How to tell a late 52 hudson Hornet from a early one

drivergo2

Am I correct that the late 52s screw in rear tail lites , Plastic front turn signal covers and a Dana rear end in them ?. Thanks for any feed back . John

Lance

John, The early 52 Hornets had  glass front parking light lenses, glass rear tail light lenses and still had Hudson built rear ends.   Later on Hudson switched to Dana/Spicer rear ends, plastic parking and rear tail light lenses.  Also, The early speedo and clock faces on the Hornets used a light grey marble making it tough to read the numerals. Later the grey marbeling switched to a darker color to give a better contrast to the numerals . 

5433HET

I have never seen a 52 Hornet with glass tailights.

Lance

Weird thing is, the plastic lenses will not interchange with the glass ones.

Geoff

Pity.  I have replaced the plastic tail lights on my Jet with real glass ones.  Much nicer. 

drivergo2

Are the wheel bearings the same or do you have to tell them it’s for a Dana /Spicer?

RL Chilton

There's some more info here about the early front parking lights and rear tail light assemblies here.  Look for the entry dated 12/27/10:

http://52hornetvert.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-06-15T08:11:00-07:00&max-results=7

5433HET

The first front lenses were glass, but the rears were ALWAYS plastic, just different style retainers. I have the early park lamps and retainers. 

railknight

Did Hudson switch over to the manual type - double shift lever transmission in 1952?

RL Chilton

railknight said:

Did Hudson switch over to the manual type - double shift lever transmission in 1952?

Yes.  

Geoff

Except for export models.  My r.h.d '53 Hornet has a single lever transmission.