Back in the spring I posted up about my then girlfriend’s (now fiance’s 
) purchase of a 1950 Dodge pickup off of Ebay. She had been looking for a “toy” and was looking at 4 wheelers, dirtbikes, and motorcycles when I stumbled across the truck on Ebay. I showed it to her and she immediately liked it…a lot. Needless to say, she won the auction for $3500. I footed the $2000 shipping bill from Washington State to Western New York for her birthday present. The truck was even more solid and original than we anticipated when it arrived with 78,000 miles on the odometer. It needed some TLC though. The PO had attempted to convert the truck to 12V as well as a 4 speed and succeeded at neither. I put the original 3 on the tree back in and reverted back to the original 6 volt setup. The fuel line was clogged, so I fixed that too. That probably explained why an electric fuel pump had been added. I hooked the mechanical pump back up. I changed the oil in the engine, pulled the spark plugs, cranked it til it had oil pressure and put the plugs back in. I poured some gas in the carb, turned the key, crossed my fingers, and hit the start button. It rolled over once and fired right up. Score. However, It was immediately apparent that the carb needed a rebuild and a full tuneup was in order, so I did both. I still can’t believe how smooth the old flathead now runs. I took it for a short test drive down the road (it’s a private street with no traffic), the truck drove straight, but the brakes needed help and the 2nd gear synchro was gone. I pulled the tranny back out and gave it to a local shop and rebuilt the brakes in the meantime. I got it all back together and everything worked great. That was the only major work I had to do really, there were a few minor electrical glitches, but I had all those ironed out in an afternoon. So, we put the truck on the road and it got driven all summer, quite a bit really. The truck rides and drives surprisingly well for being a 1950. It’s happy at about 47 mph, but who cares, it’s fun to drive. There’s some interesting history on the truck. My fiance is the 4th owner of the truck. The truck was originally purchased in 1950 by a woman in Washington State for use on the farm. When she was no longer able to use it, she gave it to her grandson, who sold it to the PO who owned it only for a very short time and quickly got in over his head. He ebayed it and my fiance now owns it. It’s one of only 8000 built at the California plant that year. It’s also very heavily optioned. It has the deluxe cab (5 window), a very rare rear bumper, spare tire, window visor, electric wipers (not vacuum), and the special order low side box.
I finally got around to getting some pics up on the 'puter. So, here we go:
Here it is the day it rolled off the hauler
Her it is after all the mechanical work and 2 days of wet sanding and buffing. The paint is far from perfect, but it actually looks really cool being slightly worn. It looks like it’s supposed to be that way.
Here it is at a local car show. It took 3rd place in the commercial class
We have no plans to restore the truck right now anyway. It’s kinda neat just the way it is.
