MODEL GAA-V-8 these engines were built on late 30's-45 they are a all aluminum dohc I guess they were made by ford for the war effort and installed in tanks and other equipment I would like to contact any one that knows any thing about them the books show the front of the engine to have the flywheel what we would like to find out is that we could run it rh or lh rotation any help would appreciated thanks Dennis
The studs went into barrel nuts located in holes in the bearing webs. Two straight down and two at an angle that met centered under the bearing bore. Very well built I thought.
Yeah. My 56 Packard V8 was the same way. Don't know why Packard thought that was the place to lose weight. The big Ford started out to be an aircraft engine. So weight would be an issue. But by the time it became a tank engine, it seems kind of a waste of effort.
Thanks for all your replys still haven't figured out that if your srarter turns ccw the engines turns cw if you turn the engine around will it turn ccw or cw or can you turn the engine backwards as apposed to the original rotation thanks for any help Dennis
The reasoning behind using de-rated aircraft engines, was to save weight so they could add more armour. The Brits and the Germans all used the same philosophy. The Brits used the de-rated Merlin engine, and the Germans used a purpose built engine ( for the Tiger and Panther, a Maybach V12, producing 700hp) that was extremely light. The early Shermans used the P&W radials, because the Packard-Merlins were needed for the aircraft industry. Later Shermans used the GAA, and it was a sweet sounding engine. We had them for about 6 months in my reserve unit, just before they were retired. Bob
You can run any engine backwards/ opposite rotation but You need to correct valve timing and sequence.
i'm curious.....what flywheel/clutch/bell housing /transmission would bolt to that engine? what did they use in a tank?
WW2 tanks were a concoction of stuff, with the big 3 from Detroit fully involved. The GA was 2/3 of a V-12 Henry had developed for similar duty as the Merlin and Allison. There was a war on, and time was tight and America had no 500HP engine suitable for tank duty, beyond the Continental radial aircraft engine. One of the Green Books Technical Service books has a good review of the way Ordnance and Detroit solved the problem in one hell of a hurry. Chrysler threw together the 30 cylinder engine based on 5 Chrysler flathead sixes, GM came up with the 2 screaming 6-71 Jimmies [AKA F'ing Hondas] and Ford took the stillborn V-12 and whacked 4 cylinders off it and in the end, for a variety of reasons it became the main Sherman engine. The transmission was a Chrysler 5 speed as was the hull and a lot of other stuff. Chrysler designed, built and ran the Detroit Tank Arsenal and built more tanks there than all of Germany did in 6 years of war.
I have a friend who has one, along with a V-8 60, he says, "I have the biggest and Smallest V-8's that Ford built" !
those fairmont railroad maintenance cars ran backwards to get reverse. 2cycle, put puts we called them
Rusty Valley, My Dad collected old gas engines and had a Fairmont on trucks. He had a spark lever with a toggle switch to kill the spark on the end of the lever. We would idle it down and kill the spark till it almost stopped then throw the lever the other way and it would reverse direction. We would also wind it up fast then kill the spark, let it slow down and throw the switch, POW! That sucker would bark. LOL. lippy
In the early 50's, Boeing Seattle plant had quite a few GAA's lined up in a room behind the engineering facility and driving 28 volt DC generators. This was the typical voltage used in aircraft then and was used extensively in the engineering department for prototype work. When came time to rebuild the engines, we got some of the work because we had the only cam grinder and balancer in town at the time. I reground the cams and we balanced the crank assemblies. The insides of the engines were typical aircraft quality. Everything machined on all surfaces. Hollow crank journals with minimum counterweight. etc etc. One piece forged crank. To reverse rotation of the engine, you will need a different set of camshafts. You will need to reverse the pistons and rods. I forgot if the crankshaft is offset in the block but you will just have to live with that if it is. You will have to modify the ignition. The stock setup could probably be reversed by using a set of reverse pitch bevel gears in the drive box. You will need to either modify a starter to rotate reverse or maybe mount the starter on the back side of the bell housing. You could also use a gear drive crank nose mounted starter like race cars use.