59A-8BA Dimensional Stuff

I dragged a 59Z block out of the darkness this weekend, fought my way through the ferocious spiders, and started measuring front-of-the-engine stuff.
I first confirmed my belief tha 8BA and 59A dimensions are the same for interchange purposes; Lotsa little differences, but the important surfaces and distances between them are the same.
All this flathead front stuff can be interchanged between all blocks from about 1939-52, although there are some tricks and issues involoved.
Basic early combos include the '42-48 rig with one belt driving the pumps and generator and a second belt farther forward driving the fan; the '39 Deluxe, '40, and '41 rig with crank driven fan, single belt driving pumps and gen; and the '39 standard (as well as earlier engines) with single belt driving pumps and gen, with fan bolted to gen pulley.
All my measurements are from the machined face at the front of the block, the flat surfaces all in the same plane that pumps and front cover bolt to.
A basic dimension from here is the protrusion of the crank snout, about 3 1/8". This is bare, and of course either a bolt or a crank ratchet needs to go there to hold pulley on.
Basic 1937-48 passenger water pumps put centerline of pulley sheave 1 1/2" out, front of pump shaft is about 3 1/4" out. This last may vary a bit amongst the many replacement pumps out there; I believe my pump was an original.
The frontmost face of the intake manifold, which is the ribbs flanking the generator mount slot, is in the same plane as thhat front surface datum point.
A 21A distributor (the crab) protrudes 3 3/8" total from machined surface. This of course includes the thickness of front cover.
59A distributor (same works as crab, bulkier but more waterproof cap) protrudes 4 5/8".
Dragged out but forgot to measure "diver's helmet" type distributors. Later.
21A fan, the one on the separate shaft&bracket, blows the shortness--it occupies space out to 6 7/8". Probably bad news for you A-V8 types, SO...
Go to the earlier fan mounted on the generator, used in various forms from 1932-39.
The shortest is what I think is a '35-6 fan--these come in several differnt overall lengths for different years, trucks, etc. It sticks out only to 4", an estimated dimension with fan held onto gen by hand because I couldn't find a proper pulley for it. This particular fan is the shortest possible fore&aft, as its trailing edge barely clears the fanbelt. It also clears the 21A distrib, though it might hit if you used the shortest possible belt and pushed the gen all the way down.
1939-41 and 1942-8 crank pulleys can both be cut down to single sheave. The actual single sheave pulley for these engines is a rarish piece, but no matter.
There is another early setup--heavy truck, with dual pulleys very close together on crank, pumps, and gen. I don't have enough hardware to assemble this setup, but it MIGHT be possible to use this pulley and cut down a 21A fab shaft for a closer-in fan mount. Probably too tight, but I'm pretty sure the 21A setup can be shortened at least a bit by shortening fan shaft and moving pulley sheave.
8BA: Block and crank are in same place. Setups include truck, Mercury, and Ford passenger. Regular passenger is also same as '52-3 Merc, 1953 truck. Passenger and Merc come in wide and narrow belt, truck in wide only. There may be two passenger rigs--one I know drives pumps from separate belts, one belt also doing gen, the other doing fan. There may be one driving pumps from same sheave, don't know as I have no uses for the late passenger hardware.
First sheave of pulleys on all is about 1 1/2-2" farther out than '39-48 to clear sideways distributor; for this reason, any 8BA setup is going to be that much longer than a single row early. With two sheaves driving the separate fan setup, I suspect 8BA and 21A will be about the same length. I don't have enough late hardware to provide real numbers on this stuff, but clearly the short rig for the tight engine compartment is single-sheave early with 21A distributor and gen mount fan.
Gen mount fan should fit easily on 1930-32, don't know about '28-9. I think this setup is described in Bishop-Tardell book.

 

Thanks Bruce. Instant Techo-matic!

 

Now somebody please measure some late hardware--I have some truck and Merc bits, but they are deeply buried in my collection, and I don't have any passenger stuff at all.

 

This has been the piece of the puzzel that I've been trying to put together myself. I have 8ba and am wondering how I'm going to drive the pumps, gen, and fan (all things I don't have yet except the pumps) The pumps I have are 5/8" wide belts. It's going in an AV8 as you know, but I have the pumps that put the pullys approx 3" from the block (that's how they sell them, but you can get the pully closer with different pumps)

 

How many combinations throughout the years cars passenger could there possibly be?

 

Ummmmm...ignoring many minor changes and trucks, '32-36, '37-48, '49 widebelt, 2 flavors of '49-51 Merc, and 50-53. I don't know if there are two kinds '50-3. All right pulleys will be way out on late engines because of distributor.

