Hot Rods A bunch of Ford flathead blocks

I've used this board as a source of info for many years but never had a reason to post, so this is my first. I'm in california.

A local mechanic passed away a few years ago, and his daughter is getting rid of his stash. She showed me a shipping container that is full of flathead engine blocks that were removed from vehicles way back when. Most are Ford, but I saw some others too and straight blocks also. According to her, they were all magnafluxed, and if they were good, he saved them in this container.

I suspect I can get them fairly reasonably priced. I just don't know what the market is for these. I know there are several major versions which I'm trying to learn about now.

Let me know your thoughts. If I end up with them, you all will get first shot at them.

Thanks,
Rob

 

Cool story

 

Pictures? And the daughter can verify they were all checked for cracks?

 

I'll get some pic's some time this week. She's a hotrod mechanic too, and worked with her dad. She said they tossed the bad ones and only kept the good, so I have confidence in what she says.

 

Pretty decent first post, a container of "good" flatties! More info and pictures should spark interest. Oh and filling in your profile, especially a general location, would be beneficial. Welcome from VA., Carp.

 

My thoughts are this. Its all TIME . How much do you want to spend ,,and how much do you have . I would take the first 5 blocks and clean / dust them off ,take a shit load of photos of each and load them up on the web . Plan on learning how to strap them down to a pallet for shipping. I have shipped a 99T to Sweden. There is a market but you have to make it easy to buy them .

 

Cool find. The issue will be to find a usable one. Took me 4 blocks before getting a good one. Then shipping if not local pickup can get pretty pricey.

 

Two years ago I sold a bare 59 block with main caps for $225.00, needed two sleeves, no visible cracks. Buyer was pleased with it.

 

It will be grate to see photos otherwise it's another one of those story's about the Cheery Stock 32 Roadster in a Barn. Last Sept I spent $800.oo for a 49-53 Bare Block with Main Caps that was Mag'd Sonic tested and de rusted inside the water jackets. In other words the most Cheery bare block you could ask for. I physically shopped 18 blocks before coming up with this one. It's the hunt that Kills ya.

 

Just talked with her. I'm getting pic's this afternoon. Look for them here tonight.

 

I got $800 for my second to the last good 8BA block two years ago. The guy was very happy to get it, as he had been through 5 other blocks already, all of them cracked. I wasn't looking to sell it; he found me. The earlier blocks are much harder to find around here, especially the 3 3/16" bore variety, so I would expect they're even more valuable.

 

possibly check with H&H Flatheads for help dealing with these: handhflatheads.com - 818-248-2371

 

Anything other than Ford/Merc ? Vast market here for Olds, Cad, GMC 270-302, 261 Chev, etc. ….

 

I will try to get pics of everything today. Just took a quick look yesterday. But I know I saw engines/blocks other than v-8's.

 

Where there's blocks, there should be cranks etc...

Sent from my SM-G900P using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

mag testing is expensive unless you own the machine, and even then time consuming. i highly doubt anyone is going to do that just to have another block in storage. they are not scrap iron for sure, but not worth a lot until known to be good. 100-300 for dead motors here in the midwest

 

Ok I got some pic's but there's some metal stock and other stuff obscuring a lot of details. Looks like there are a lot of Ford flatheads, and I saw at least 2 complete straight 6 engines of unknown manufacture. Saw some straight 4 cylinders in there too from old Fords. There are some Chevy blocks too I think standard small/big blocks. From what I could see, most blocks had the main caps in place. But so much is covered up and pack together that I really could not assess what's there. Just bits and pieces. Some of the pics show the top layer of manual transmissions many with overdrives, some oil pans, etc. Unfortunately all the cranks were scrapped a few weeks ago since they were in another container. Lucky to find this one before it met the same fate.

I asked her about how confident she was that the blocks were inspected before storage, and she basically said she was sure that her father would not save a bad block. I doubt that they were actually mag'd, but I'd bet they were inspected thoroughly.

I guess the bottom line is that I did make a deal with her for the whole lot, so I saved them from the scrap yard for now. Will get them pulled out and sorted and let you guys know what there is in more detail. Hopefully there are a few diamonds in the lot.

 

Hope they are as good as the daughter thinks they are. Looking at the pile I see a hoarder who probably couldn't care less about the condition of anything. Unless there are some rare items in there, the amount of work and to time needed to remove, transport, organize, and sell the stuff probably isn't worth it.

 

If I had the space I'd save it all. It doesn't eat, so shouldn't cost you to save them. The popularity of Ford flatheads is not going down.

Problem is, I don't have the space.

 

Certainly they have some value. However Since they do have rust. machine work would likely be needed to make them usable. When I store engines I pull the pushrods . and fill the cyls completely full of 90 weight. I do that by filling the intake manifold and then opening a intake valve to fill them 100 % full bare blocks get a thick coat of axle grease.

 

None of those blocks have been magged; have to clean them first..

 

yep..what Seb said....

 

She's no dummy..........have fun !

 

Well now rfanuke, That my friend is a very ambitious undertaking you just stepped into. Do you have much Machine Shop experience? If not I'd be making plans to find one to work with.

 

Didn`t you just put up a new building.

 

Nice score!

Here's what I would do if I had that stash and I wanted to get them sold and make some decent money at it as compensation for all the work that I would go through:

First figure out what each one is and put some kind of a tag on it and then write up an inventory. Sort out the ones that have a value of more than a few hundred bucks if they are proven good. Then call a whole bunch of different shops and find somebody who is willing to thermal clean them all at a good guy, volume price. When they are thermal cleaned, they will come out looking like brand-new cast-iron. Maybe you could get somebody to do them for about 30 bucks apiece if you're lucky and you try hard enough. Then see if the same shop, or somebody else, will give you a good guy deal on magna fluxing each one of them. Get a magna flux certificate from them for each block.
Now the ones that are clean and have a legitimate clean magna flux can go up for sale for top dollar. The ones that are clean that have repairable cracks can go up for sale for medium dollar. The ones that are cracked beyond repair can go to the scrapheap, and the ones that were deemed to have insufficient value to clean up, sell them for whatever you can get.

That's what I do anyway. It's going to be a lot of work to dispose of those things, so you might as well try and get a decent amount of money for the good ones.

 

A word of caution, don't let the actual location get out. A few years ago two sisters inherited their dad's stash in central California. LOTS of rare and desirable speed equipment, engines, cars......They were trying to get help identifying it on the internet and shortly the thieves show up. Neither lived at the site and whenever they left they got robbed again. I don't know what the final outcome was they quit communicating on all the sites where I had found them.

 

It's a shame they were all disassembled and left that way.

 

The Shipping Containers give them a fighting chance...

 

Joined today?????? I'll wait before making any further comments.....