HOWDY AND GREAT LABOR DAY TO YOU. WE LOCATED THE VIN # ON THE FIREWALL AND IT IS PRECEEDED WITH A "STAR 9 8RC STAR 220423 STAR L3"
AND AFTER RE-READING YOUR REPLY, I WANTED TO INCLUDE OUR 3 SP IS ON THE FLOOR AND WE HAVE SQUARE STAKE POST HOLES. WINDSHIELD WIPER ON DRIVER SIDE ONLY, RADIO, VISORS BOTH SIDES. WHEN WE BOUGHT THE TRUCK IT HAD WOODEN BUMPERS, ERGO OUR SUSPECION THAT IT WAS A FARM TRUCK.
DO YOU KNOW WHERE WE CAN FIND THE ENGINE CODE? TO SEE IF IT'S THE ORGINAL FLAT HEAD. THANKS AGAIN. <~karen~> @ LAZY E RANCH

 

Glad you like it here so far. The #'s and letters will be stamped into the firewall inside the engine compartment. There was no consistency on how this was doen. I've seen all size fonts and all sorts of locations.

As far as an answer to your air cleaner question, I would receommend starting a new thread in the 48-60 Forum or in the Flathead Forum and ask that way. Unfortunately, non of my trucks even have engines in them at the moment so you are way ahead of me. Someone here will have an answer for you though.

Carl

 

I think that L3 is probably an LB whihc would indicate that your truck was built in Long Beach, CA. I think what you found is the VIN plate that is riveted or screwed to the firewall. There is another one similar to it attached to the inside of the glove box door if it is still there.

The firewall stampings we are talking about are actually stamped into the sheet metal that makes up the firewall. One example of a Firewall Stamping is:

A KC 21K 125 which indicates that it was as follows:

A = Raven Black
KC = KAnsas City Assembly Plant
21K = October 21 Build date
125 was a sequence # of some sort.

There should be a similar # stamped into your firewall somewhere. IT may not have been stamped in real deep so you have to look closely for it. We don't have any Long Beach firewall stampings so I would be real interested in seeing what you have.

It will be next to (but not totally) impossible to determine if you have the original engine but there is one way you can get an idea. They did not put the VIN # on the engine so there is no such thing as matching engine #'s for these trucks. What the did do though, was code stamp a date onto the top of the block on the right rear side of the engine on the exposed flat spot between the back of the head and the back of the intake manifold. I know that I have the date codes somewhere but right now I have a cranky 5-year old about to go to bed. I can look later if you are interested. Anyhow, if the engine build date is within a month or so of the truck build date, you can pretty well assume that it was the original engine. I found it on a flathead site somewhere on the net. I expecet that Tim (MTFlat) will see this and provide the link shortly.

Anyhow, good luck with the truck and let us know what we can do to help. If you can find that fiewall stamping, we woudl really appreciate it.

Thanks,

Carl

 

Anything to help! Jim Marlett, owner of the webpage even has pictures of where the assembly date is stamped.

http://flatheaddrag.com/birthday.html

You actually have the only engine code IN the vin. 8R was the designation for the 239 flathead V8 and that's about as close as you can come - short of taking the engine apart and checking various part numbers, but even that isn't a sure thing.

 

Hello again, and thanks.You guys are awesome. Right you are, the vin # my husband found was on the plate on the firewall and it does match the one in rhe glove box. He will look again for the stamping in the sheetmetal. Really do enjoy all the help. I'll try to get pictures when/if we locate it and then try to figure out how to put them on here. My grandson helped me load some to my email back a time, so if I have your email I can send it to you if I can't figure out the albums herein. My email is lazyeranchke@juno.com if you want to send me yours. We're getting ready for the big Route 66 Rondezvous in San Bernadino Sept 14TH-17Th, web site is http://www.route-66.org and we go up the Sunday before and park our cars and RV to save our place. Best darn street party around, with total crowd control.Sorta like Hot August Nights in Reno. No gangs, just fun, cruising, poker rides, burnout contest, open header contest, neon light contest, etc. We had the only 48-49 F1, 5 years ago and now there are 3 of us. Check it out. Thanks again <~karen~>

 

That's the one I was referring to. As far as the firewall stampings go, take a look through the earlier pages of this thread. There were a number of posts with pictures (or links to pictures) of these stampings to give you some idea of what they look like.

 

got through 9 pages last night. lots of help.

