Advice on this car’s numbers & using an 8-volt battery

Question:

I recently purchased a 1955 Thunderbird and I would like to know if you could provide me with any information with these plate numbers; serial number P5FH108094, Body 40A, Color A, Production Code 15LDC16.

Also, can I put an 8-volt battery in this car without changing anything?

Answer:

The serial number can be decoded as follows: P tells us that the car was originally equipped with a 292 cid V-8 engine with a 4-barrel carburetor and 8.5:1 compression ratio; the 5 tells us it’s a 1955 model; the F tells us the car was produced in Ford’s Dearborn assembly plant; the H tells us that it’s a Thunderbird; and 108094 is the sequential unit number. 40A is the body type, Color A indicates that it was originally Raven Black. The production code deciphers as follows: 15 is the day of the month that the car was built; L indicates that the car was built in the month of November; DC is the dealer code and it indicates the scheduled delivery was to a dealer in Washington DC; and 16 is something called the scheduled item number. This is essentially a job number for the body build and it was a numbering sequence that applied to every vehicle assembled in a given plant and the sequence started over from #1 each day. The body for your car was the 16th body scheduled for assembly in that assembly plant on that day.

You can install an 8-volt battery into your car without changing anything. Your light bulbs may not last quite as long as they would with a 6-volt battery but otherwise you should experience no ill effects from the swap.

I assume you want to do this because of some difficulty starting the engine and while a more powerful 8-volt battery will help the starter motor turn over faster there are a number of other things you should consider. Make sure that the battery cables are the proper size (contrary to most people’s intuition, the cables for a 6-volt system normally need to be larger than those for a 12-volt system) and that the ends are clean and very securely attached.