Hey there:
I am currently rebuilding the flathead from my '51 Pickup. Everything has been cleaned, and is in need of paint. Does anyone know what the origonal color was for these engines ?
Thanks

 

Well, I have seen a document that tells me this is wrong, but the flathead in my 51 was red. My Grandpa bought the thing brand new off the lot, it only has 40k original miles and the engine had never been pulled until I came along, so I'm pretty sure I can trust that this was the original color of the engine. Besides, red looks cool...at least it wasn't pea green.
Gary

 

If its a 6 cylinder it was blue, Go to Bonusbuilt.com there is a picture of a freshly painted 6 there.

 

Thanks Guys.

 

8flat........I have a 51 F3 and it's 239 V8 engine. I am pretty sure it's not the original V8 in the truck. It is an 8BA and not an 8RT. I can say for sure, it's original color was red. I have also been told it was not original? DOH! Sorry, but I think they are wrong. That engine had no other paint on it, other than RED. A darker shade of red than, let's say, darker than a Y block red. Not exactly sure what color of red they call it. There were no greens or golds or any other color but red on that engine. I have been told that a 51 F3 with the 8RT's didn't come with a red engine. What color did they come from the factory with? What color were 51 8BA's?

 

Hmm, let me get back to you, my pickup was an F2, but I swapped the frame with an F1 to get the shortbox setup. So, my engine must actually be an 8RT? I'll go check tonight. Maybe this is why the plate in the glovebox states the hp is only 90hp instead of 100hp?
Gary

 

All the 48-52 trucks had 8RT's from the factory if they had a V8. Ford superceded the 8RT heads to 8BA service parts. Many of these trucks had the 8RT engine replaced with an 8BA from cars as the replacement ratio was higher on trucks. If you had a 8RT head go bad, the dealer put a 8BA head on.

Barry

50 F-1

 

barry..........Pretty sure that is exactly what happened to mine. Although someone tried to paint the engine the old lighter ford blue, you could see red paint coming through on every part of the engine, where the blue paint was wearing off. It did have 8BA heads when I got the truck. They also had red paint on them peeking through the worn out blue paint. 7RT carb on it? I think that is correct.

 

If the plate says 90hp it was probably a 7HA 6cyl. My plate on my 51 says 90hp.

 

Well, I'll run the VIN and see, but I'm pretty sure that is the original V8, unless somehow my grandpa forgot about an engine swap years ago, but that sure seems unlikely.

 

My plate says:
Engine No.___F1H1CH22662
Model F1H
I believe the "H" stands for the 226 7HA 6 cylinder

 

It's kinda fun doing the detective work to find out the history of your truck. I know I've run across some strange and interesting information since I starting doing research on my 56 F-250.

As far as the engine colors go, there are a couple years/engines that seem to have a standard color scheme. For other years, farily reliable information seems to indicate the colors varied - even for the same year. A few years ago I read the following comment from a fellow who says he worked at the Louisville Ford plant in the 50s.
I'm not sure if that is true or not. I doubt the engines were painted at the Louisville plant, and I don't think they were assembled there. Maybe he was just talking about what they received at Louisville from the engine plants.

Seeing some of the other cost-cutting measures Henry opted for, I guess I can believe they would use up whatever color paint they had around at the time. On the other hand, Ford may have color-coded their engines, and simply changed the scheme during the model year. On top of all that, you have to take into account the info that Barry supplied concerning replacement with newer parts, or even the replacement of the original engine with a car engine of the same type but different color. It would really be hard to figure that one out - especially if the casting numbers for the block and heads were the same.

If someone has some really hard info on engine colors, I'd love to see it. I'd be willing to put together a short reference for FTE, since this issue comes up about as often as engine type/size discussions. If anybody has some good history in a book, a web link, or wherever, to Ford engine colors for these years, I'd love to hear about it.

 

Look at "Vintage Hot Rods & Classic Cars"

 

There's a site that Bill B on Ford flatheads on MSN has that lists all the colors for flathead V8 engines for 32-53. I can't seem to find it as it's a separate site from flathead forum. According to his site, my 50 F-1 engine should be Bronze. I know this will cause this debate to go on and on. I'm staying with the Bronze until I can verify any other colors to be correct.

Barry

50 F-1

 

That's a very good web site. It's one of the "fairly reliable" sources I referred to in my earlier post. I asked them a while ago about where they got their engine color information and didn't receive an answer. I'll have to try again - they seem like nice folks based on the site.

It also looks like Gary's red engine color doesn't match the site list - and I wouldn't want to exclude him from the "fairly reliable" source list. Looking at my notes, I found at least one other "fairly reliable" source with a 51 truck engine that was red.

Maybe trying to pin this engine color thing down is a fool's errand ... comments welcome (about the errand, not the fool!).