Projects My First Flathead... NOW WHAT?

All my cleaning supplies that I ordered will be here in a couple days, I just need to hit the dollar store for some cheap brushes and anything else I'm going to probably want to throw away when I'm done.

I'll probably have to strip on the porch before I'm allowed back in the house I'd reckon.

 

Just don't use those thin latex jobs you get at box stores. You need some heavy duty gloves. Reason being, by the time you realize the glove is torn, you got yourself a genuine Henry Ford "temporary" tattoo on whatever part of your skin it touches.

 

Yeah, my last one from the beginning of March just wore off yesterday. I got a variety of heavy gloves; I hate those thin, medical type gloves.

Now that it looks like I'm going to do a tear-down, I'm getting curious about Camshafts again. What I'm really curious about is if there would be a stock Ford or Merc cam that would be worth trying to grab and run rather than a $300+ aftermarket cam and all the associated stuff that goes with it.

I found this post over on Fordbarn: http://www.fordbarn.com/forum/showpost.php?p=58810&postcount=8

 

You're falling into the Flathead trap that I fell into. Just get $5K ready and get it over with.

 

I'm already 20% into that as it sits

I'm gonna see where this goes and what sorts of stuff presents itself as far as parts once I know what I need and what I can use that will be an improvement. I'd like to keep the budget to around half that but we shall see. I learned a couple years back that Budget is more a term used to do an initial plan for a project; after that it's all about your monthly Allowance!

 

Do yourself a favor and get down to the Fitchburg swap meet on April 19th. My mouth was agape with the good deals last year.

I thought about re-grinding a used cam, but when it was all said and done, you could buy a new cam for about the same money, plus you can choose its profile.

 

Yeah, both @BOSTONCAMARO & my Wife think I should get a table there and sell/trade some of the parts I'm tripping over and not going to use anytime soon.

 

To answer your question: Yes, a EAB cam. Came in '53 motors and had .312 lift I think and the most duration Ford put in any cam besides the '32 steel billet cam (I think).

This cam would work if you plan to use the original side post dizzy. If interested, PM me and I can hook you up with this cam for a reasonable price.

Good luck.
Tim

 

cool thread patmanta. that lifter valley looks exactly like mine. a few cans of "gunk" from the auto parts store and a couple hours cleaned mine up. my garage smelled like old flathead for weeks! fitchburg swap was awesome last year. i ran out of money and i could have spent way more. also mansfield swap at the old greatwoods place is may2-3 this year. good luck, see you around. ron

 

wheeldog...i been telling him about fitchburg and mansfield but he is afraid of going...something about spending too much money

 

Have the machine shop pull your cam bearings, as the hot tank will kill them. Also I had one block that had 80 over cam bearings and the are hard to find. Seems if Ford had a block with shift in casting or for whatever reason they bored the block for O.S. cam bearings and they are almost impossible to find now. Kinda rare but it happened to me.

 

hey boston camaro i hate spending money too! i work too hard earning it. at fitchburg though, i barely had to haggle with venders. most items were priced to sell. i may get a spot this year but i dont want to miss out on all the deals! raunchy, isnt 80 thou over cam bearings huge? that is a massive amount

 

My wife says she'll watch the booth while I go spend all the earnings.

 

@BOSTONCAMARO came by today and we got the crank, rods, & pistons out nice & clean. Looks pretty fantastic.

 

Looking good. Ready for a nice hot bubble bath. Not sure what you plan to do with those valves. If saving, take your time. If not, save yourself some head and heart ache and red wrench them out.

 

Yeah, not aure about the valves. They look good, but should come out regardless since one ofthem is stuck still. Gotta get the cam out anyway.

 

Patmanta
If your factory cam is in good shape(journals,lobes and gears not rusty/pitted or worn completely off) have you thought about sending out to be reground. If it doesn't need any extra work I know Schneiders charges $120 +or- for a regrind. If you want bigger than they can do on the factory profile they offer welding and grinding. There are several places that offer this service but Schneiders is the only one I have dealt with. And you can get new gears (distributor, oil pump) for the cam if yours are shot. I got the 260f grind on my factory cam no problem it ended up costing me about $160 with shipping both ways and took about 3 weeks there and back.

