Posted by Eric B. on Friday, April 27, 2007 at 01:20:45 :
In Reply to: ? for eric b. posted by mclark on Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 21:46:28 :
I would not call this a rare late 1956 with a 57 nose, at least not without a lot more proof then the sellers opinion.
I have seen a VERY late 1956 C-3 truck, and it had 1957 style door latches and door handles, yet the rest of the truck was exactly like the rest of the 1956 C-3 trucks I have seen.
As the pictured truck has the standard 1956 door handles, and the next year nose. I would guess things were swapped around at some point, either due to personal choice, or accident damage. The parts should fit with little effort, as the front fenders are basicly the same. The lower hood section would be in the way on the 57 nose, but that would be easy to cut off.
But the way the extra peice of hood is cut off also makes me doubt this was a factory job.
The bed is questionable as the late 1956 trucks I have found all got the flat top third series style bed, yet this has the angled top bed.
I wonder why the serial number tag is riveted on to what looks like the door jamb, and not screwed to the firewall where all the other 1956 2wd trucks I have seen have it mounted? In 1957 the metal door tag was screwed to the core support of the 2wd truck, at least on the rare trucks that got a metal tag.
Why would Dodge screw the tags onto all the 1956 and rare 1957s that got a tag, yet rivet on this one in a different place?
Dodge does some weird stuff, so without a personal inspection I can not say anything 100%, but I see no reason to think this truck is what the seller claims it is.
I you look at the listed serial number 34285348 obviously they read the first digit as a 3 when it is an 8. Changed to an 8 you get: 84285348, which works out to a C-3-B8-108.
Starting serial number for C-3-B8-108 434 series: 84284001
Ending number 84287960
That means there are 2,612 C-3-B8 trucks made after 84285348 in the 1956 production run.
The 1956 truck I found with the 1957 style door handles was a 1 ton, and it was 91 trucks from the end of production, yet it had the standard nose.
I would like to know the engine number from this truck, as the 270ci engine that the 1956 truck should have looks exactly like the 315ci engine the 1957 trucks got on casual inspection.
As has been said often before, Buyer Beware!
Eric
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