flathead gurus

[silent rick]

a local guy is looking to thin his flathead stuff. he has a ford block which he admits is suspect, will need a check. but the crank is a 4 inch merc piece, beautifully polished. it has the rods, pistons, cam, water pumps and oil pan.

about the block, there's no visable cracks, but he's upfront about suspecting some. it's very clean and that crank is a work of art.

he's asking $500, is it worth it?

[SwitchBlade327]

i thought I'd heard someone say before that the merc cranks usually sold for $400 or something, not postive though. I checked ebay and saw nothing besides mercury window cranks. It's probaly worth it for the crank alone, it could be worth more than $500 if it's as nice as it sounds.

[Thirdyfivepickup]

[ QUOTE ]
the HOMOS, where earning your club drag plate will be the HARDEST thing you'll ever experience.

[/ QUOTE ]

...oh no... you didn't...

[delaware george]

i paid 500 for a ford one that had been mag'd ,relieved and ported with new bearings....don't know if that helps,it wasn't a merc

[DrDano]

If the crank is as nice as you claim, yea, its probably worth it...especially if its a good 4" merc crank. If you picked up a marginal one that needed to be turned for say $250 someplace, I'd imagine you could rack up another $150 in machine work before you had it all polished and correct.

One thing to check on the block: Turn it upside down and look at where the oil pan mates to the block on both sides directly under the middle exhaust port on both sides. If you see any super small hairlines on the surface where the oil pan would sit, its probably cracked or will show up as a crack when its checked at the machine shop. I went through 2 blocks before I found a good one at a boneyard because they had cracks in the exact same spot on both blocks. A local fellow put a very nice rebuilt flatty in his roadster and 10 minutes after fireup he found that the block was cracked in the same spot on his block too. Just my $.02

[VAPHEAD]

$400.00 does seem to be the average for a good Merc.crank.
(retail)But if your not planning on a "hot"flathead...maybe you should wait and buy a good running complte motor.That is always the easiest way to go with a flathead.

[286merc]

Id ask why he thinks it is suspect if nothing is visible?

Also many hard driven stock car blocks will have a cracked center web.

A nice bare block may be OK but remember you still need to find lots of parts to put it together, unless they are included. Timing cover, pulleys, oil pump gear plate, etc are often tossed out or lost.