I’m not a flathead guy, but I’ve got this flathead…. I bought a bunch of engines last summer to get a 348. It was a package deal. This early 50’s (?) flathead is the last one I haven’t dealt with. The exhaust manifolds were crumbling, so I though it might be a mess inside. Anyway, I open d it up today and here’s what’s inside. I know people love them and they’re getting hard to find but this thing seems pretty rough. Is this thing worth saving? Are any pieces worth saving? Should it all go straight to the scrap pile?
I would grab the generator, oil filter, and such, too all accessories that aren't complete junk, as they do have some value. Also that top loader
Sell the carb and distributor, water pumps, generator mount and any other ancillary good parts like flywheel, starter and such. Junk block and heads. Or hot tank and de rust the mess and see what you end up with.
As others have said, the engine is likely garbage. But that bellhousing adapter is well worth saving, as is the transmission (if the trans is garbage, at the very least that shifter tower is valuable, it has the good "double detent" top plate on it) Maybe the flywheel if there's enough meat left to cut down, I'd also grab the carb, road draft tube, distributor (if it's not frozen in there), oil filter, and all the other little bolt-on bullshit, someone would buy all of that.
I recall this was advertised as a static display, mentioned in the ad to be seized up. But it sure looks good. You might want to consider it?
Make sure you keep the bell housing and starter plate together. The starter plates are hard to find these days.
If you got the heads off that easily and even though the block looks like a mess it might be one worth saving. All depends how much time/ effort you want to spend trying to see if it might be worth selling as a potentially good block. My C59A was all in pieces (not anything like that though), and I picked it up for $100, and it turned out the block was good. Seems to be the norm for folks to go though several blocks before they find a good one. I also got bits and pieces of extra flathead parts for sale at the moment, and no takers, including some free stuff. Markets do vary, and I do live in Canada which is not like the USA when it comes to car culture.
"Rust never sleeps" Keep all of the usable parts that you can. It would be interesting to see what is left of it after its hot tanked ! Your results may vary !
I'd give it to someone more adventurous than me before I scrapped it .... at least sell off the bolt on parts. I have parted out junk motors people were tossing and got good money for the small stuff..... a 216 Chevy and a Y block. made about $500 between the two.
Thanks for the input guys. I’ll open the trans up in the near future and see how that looks and pull some accessories for the auction site. I’d always rather see this stuff used than melted. I’m just not sure I have the time and energy to get the crank and pistons out of that block. I’ll update with more tear down pictures later in the week.
There is no doubt that it's rough. That being said, I built a 59L block that spent 30 plus years in a 1 1/2 ton truck sitting in a bone yard with the hood off. It was obviously locked up, we had to cut the valves out and drive out the guides. BUT, after giving it a loooooooog bath in the tank, the bores were not etched enough to prevent boring it to 3 5/16. Plus there were no cracks at all. I used a Scat 276 kit 3 5/16 by 4 in it and it went into a 34 hiboy roadster and the owner was extatic about it. If you find a hard core flathead fan, they may be interested, but will probably offer scrap price for it just in case it really is a rusty boat anchor. The trans, bellhousing and starter plate, and the clutch/flywheel assembly will bring good money. The transmission is a 42-52 open drive pick up truck trans and can fit flathead cars that are wanting to go to open drive. The bellhousing appears to be the truck, 11" clutch unit. Merc used a stamped bellhousing like that but only accepted a 10" clutch. Your will accept either clutch and flywheel. But until the bare block is derusted, magged, and bores measured, it's a crap shoot. Good luck!
What deucemac said. If you have time to take it apart, clean and check then go for it -you may get lucky. If not, well people above already pointed out the bits you could sell for good money.
If I were inclined enough to be curious, I’d pressure wash all the loose rust off. Get a 55 gallon drum and mix up some citric acid. Let it sit for a week or so. Lift it out, pressure wash it again, probably add some more CA and give it another dunk for a bit. It’d be fun to to spend some spare time and not much $$ to see just what it looked like apart. I mean I wouldn’t skip a meal at Burger King (and I don’t really care for fast food) because “I want to get back to the Flathead “. But it would be cool see see what’s under all that scale.
If you've got a half hour to kill, check out this video I found on how to de rust your block. I'm sure your engine will take a lot longer the 25 hours but won't cost much to try.