 

Thanks Bruce1 I'll print that one up for future refrence. I still have 2 complete 8ba's out in Cali. Sparky

 

Bruce, thank you very much for the info

 

Once I figure out what I'll need, I'll comprise a list of the pullys, fan, etc. for an AV8, but it may take some time.

 

BTTT for hotrod mickey

 

Bruce,

My 8CM Merc has the pulleys changed for the serpentine belt set-up, for the blower, so I can't give you any dimensions. However my Merc manual shows the crank pulley being a 2-sheave pulley. The front sheave drives the fan only. The rear sheave drives the generator and water pumps.

I could measure the original crank pulley, if it would help, but I don't know what to use for a reference as the pulley snout goes back into the seal.

 

I have a 49-53 Merc that I could measure. It has an older style 8ba intake and truck pumps on it....someone ran it in a truck

What exactly are you wanting. I can take pics and measurements if it'll add to the thread. I'm just not sure of exactly what you're looking for...

 

Thanks Bruce!

Good stuff to archive.

 

Thanks, Bruce.

Great info., a copy's going into my flathead file.

 

once again THE MAN comes through with some killer tech. nice to know beyond all the drama posts there are hard core HAMBers researchig and postig valuable tech info.

danny

 

Amen brother......

 

Now, who's got some complete late setups lying around to measure? I only have bare blocks and scattered bits of fron acessory stuff for '49-53.
We need: '48-52 trucks, the setup most used for early Ford installation.
'49 and '50-51 Merc
'49 and later passenger.
I believe there are two basic setups for passenger, one with pump/ge and fan belts, one with pumps driven off of separate belts--am I right??
I believe all late setups are about same total length as early with the longest fan setup, the 21A, but there's no way to go shorter by altering fan as on early motors because pumps stick out so far.
Remember, my baseline for all measurements is the front machined face of block where front cover goes.

 

How do you tell the difference between the 49 and 50/51 Merc engines.

I can go out to grandpa's he has close to 30 flattys- just about 1 of each. However, he ususally puts truck pumps on the passenger car engines....

I'll strike up a conversation about this with him tonight while we make our battle plans for the Springfield swap/car show.....

 

I've got a complete motor out of a 50 1 1/2 ton truck I can measure tonight. I've also got a 35 1 1/2 ton truck, but it has a 59A motor, so its likely the fan & bottom pulley setup are also later vintage to match the water pumps. I'll try to take pics of each setup to go with measurements. I've got a line on a 38 1 1/2 ton truck so may have that for reference in the future.

 

The big trucks of all sorts run a setup I haven't measured with double sheave pulleys at crank, pumps, and gen/fan. This is a setup with the sheaves close together, shorter than the 21A system but I didn't have enough bits to measure. Many, of course, wound up with other sustems as engines were transplanted over the years. This system is also the commonest source of a fan mount pulley for late generator.

 

My dad's got a '50 8BA & I'll be stateside in a couple weeks. If someone hasn't come through by then, I'll see about pulling all the appropriate dimensions off that one.

 

Bruce,
I have a complete 1950 8ba from a 2 ton truck bolted to a test stand in my shop. What measurements are you after? Total length? With or without fan? Let me know, and I'll measure it tomorrow morning (99 Taurus tranny kicked my butt today, and I just want to go home and put up my feet).

Karl

 

I was able to take some measurements along with some photos of different setups. I didn't take measurements on the 40 passenger as Bruce has covered that. The 35 truck is not stock, however, I believe the stock lower pulley and generator were used on a 59 style 24 stud motor so measurements should be the same. I believe the fan extension on the 35 can be removed and the fan bolted directly to the generator. I have attempted to be consistant with Bruce so measurements are from machined surface on front of block:

Item___________50 Truck__________35 Truck______47 pickup

Outside 1st______________________1 1/2" w/o
crank pulley______3 3/4"___________crank nut________2"

Outside 2nd
crank pulley______4 3/4"___________N/A___________4 3/4"

Outside water
pump pulley______4 3/4"____________3 1/4"__________3 1/2"

Outside stock
fan_____________7 1/2"____________5 1/2"__________7 1/2"




The photos in order are: 50 Truck, 40 Pass, 35 Truck, 47 PU.

 

After posting the photos, I realize its tough to see much in the low resolution pics. I've got the same pics with higher resolution and can email to anyone interested.

 

How's this project coming along?

Know what would be cool - pics of some of these stock setups so we can see the various incarnations of drive pullies and doo-dads...

Early stuff is easy - one big belt running in a diamond pattern...

 

great thread!

 

This is a great thread. Thanks for all of the work and time.