stamped on the right frame rail around the front suspension.

A few members on here have done the F2-F3 to F1 conversion. I have assisted one member (old_dan) with that conversion by selling him an F1 frame. The only parts that he ended up using on his F2 to F1 conversion from his F2 truck were the cab, doors, hood and grille. He purchased a repro 51-52 F1 bed and f/g fenders all around.

 

What a beautiful truck!! Just WOW!! With two and a half sets of Dagmires. I prefer the 48 to 50 Monkey face. But that truck is is. "Just WOW!!!"

And check out her rear end Tear drop rails. Ford scripted gate. and the bumper tail lights and pipes are to die for.

Many of the little things I would build into a truck for sure.

And ain't that Flat motor a work of art? It could be a glass topped coffee table at my house.

Thanks for sharing

 

Welcome to FTE

F3 Heavy Duty 3/4 ton truck.

R = 239 cid flathead V8.

1 = 1951.

KC = Kansas City MO Assembly Plant.

16634 = 1951 Numerical Sequence of Assembly, your trucks specific serial number.

1951 F3 combined production figures: 7 1/2' Platform (Flatbed): 96 / Chassis & Windshield: 454 / Chassis & Cowl: 932 / 7 1/2' Platform & Rack (Stakebed): 1,667 / Chassis & Cab: 2,949 / 8' Express Pickup: 29,848

Production code stamped on Rating Plate, located on the inside of the glovebox door. Post what it is.

 

Yes that is one very nice looking truck. Love how clean and simple the motor looks!

Kevin
LFD Inc.

 

No Bill, only the late '51 and '52s with new style data plate have a Production Code entry. This truck has the early plate that is pictured in Mark's Flickr folder. That production total is interesting. Where is that recorded? Stu

Edit - I found your reference, those numbers are in the John Gunnell book. There are so many mistakes in that book I tend to never look at it. Stu

 

The Standard Catalog of Light Duty Ford Trucks 1905-2002 / John Gunnell / krause.com / ISBN: 0-87349-411-3 (out of print).

Rokcrin: June 1977 ~ FoMoCo cancelled the Winters Ford Dealer's franchise, awarded it to the local Chrysler dealer. The owner had died, his granddaughter had taken over the dealership without notifying FoMoCo.

I was on my way to Harrah's swap meet in Reno, had stopped in Sacramento to buy NOS B6Q 4V Holley 'teapot' carbs from SacCal, local Motorcraft Distributor, who gave me this info.

I sped to Winters, found the granddaughter using a sledgehammer on one of the dealerships Ford script porcelain/neon signs. The other sign was inside a dipsy dumpster, beat all the hell.

There were so many obsolete parts, that I called my pal Preston Ledbetter, ex-Ford partsguy and owner of F100 Parts Unlimited in San Jose. Told him to get his carcass here ASAP, bring your flatbed.

Between the two of us, we bought everything for less than a grand, including about 300 war surplus 11A flathead dizzies that filled racks inside the dealerships 'mom & pop' sized showroom.

Before heading to Reno from LA LA Land, a guy I had sold some obsolete T-Bird parts to, said...find me a NOS 1957 T-Bird white padded dash. I told him...lotsa luck, non existant.

While looking thru Winters messy 2nd floor parts storage area, noticed a long box laying on a table. Looked at the shipping label, it was dated August 1956 and inside was a 1957 Thunderbird white padded dash!

 

Thats not entirely true. There are 48-50 f1 repro beds available.

 

Sorry I disagree, I find this book to be very accurate. Name one that's better.

FoMoCo THREW AWAY all the records for these trucks decades ago. Nothing is available from FoMoCo prior to 1980.

1967/79 records are now in the hands of Kevin Marti, who acquired them in the late 1980's when he found out that FoMoCo was going to THROW THEM AWAY!

The production figures were sourced from R. L. Polk & Co., who has kept production figures for every US automaker since the 1920's.

 

Yeah, I know you disagree. We've had this discussion before. This book is supposed to be a reference, yet has mistakes everywhere. Seems it wouldn't be hard to post pictures of a '51 and label it a '51 instead of calling it a '52. And vice-versa. Or listing '52 information in the '51 model year section. Or citing 6" x 16.5" tires! Four examples it took me two minutes to see. Maybe he just needed a better editor, but it renders the book just about useless imho. But I accept that he does have the production data which I'd lost sight of. Stu

Edit - James K. Wagner's book is better. Stu