got the new old truck home last night, now just got to make room for it. i have emailed Stu some pics and he said he would be nice and post them for me. my skills are very limited! maybe he can post them on this thread or maybe he will start a new one. then again, maybe he didnt even get the pics. its a 52 F2 MH that needs a little work but now i can make one nice one out of two rough ones.

 

welcome to the insanity of M/H ..I have a 54 f350 ,,so how is yours ??running? compleat..Umm any spare parts??

 

Congratulations on the new 52 MH ! Cant wait to see the pictures.

That 60? in your Avatar looks awesome too, I would love to have a 59 or 60 4X4 too!
just tonight I drove past a 59 4X4 for sale on my way home from work (looked pretty nice), I should stop to get some details, but those type of things lead to more bad things

Cheers

Josh

 

Mark has a great find here. I've emailed him. I can't post pics and do a full reply 'till later this morning. I'll come back and either edit or do a followup then. Stu

 

welcome to the elite mh club, lol. like josh said, avatar truck looks good, and mh project sounds good. eagerly waiting on pics.

 

Welcome to the board!!

I can't wait to see the pics, sounds like a great truck

Bobby

 

Looking forward to seeing the pics. Congrats!

 

First picture is the one we've seen of Mark's F-2 at the auction. In it you can see two upper radiator hoses, so that says it's a V8. That matters because Mark told me in his email that the only part of the VIN he can read is "2CH17990". The full VIN will therefore be F2R2CH17990. This is the second MH I've gathered records on that was made at the Chicago plant. Most others, but not all, were made at Highland Park.



These next two pics show that the guy who won the auction had the sense to pick up at least one of the other special Budd wheels. Mark also says that the box in the fender is for a battery.




This next pic probably is only of interest to MH guys. It shows that the Hi/Low lever to the right of the brake has a nickle plated tip. Mine do too, so it probably means they all do. What I'd like to know from Mark is whether the in/out lever between the driver's legs has a red tip? One of mine does, the other is too rusted. Is that a factory radio?



This next picture is of the front axle. It shows it is R32-351. The long tube does not appear to have been welded to the housing as many are. Overloading commonly resulted in failure of the riveted joint where the long tube enters the Timken housing.

The axle numbers also help us figure out how many trucks were converted each year. The earliest '52 I have record of is #217 (Owen's/1952's) and the last is #530 which is also owned by Mark/Thundersnow70. This also shows that some plants produced a lot more trucks than others. For instance, Owen's is a Louisville truck with production #10628. Finding axle #351 in Mark's Chicago truck with production #17990 compares to my #342 in a Highland Park truck with production #31490. Axle #352 I saw in a Highland Park truck with production #354xx. I'm not listing it's full VIN in case the owner might object. Mark's #530 axle is in his Highland Park truck that has last five digits of 53856. The earliest '53 I have record of is my #544. I found no VIN on its badly rusted frame.



This last picture shows the rear shock mounts that are unique to the F-2 MH. Regular F-2s had standard rear shocks also, but the bend at the outer end goes the other direction. This, like most other things MH, I learned from Chuck. You sure don't want to have to find a pair of these if they are missing.



Speaking of finding missing pieces, I think it's incredible that both of Mark's MHs when found were missing their rear hub spacers. Mark is having a set made from pictures I've sent him. Maybe now that should be two sets. Seriously, I don't think this is a parts truck. Mark will have to tell us what the titling laws are like in S.D. but as long as there's no severe frame damage I think this can be rescued. Mark mentioned in his email that the truck was originally owned by the City of Bonesteel, S.D. and was last registered in 1967. At minimum Mark now has a full MH drive train that can be moved to a donor truck. Converting a different truck can be done without going to heroic measures. After all, that's what MH did. I would not part it out. That only decreases its value.

Last, emails have floated back and forth between Chuck, Mark, and me trying to decide whether the F-2 axles/hubs/drums might be somehow different than F-3s to account for MH's use of the 16" wheels on F-2s that have a smaller dish. Mark sent me the measurements from both of his trucks, and I've compared them to mine. Same same same. So, like Chuck speculated, the F-2s simply have a slightly wider front track than do the F-3s. Stu

 

well thank's for the pix.. i'm gonna stop snivvling about the work i have to do to mine..although you have much better steel then I do,fenders and doors.. how come you have 8 bolt rear wheels and 5 on the front??

