I met a guy yesterday that was pretty interesting to talk to. He said he had been an engineer with Ford after WWII. He told me that the Y-block was originally intended to debut in the new '49 Fords but didn't for many reasons the two greatest being reliablility issues with cooling and that there was an over-abundance of left over flatheads from the war effort that they wanted to use up. Anyone heard of this before or have any more info ? I don't have a clue but thought it was a great story and wanted to share. ScottV
A flathead guru will correct me if I am wrong but there are differences between the 59ab block and the 8ba block. So the reasoning that there were left over flatheads probably wouldn't be the reason for not going with the y-block. Another reason could have possibly been noise. Many of the early OHV were just loud.
I guess it's possible but dont agree with the cooling problem. The flatty radiator will cool 2 Y blocks without problems. I have had many Y block powered cars and none ever ran over normal. I currently have a couple of flatheads and heat has always been an issue. I am not boiling over but cant get them to run as cool as I would like.
Ray you should talk with Hombres Ruin, he runs Water Wetter in his Flatty and has never had a problem with coming close to over heating since he switched.
True that. The story I have believed for some time is that Ford planned to intro the Y-block for all models in 52, but between releasing the 317" OHV Lincoln car/Ford truck engine and the OHV 215" I-6, there was too much money hanging out there so the smaller Y-blocks' release got postponed until '54. A large pre-war/post-war trucker from Arizona was actually replacing the 239 flatheads in his trucks with the Lincoln V12. Apparently one of these true was shown to the Ford engineers, but the big 337" flathead was already in the works.
Hijacking my own thread ... I put some of this in my JeeP XJ when I did the radiator. They are notorious for running hot. When I was done I let it sit and idle for a while. I thought that the electic fan was disconnected or broken (this vehicle has 2 fans, one engine driven mechanical and one thermistatically controlled electric) because it didn't come on. The fact was it just didn't get hot enough, something that never happened before. ScottV
I have pictures of an experimental engine that I actually seen up close. I'll see if I can find it and post it. I believe it was designed in the late 30's- 40's ,I dont remember it's been about 20 years since I've seen it. From what I've heard the Y-block was in the planning stage already in the early 40's? If I find the pix I'll post it!
54 Thanks for the advise but I already use it. I am not boiling over or loosing water but its on the hot side 190-198 area all the time and its not distributor timing or lean and has no blown head gaskets. Engine block is clean as is the Radiator and the motor has two new designed water pumps and a late model fan and fan shroud. I can live with it but don't like it.
I'm sure this is an old question: Who named it the Y block and why? How does it differ from a V block?
Look at the motor from dead on front or rear, notice the deep skirt of the block, makes it look like a Y.
The Ford Y's did have some problem with rocker arm oiling. Not sure if the larger Lincoln Y had the problem or not. The problem came from cam and cam bearing wear and that led to a lot of outside oilers being added on through a valve cover hold down stud. The issue was corrected in some of the later years but I don't remember when. I do remember that the early cam bearing had a groove around the inside and the better ones had a series of holes in them. That was for the bearing in whichever position (center I think) sent the oil upstairs. Ron
Alot of the oiling problems came from poor maintaince in the y-block. Fixed a lot of the people didn't change the oil in regularly in. Butch
The Jalopy Journal
