Picked up a 52 Dodge pickup. Pretty cool rust free truck. Been a muscle car my whole life , but got an itch about Flathead performance stuff. Anybody into it or got stuff laying for a 52Dodge pickup ?
Has a Arvin 59 heater, looking for some stuff for it. Maybe defroster vents, .The truck is a 3 on the tree , and the center floor piece is rusty need one of those. Maybe a mirror bracket, park light lenses, ,rings Thanks

Most of the parts you are looking for fit a 48 -53 Dodge truck (any size). That will improve your search, look for 48 truck parts as most listings will be found under the 48 search. A few years ago there were several places you could get some replacement sheet metal, but I don't know how many of those places survived Covid shutdowns. A search for 48 Dodge trucks should turn up a lot of options.

The Dodge truck cab changed quite a bit in 54, and then again at mid year 55 the cab was updated again. By 58, few parts other then mechanical parts will interchange.

The flathead 5 came in two verities, a short head version and a long head version I believe the short version is 23" and the long version is 25". The performance intakes have to be for the correct head length, measure your head's length. Both motors were put into trucks from the factory as an option and there has been a lot of years since your truck was new. Most of the exhaust split manifolds I believe are interchangeable (I could be wrong on the exhaust as well). Do a search for the Dodge flathead 6 performance parts, some stuff is still out there.

The old Dodge military trucks were based on the 39 - 47 cab, but a lot of non-sheet metal cab specific stuff crosses over. www.vintagepowerwagons.com has a lot of stuff available that will work on your truck, they repop a lot OEM parts.

You will find that one company (there were 3-4 companies repoping the 48-53 truck parts) will make a run of a specific part, and everyone sells them until they are gone, then when the demand gets high enough they make another run, and everyone sells them until they are gone. Part availability will depend on how your timing for looking for parts falls on when the last run was made. Rare parts without much demand do not get repoped at all so you are limited to what OEM parts still exist.

The 51/52 Dodge truck was about the highest market share that Dodge trucks ever enjoyed until 1994. There are still a lot of these old trucks around, but nothing is cheap for them.

member Sniper is working on a "two single" intake that will use two single throat fuel injection throttle bodies and split exhaust manifold [fenton headers maybe ?] for his '52 [i think ?] dodge.
not sure what engine he has in it, other than it's a flathead 6.
perhaps he will see this thread and chime in ?

Hard to find a few things out there. I see guys that have swapped out to V8 and a lot of 6 motors laying around. Dont gain much HP . Bought the truck to put together and sell to someone who cant or doesnt want to work on them. Going thru all the systems, new brakes, lines , have it running, nice rust free body. Its growing on me but i was a 57 year. Wish i knew the options on each year. Why chrome on thing and painted on other.

It's a 51 Plymouth that has it's original 218. However, and this is where you are remembering, I have the 230 out of a 52 Dodge I am hopping up to put in her.

Yes, there are performance parts for the flat head 6, specifically the 23 inch version. Which is prbably what is in your truck, If you can tell me the engine number ( stamped on a machined pad the front of the driver's side of the block, just below the deck surface) I will tell you what you have.

I have, new production,the following

High compression aluminum head Mopar Vintage speed is the source
Dual 1bbl intake, it's a Thickstun intake made by the original designer's son, Ebay, he runs a batch off every so often, though I have not seen one recently. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?ssPageName=&_ssn=eastcheam842
Split cast iron exhaust manifolds (basically Fenton copies). This was from Langdon's, but he's no longer in the game. He also made an HEI based distributor.

No one makes new cams, but several companies can put a performance regrind on yours.

You can use a slant six distributor and your existing points one to make an electronic ignition distributor. Modern production points suck horribly. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/mopar-flathead-6-distributor-upgrade-48-desoto.653565/

Vintage Power wagons has stock type replacement engine parts, but is also one of the performance cam sources.

On facebook, The Freewheeling Tony Smith is a machinist that specializes in the Mopar flatheads and sells some parts, as well as a very helpful fellow.

For general truck parts of that era https://dcmclassics.com/

I can help on the engine performance questions, but the truck specific stuff, not so much,

Anyway, here's the build thread on my 51 https://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/2789776/1.html

A shot of the EFI set up on the bench

These old Dodge trucks do grow on you.

A great soft cover book that provides a lot of information about Dodge trucks:
Dodge Pickups
history and Restoration Guide
1918 - 1971
By Don Bunn and Tom Broenell
The book provides a break down of Dodge trucks by "eras" between the introduction of Dodge trucks in 1918 up to the end of the 1971 model year. An "era" of a Dodge truck is the time period between one major redesign and the next major redesign. Each era provides a history of the truck industry and the reasons of the need for the new design. It breaks down the list of standard equipment, and the list of optional parts. It lists major mechanical advancements and body modifications year by year in each era. There were a huge list eras and of changes the Dodge truck line went through between 1939 and 1958. It even provides how much of the truck market share the Dodge trucks had through the process, and things that may have effected those changes.

I'm sure the book is no longer in print, but maybe you can buy a used copy. I know I have wore out the binding on my book searching for information. I'm also sure there are some inaccuracies (as there are in most books of this kind), but there is a wealth of info in the book.

As a side note. Those 49-54 Dodge trucks had a huge front end that did a better job blocking the wind then it did splitting it up to go around the truck. Trucks of that era were primarily work trucks, and most of them were used to haul something from point A to point B, and the speed was generally 45-50 mph. At those speeds, the wind resistance was not an issue, but driving one of these trucks at 60 mph, that poor wind resistance becomes a factor. If you are driving into a head wind, that flathead 6 might not be able to reach 60 mph (brutal facts), If the truck is carrying a max load and driving into a head wind, it might not be able to reach 50 mph! Pull a hill loaded up? Maybe 40-45, but the wind is no longer much of a factor. There were reasons a V8 was an added option by May of the 1954 model year. The V8 could push that loaded poor aero body through the head wind at higher speeds then the 65 mph speed limit. You knew when the loaded truck hit the hill, but you didn't loose 1/2 your speed.

The flathead 6 was a great motor. Chrysler used them for many years, then the flathead went into industrial use, but starting in the mid 30s the HP and cubic inch increased regularly and by the end of the flathead 6 truck age, a 265 CI 110 HP version was available. The available V8s during that time frame were rated at nearly 2x the 265 HP rating. The way HP was rated changed in the early 60s, changed from a max HP (off the flywheel) to a net HP (through the drive train). Comparing the old HP numbers to the new HP numbers is inaccurate. Most flathead 6 motors were rated at max HP while most modern V8s are rated at net HP.

1972 is when net horsepower numbers were generally given.

Before that it was gross horsepower.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepower#SAE_gross_power

sorry for screwing up the info on your project.
but then again, i have been known to be "half fast", or some phrase that sounded like that. i can't remember...........

Thanks for the inputs. there's some cool stuff out there , but its pricey. If i dont sell it over the next few months i'll start looking for performance parts to add to it.

I have a 57 Dodge Coronet w/the 230 ci 6