 

It's missing it's rear hub adapters. MH used the stock rear axles then used adapters to accept the 5 lug wheels. Edit - yours is probably different as I think about it because your truck came stock with the 6 lug rear hubs. I originally posted that I thought yours would have adapters too but not so. Stu

 

Thanks for all the nice comments and let me say sorry for saying "parts truck". it makes it easier to get this stuff past the wife if she doesnt think it will be around forever. and yes that seems to be a factory radio, this is before my time so is that something special? and something else i missed before, check out the pic of the front axle and look at the exhaust, its about 6in long on both sides. 50 years ago this thing must have really barked! and to answer your ? Stu, both my levers are rusted which leads me to believe they were painted some color. something else for you to think about tho, my F3 has the badge above the speedo that says positive/compensating and the F2 has a badge that says all wheel drive/rear wheel drive only. any reason why they are different? and if you look at the auction photo at the hood in the bed, does anyone know anything about that hood ornament/airplane? and THANKS a TON STU! you are a wealth of info. you are THE MAN!

 

The hood ornaments were added on by owners. They could be from a car or ordered from a catalog, like JC Whitney, at the time.

 

I believe my 52 F3 says 2wd and 4wd, not positive and compensating. There were two transfer cases available, I believe.

This pictured truck is your F2? Did you get the rare wheels, or did someone else??

 

Good question on the brass plates. IIRC what Chuck told me, the All Wheel Drive/Rear Wheel Drive Only plate is a later version than the Positive/Compensating plate. He has reproductions available of the Positive/Compensating, but not of the All Wheel Drive/Rear Wheel Drive Only. He mentioned borrowing one of mine to have them made so I probably should send him one. My '52 V8 F-3 and my '51 V8 F-1 both have the All Wheel Drive/Rear Wheel Drive Only plates. My 215 truck was missing all of its plates when I found it. My '53 parts truck was a rolling chassis only so it had no plates either.



There were two different transfer cases used on the "R" series trucks. One was made by Fuller and the other by Wisconsin. If you look in the R32 manual it shows them described as "One Piece Case" and "Two Piece Case". I'm pretty sure I have it straight (I'm retelling what Chuck has told me) that the two piece case is the Wisconsin, and the one piece is the Fuller. The case that Chuck rebuilt from my V8 F-3 is the two piece, and my other two are the one piece variety. On your large MH plates over the windshields you might see a letter "W" or "F" at the very end of the numbers. That tells you which transfer cases your trucks have. Some that I've seen have no letter designation, so it might have been up to the guy on the line that day whether it got included in the number or not. I think I also might have heard Chuck say that the Fuller was the standard, and the Wisconsin only used when they ran short of Fullers. So maybe there'd be no letter designation on most Fullers, although I do have a picture of one truck with an "F" in its number. My V8 F-3 has a "W" at the end of its number. Owen has told me that his has a "W" also.

Wheels. If I understood Mark correctly in his email, the guy that bought the truck at the auction got two of the special 16" Budds but not the other two. In the first picture above you see a Budd 20" mounted on the right front and the 16" with no tire laying next to it. In the later pictures it's got both 16" wheels and tires on the front. It's too bad the one laying on the ground and the other rear wheel got left behind. There's a slim chance of finding replacements. As a practical matter, though, it's not terrible. Mark told me he's already found one set of 19.5s for his F-3, so could move his stock 17s to the "new" F-2. It's interesting that the R32 manual and parts list make no mention of these 16" Budds. The only place I've found them is in the older R-3 manual for the 1948 to 1950 trucks having the single speed transfer case.

Factory radio. I'd say it's pretty rare. Watch ebay and see what they sell for. Stu

 

i will check for the letters when i get it back home again. took it to a friends shed last night to get it off the street. got to keep the neighbors happy. and forgot to tell ya about the title, SD is not to bad for getting one, i had to get one for my F3, just got to make sure you see the right person down at the court house. as far as the rims go, at the sale it had a 16 on the left front and the 16 laying on the ground by the right front was picked up and put on the right front. the rest were gone. my thought was to run the 19.5s on the f3 and move the 17s to the f2, which reminds me Stu, i have 2 of the motorhome wheels which i can get more of, and one of the originals you search for. i will send you a email so figure your search is over for the last one. i wont need it as it will drive me crazy looking at #'s stamped on steel wheels.