D Smith

 

The cam looks shiny amd good. It's still in the block but what I see is good.

The rods were numbered but the bearings were stock size with only mild wear.

I got a question about lifters though, at what point do I need to go with adjustable lifters? I'd kinda like to keep the stock lifters.

 

Do you have the equipment and know-how to grind valve tips? Actually, with a reground cam you will need to weld the valve tips first for more extra length, then grind them to correct length.

That's why most guys use adjustable lifters.

 

I do not. I don’t even have the tools to pull and install the valves or the cam bearings at this point.

Is that why the Chevy valves are popular?

 

Chevy valves are popular because they are cheap, and a little bit longer. This helps when the reground cam's base circle is a bit smaller. Just screw the adjustable lifter down a bit more if needed.

The problem with new lifters is finding good ones. A lot of new lifters are not hardened properly. I can't tell you where to get some good ones. I've been following a few threads on the Fordbarn discussing this subject.

 

OK, I think you need to slow down a little here. If you are uber careful and take out and MATCH the lifter to it's mating cam lobe, you could re-use the cam and lifters. Any other cam swap, you will need to resurface the lifters (if using stock or used adjustables) and figure out correct valve length. As others have mentioned, adjustables "fix" this for you.

I think you need to finalize your build plan before you go any further. If you don't, you are going to wind up spend more money correcting some of the decisions you are making during the tear down.

 

Yeah, that's part of why I stopped at the bottom end and why I'm asking so many questions about the cam & valves in this thread now.

@BOSTONCAMARO thought it looked almost good enough to run with some cleaning, as-is. And I'm right at the tipping point of possibly dumping a bunch of money on re-doing the valves and cam or not.

What I THINK my options are now is:

• Take the crank to the machinist and have it cleaned up and anything else he deems beneficial done to it. New bearings, ARP Rod nuts, new rings, port & polish, chase threads, new/rebuilt water pumps, new/rebuilt/cleaned oil pump, manually clean the top end, & assemble with all new gaskets.
  
  
• All of the above and remove the valves, lifters, & cam, hot tank everything, reinstall or replace the valves, upgrade the cam to an EAB or a regrind and adjustable lifters.

 

A couple cost-saving measures:
Don't buy new guides, just line the old ones. Then you won't need to worry about the cheap guides they sell now wearing out on you.

Ask around if anybody has some old 8BA valves they don't need. Everybody tosses them and installs new. But many times they are still good with a touch-up on the head. Just make sure they are the same length as your current valves, as there were two different lengths.

Get a set of rod nuts for a small block Chevy from Summit. Same size, and probably half price of ARP.

Lots of talk on the Fordbarn and HAMB about new oil pumps not being as good as original. Have your original looked over, and it might be better than you could buy new.

 

Good advice. JWL (John Lawson) over at Fordbarn can check your oil pump and re-do the guides for a very reasonable price. I sent him three oil pumps (one new and two used). They all tested about the same, but the one of the used ones came out on top. Don't toss that until you know for sure it's no good.

 

Patmanta,

With all the references to "The Ford Barn", it looks like you should be a member there. I am. I go there for flathead specific stuff and here for more general "Hot Rod" stuff. Also, there are a couple of guys over there (JWL referenced above and Ol' Ron) who have authored books on the Ford flathead that offer a different slant on the subject. Another good site is the "1932-1953 Ford Flathead" site. Not a lot of actvity, but they have an adjunct called the "Techno Site". Lots of good flathead specific information there.

Tubman

 

Comment. As gunked up as/was that valley was, can you trust thst cam/ lifters to be reusable as-is? Regrind or replace..

 

Yeah I've been over on Fordbarn for a while now, but the HAMB is always my first resource, particularly since I'm building a hot rod, not a restoration.

The gunk is from settling primarily. The cam and lifters are mostly clean and free. The valley is gunky and the oil pan is a horror show but anything that moves is mostly fine. It looks like it had a mild rebuild before it went into the truck I bought it out of where it had sat for somewhere between 15 and 20 years... (or 10, they really weren't sure). What oil in the pan that wasn't sludged came out fine and had an old oil brown color to it.

 

I would like end gaps, clearances etc but it looks real good, crank may just need a polish or go 10 to be on safe side, looks like a real good platform to start with