195? Dodge truck

I'm looking at a 50s truck its quite solid with just one spot of rust thru on driver front fender and a crack in the drivers rear fender. I thiink its a B-2-B
The tailgate has been cut down and the wood is gone. The dash is toast glass is all there but some is cracked. Floor boards are solid and original drive train is there. Flat head 6 and colum shift 3 sp. what is something like this worth? I will post picture tomarrow when i am at a computor.
I called on it and hes asking 3k I was hoping for 1-1.5k and try to talk him down but its to much for me. for a 60+ year old truck it is solid and bottoms of doors have no rust thru that I could feel.

The rusr spot you spoke of is common to those trucks if it's in the spot where I think it is.

Does it run

49-53 trucks had a 2 piece flat split windshield. The rust spot on the fenders is where someone thought it was a good idea to place a flat plate to catch and hold everything against the fender and firewall, directly behind the front tires, and call it a fender mounting plate.

A 54 to mid year 55 has a curved one piece windshield with angled front pillars. At least they were smart enough to change the fender mounting bracket. The windshield is hard to find and expensive.

A late 55 -59 (or 60) had a curved one piece windshield, but the pillars were straight up and down resulting in a wrap-a-round dog leg in the windshield. The glass for these are much easier and cheaper to locate. 55 & 56 shared the same body parts, a 57 had unique fenders and nose piece, and 58-60 had dual headlights with shared body parts.

51 & 52 were among the highest production numbers for Dodge trucks, up to the body change in 72!
As with any Dodge truck, missing body and trim parts will be hard to find. It was not uncommon to have the bottom of the doors rusted out, expect to have to rebuild your own door bottoms, no one makes sheet metal parts.

I've seen prices all over the ball park, but decent mostly complete trucks seem to run between $1,000 to $2,000 range, the nicer they get the more they cost. Paper work is often a challenge, so be sure you know what has to be done to title a truck in your are if there is no paper work. Also, it is not unusual for late production year trucks to have paper work for the next year. I have seen several split windshield trucks titled as 54s. Gene

$1500, maybe a little more if it has a clear transferrable title. That truck isn't rare and it is RAW material.

R.

Though 53 was the bed/fender change?

The rear fenders changed in 53 to the modern style like on the Little Red Express and remained unchanged through the end of the step side box production in the mid 80s. The rear fenders bolted to the side of the beds, so moving the holes and filling in the unused holes were all that was required to use the fenders of your choice.

Step side bed sides were a bit more complex. Dodge made low side beds, high side beds, 6 1/2' beds, 7 1/2' beds and 9' beds. In 57 (maybe 56?) the top of the bed rails went from a 45 degree angle to a 90 degree angle. I could get the book out and look up the specs as to what things were available when, if I wasn't so lazy. Most bed floors were wood planks bolted to steel crossmembers with metal strips, and the bed sides bolted to the wood floors. The front of the box contained the front crossmember and was bolted to the box sides, the rear crossmember was riveted to the lower part of the box sides (if I remember correctly). Somewhere in the 60s a steel floor must have become an option, as I've seen several "newer" beds with factory ribbed steel floors. The steel floor beds were all welded together like the wide boxes were. (Bet you can't tell I've had a few of these trucks can you? )
Gene

Yep. Why I asked. Looks like a Low side bed aswell. I don't know if 53 Had both fenders is what I was getting at. My old 52 was lowside

im thinking 40s ish.

I'm guessing its a 48-50 by the grill opening. I just noticed you model #, a B-2-B indicates: The 1st "B" is the truck series, B. The "2" indicates the 2nd change in the series, 1950. The 2nd "B" indicates it is a 1/2 ton 108" wheel base.

The trucks also have an engineering code. The letter prefix and the three digits made up the first part of the truck's engine number.
B-1 1948-1949 engine numbers T142xxx is a 1/2 ton, T144xxx is a 3/4 ton, and a T146xxx is a 1 ton. A T136xxx is a power wagon engine code (the book also shows a T137xxx as the only engine code for the power wagon, guess its your choice?) and did not change during its entire existence.

B-2; 1950 T172 is a 1/2 ton, T174 is a 3/4 ton, and a T176 is a one ton.

B-3 51-52 T306 is a 1/2 ton, T308 is a 3/4 ton and a T310 is a 1 ton.

B-4 1953 engine numbers are the same as a B-3.

The book source is odge Pickups History and restoration guide 1918-1971 by Don Bunn & Tom Brownell copy-write 1991. It has proven to be pretty accurate through the years. Gene

This is the book he mentioned...expensive book even used.......http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0879384913/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=

The link doesn't work, but I bought mine over 20 years ago off the "clearance" rack at a car show. I bought a couple other books at the same time, "Standard Catalog of Chrysler 1924-1990" by John Lee, copyright 1990 (also a very informative book), and Tex Smith's How to build Chrysler, Plymouth, Dodge Hot Rods, also copyright of 1990 (some good stuff in that one, but much is outdated now). Think I got a package deal of $25 for all 3 books. One of my better investments. Gene