1949 F-1 Engine Color

48-51 red 52-53 green on the truck witch would of been a EBA,but everyone calls the 48-53 8ba engine hope this helps.
 
Blue was a sign of a rebuilt engine back then. Are you sure it was never replaced or painted somewhere in it's life?
 
That's where the discussion begins upon being out of a bigger truck(commercial) versus a 1/2 ton. I have seen both... My motor was rebuilt and painted blue but was originally red. I think red looks better myself.I repainted red before installing. I believe that green was used till 47,but may be wrong. Ken
 

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Barry-ct said:
Blue was a sign of a rebuilt engine back then. Are you sure it was never replaced or painted somewhere in it's life?
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No it was a brand new truck. I went with him to the dealership to get it. Maybe because it was an F3? When we retired the truck in 1968 I took the engine, stored it until 1984 then completely rebuilt it and put it in my F1.
 
The car engines were blue up until somewhere in late 49 or so. The assembly line might have put a car engine in the truck if they were short on truck engines and it was early in the 1950 model year. The 239 engines were pretty much the same until the trucks got bigger than F3. I've seen a lot of early F1 pickups with 8BA heads. Most bigger trucks had 8RT heads.
 
F1 to F6 used the same 239 V8

F7 and F8 used the 337 V8

At this point it's almost impossible to say what was original as it all interchanges.
 
Don't want to open a can of worms again, but if you read the parts books on the part numbers for heads, it show 8BA heads listed from 48-early 51 on F-1 thru F-6 and in late 51-52 they received 8RT heads. In July of 52, all earlier heads (8BA) were replaced by 8RT heads. We argued this point before, so please, don't drag it open again. As far as the correct colors, I don't think it can be determined as there's no one to ask who was there building these trucks and no one has come forth with documentation from the Ford Archives.
4t8v8- what are the markings on your heads?
 
My understanding is that they were replacement heads. The catch is the number. If they were engineered in 1951, they should have had a 0RT or 1RT number so this makes for some of the contention. Personally I don't know the history but it is likely in the Benson Ford Research Center. A large truck needed lower compression heads for the power they had to pull in order to protect them from detonation. Mercury 8CM heads would have been better than 8BA heads for that purpose but FoMoCo probably didn't make the change until the EAB heads came out.

The trucks larger then F3 started getting different water pump sheaves, larger fans, and fittings for different brake systems but the changes were subtle. Some had the carbs with governors. Even the F2 and the F3 generally had the 11-inch clutch with cast iron half bell for a 4-speed gear cruncher. Many F1 engines had the 10-inch clutch with the pressed steel half bell. Now all this dosn't change the engine much but it does change and FoMoCo had ways of insuring all these different assemblies made it to the correct truck application.
 
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Barry-ct said:
Don't want to open a can of worms again, but if you read the parts books on the part numbers for heads, it show 8BA heads listed from 48-early 51 on F-1 thru F-6 and in late 51-52 they received 8RT heads. In July of 52, all earlier heads (8BA) were replaced by 8RT heads. We argued this point before, so please, don't drag it open again. As far as the correct colors, I don't think it can be determined as there's no one to ask who was there building these trucks and no one has come forth with documentation from the Ford Archives.
4t8v8- what are the markings on your heads?
Click to expand...
Originally 8RT. I have done enough research on it to know it is a late 1950. When I rebuilt it I went with a Max 1 cam and Edelbrock aluminum heads.
 
For Ford to come ot with the 8RT heads as a replacement or supercession, there must have been a problem with the 8BA heads. If you went into the dealer for a head problem, you got 8RT heads, car or truck. I spent 30+ years in the dealership level in Parts not to learn how they functioned. When they did update the part number for the latest head, logic would have used a 1RT or 1BA for the head, but they didn't. It's spelled out in the parts books how the supercession went and also shown in the OSI books of 1951. Those years of the early 50's had a lot of strange prefixes for part numbers and really did not start following a logical order until 1955.
Ford has an excellent parts system, easy to learn, memorize and use. Today, they've gone to their "world" system and the prefixes are crazy. Once you use it, you can figure what the prefix means as far as models. THey no longer designate the year like they did. Try GM, they use all numbers, but they move parts around into different groups and it's hard to follow their logic.
 
If your heads had 8RT, then it was a very late 1950, after the actual supercession. Engines coming down the assembly line would have gotten the new heads before they were issued to the parts depots. It also got the depots a chance to clear out the old 8BA heads to the dealers to use up. They in turn, may have been ok or the dealer would have to put 8RT heads on that vehicle if it returned for the problem. Remember, back then, there were no recalls as today. They only replaced them when the customer complained of a problem. If it was after the 90 day warranty, you paid for the repair.
 
Yep, we bought it around the 1st of December, 1950. I remember it so well as dad ordered it without a bed. We put a flatbed with racks on it as it was used to haul horses. I still have the heads. They are definitely 8RT and the engine was dark blue.
 
4t8v8 - out of curiosity, what is your serial string? Just the last six numbers is enough to place it in production.

The firewall stamping would also be helpful for some key identifiers.

If you don't want to post it, shoot me a pm or email. I've been collecting info on 48-50 trucks for the last 16 years and have details on more than 1000. The split between 50/51 is fuzzy at best. Any help you can provide would be great - and confidential.

edit: never mind - just read the whole string again and it doesn't sound like you have the 50 F3 any longer.... would have been interesting!
 
Yeah the old F3 is long gone. If I recall correctly didn't they go to rotators on the valves in '51? Mine doesn't have them.
 
Rotator types came in slowly in early 1951. There are a lot of 1951 models that don't have the rotator type valve set ups
 
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