 

Well it's not very ledgible and I'm not certain of the 6TH character, but here is the firewall stamping: 7L31913 and the glove box plate:SN 98RC 220423 had the model 9RC, and remember the firewall plate was:*98RC*220423*L3. I'm still reading the threads. When we sanded down the paint on the firewall, we see the ugly green. It that the original color?

 

Yes, the ugly green was called Meadow Green. The 7 on your firewall is the color code for that. I agree with Carl, the L3 is most likely LB. Sometimes there is a assembly date code next, followed by the production number car scheduled that day.

For example: mine is 7RH12L6025
7 Meadow Green
RH Richmond plant
12 Nov '48
6025 production number

As Carl has said, not all plants used the same string and offhand I don't remember what was normal at the Long Beach plant. To complicate things further, Ford didn't use a #1 stamp, instead used the capital 'I' for no. one. They also did not use the letter I in their date strings, skipping from H to J for the month on the firewall codes.

However, this doesn't apply to the engine date stamps - that's a whole 'nother story. Don't you just love Henry?

 

7 = Meadow Green
L3 = LB = Long Beach Assembly Plant
1913 = 19 - Date of the month your truck was built
13 = This is where the mystery is. Based on the VIN #, I sould suspect this is a mid-year 1949 truck, say May to September timeframe.

D = April
E = May
F = June
G = July
H = August
J = September

That 6th character is the key. There is an art to reading these things. The stamping weren't very consistent and sometimes weren't very deep. Can you get pictures and e-mail them to carl _w_gustafson at yahoo dot com? I might be able to figure it out or I can post it and perhaps someone with better eyes can figure it out. Also, look further to the right of the numbers you found, there may be another two or three digits.

Tim - Safe to assume you have a raised panel bed and a floor shift tranny? I just wanted to fill in the blanks on the list for your truck.

Carl

 

Well now, after your last message, I got out the oven cleaner and took off the paint on the firewall. My husband read the following # 7LB13I6,,,Yes, that is an I and he had it painted over befor I got back from the store. No pictures. What do ya think?

 

I am laughing because I never would have thought to use oven cleaner to remove paint and it's such an obvious way to do it. Guess you can tell who does and who doesn't clean the oven in my house. Shame on me.

Honestly, I'm not sure what to think. Did the 1 and the I look the same or different? Aa I mentioned in an ealier post, I don't have any Long Beach Firewall stampings. The only trucks I have identified as being LB trucks were so identified on the VIN plates.

Heck, LB may have used I's for the date code and not skipped to "J" like everyone else. I will certainly file this away as a data point. Norfolk always stamped the letter P in front of the paint code. For example, yours would have read "P7" at the beginning of the firewall stamping sequence had it been built at the Norfolk plant. Some plants used letters for the paint codes, some used #'s. I've seen a number of different formats for the information to be stamped into the firewall but the most common was what I gave as an example earlier and what Tim gave as an example.

IF LB used 1's and I's and they chose not to skip the letter "I" in the date code, your truck would have been built September 19, 1949. Any chance that I was a poorly stamped "J" or a poorly stamped something else, like and "H"? I know I keep asking but yours is a first for us.

Thanks,

Carl

 

RIGHT....Mr. Muscle oven cleaner does it in a hurry, just don't use it on aluminum as it etches it...but works great on steel, enamel, porcelain, glass etc.I've even used it to remove grafetti on the walls. Spray it on, wait for 'ol Mr sun to warm it up, squirt off with a high power nozzel. The boss is absolutely as sure as he can be that it is 1(one) and I (eye). As I said, he had it painted over before I got to read it or take a picture. It's ironic that the date is September 19, the day after my birthday 9/18 and the same day I had my first son and my oldest daughter. I grew up in Long Beach, CA.

 

"Tim - Safe to assume you have a raised panel bed and a floor shift tranny? I just wanted to fill in the blanks on the list for your truck.

Carl"

You bet! Sorry, I didn't bother to specify 'cause all 48's should be the same with regard to boxes and floor shift - nothing else was optional. My 3 spd on the floor is the HD tranny

 

1-`1950
2-97HC333470
3-Flat panels
4-3 speed
5-Column Shift
6-cowl stamping - ??? 130 255

I cannot distinguish the first three places and the 130 may be 150.

The truck is original. Color is Meadow Green. It came from a fruit and cattle company in Ft Pierce, Florida.