German Flathead V8 identification...

Pure speculation...but I think if it was cast with that it was using casting cores that Ford introduced for WWII full flow applications. As far as I know, that little circle appeared while the 1942 engines were still in use, presumably during the war, and remained on there until 1953. Canad continued to offer the WWII full flow setup as an option after the war.
I don't think I've ever seen it on an engine earlier than the '41-2 types, and many of those lack it. My guess is that the ones without are 1942 civilian and early war ones... but still a guess.
I also think of the manifold pad as a '41 and later thing...but here I cannot say about USA 1937's as I have no experience with those. I do suspect it is something that was picked up after '41 with later casting stuff...
I don't know my British 77-78 engines at all well, either...I cannot say whether those picked up the pad or the boss. Most wartime Bren carriers were, I think, Canadian with some USA engines fed into that stream as Ford Canada was much bigger than Ford England. Carriers had full flow coolers back there...but I am not at all sure about early war ones or British built ones with 221. We need some input from military vehicle nuts!
And of course wartime stuff is muddled by numerous supply chains on the allied side feeding vehicles with interchangeable motors, and on the German side by vast exchanges of B and V8 vehicles in Russia and Africa...both sides were very happy to repaint any B or V8 Fords they could get in the huge sweeps of 1939-42.

 

On the Australian pics...as I said, heads are English, made for a long time including WWII Ford England trucks/carriers/pumps, etc. Double pulley is truck, super long fan extension is likely something wartime! Distributor and heads are distinctly British and presumably got to the antipodes from some accident of war...Australia of course got almost entirely Canadian Ford stuff, and that engine was long out of production for USA and Canadian wartime machinery.
The odd vertical boss adjacent to oil port is something I have never seen...plug in it presumably goes into water. I would assume some kind of oddball wartime need for that!
I have a friend who dug through a pile of surplus British WWII 1937 types in the Joblot warehouse, and he said that many of the engines had very strange water fittings here and there...that must be one of them!
Intake is Canadian for sure, and a type used during WWII...it would have carries a 91 0r 21 Ford carb once. The British WWII engines, Lord knows why, often had a regular 2 barrel intake topped with an adaptor and a single barrel Solex!
Your engine has a serial number up top...18-####...let me know what that is.
British V8s used numbers from USA number series assigned to them in large blocks. I'm guessing that the number you have will be higher than the ones shown in the common charts, which show the 18 series ending in 1942, ignoring vast numbers of war machines.

 

Bruce thankyou for the information mate.

From my research the heads are a replacement, as it "should" of had aluminium heads from factory (i wish it still did too!). I've never seen the long fan extension before and hadn't really crossed my mind as to why it was there, as when i got this engine in a chassis it had a radiator and all that as part of it. Oddly though, it was a car chassis that this came out of. At least i think it was anyway. Certainly wasn't a big giant truck chassis.

That water boss on the back near the oil holes, i actually had never noticed that at all. I have not tried to remove the plug, for the aforementioned reason but might have to look into that.

The carbie that came on the engine is a Holley 94, and the previous owner also had a spare 94 that he later found and dropped off to me. He knows of its history for probably the last 30 odd years and never made any mention of an earlier / different carb on it.

The serial number i cannot remember off the top of my head but can check tomorrow. I think it was 18 - 727 40 something. Thats what i can see in the picture. It definitely was a higher number than what i found on the vanpelt website, which had me confused as to why it was higher.

 

This might be a bit vague, but I had a 24 stud V8 I got out of a Thames truck about 30 years ago, that had heads on it with the firing order cast into it like the one above. I seem to remember the radiator had a screw-on brass cap as well, not a 90 degree twist one. I think it was a 15cwt / 3/4 ton truck.

 

I have a 21 stud here which looks identical to yours.
It has L25H on the rear bellhousing.
Mine is a British built industrial engine, it still has a British Rail rebuild plaque riveted to it from 1966, Was probably originally fitted in a Fire Pump or Generator my engine was most likely built between 49 and 55 in England and is very similar to Ford Pilot.
Should be a good engine, they had very little use but were kept maintained as they were used in critical standby applications.
Rich

 

Interesting, so brit blocks and french Matfords shared the same "L" on the bell housing. What could it stand for ?
Hotroddickie, Bruce, thanks for the infos.
cheers,
Chris

 

I was led to believe that the L was a suffix for an Industrial engine.
Is it deffo the Matfords also had an L? I have never seen a Matford motor.
Rich

 

Any suffix indicating use would have been part of a part number, which those bits aren't.
Also, part/casting numbers cast or forged into the part referred to the piece itself and not the complete engine...an industrial block was almost certainly same as truck block and that was probably the same as passenger; practically all blocks are "A" referring to passenger, always the primary design use. Numbers stamped after casting might refer to a specific version of an engine within the 18 series, but I think that was rarely done.

 

Very nice all aluminum oil pan !


Found this "T" on the intake manifold surface ?

Another shot...

 

My belief is that is some sort of inspector's mark or a verification the valve gaps were ok, etc.
I think most European engines will have a serial # up top, unlike USA...manifold platform would be right for the basic 1942 version that Ford Germany went with. Basic USA engine of that type would be a 29A, because the main usage (A for passenger car) went on all applications of same basic engine...yours was designated G29T because of course by the introduction of 1942 changes no more passenger cars were being made, only the big truck and its variants.
I'd be interested in the serial #...did Ford Germany get assigned blocks of USA numbers, like England, or did it start its own series when Germany started fully manufacturing V8's?

 

Bruce,
Cologne stamped the VIN ("matching numbers") to the V8 engine block intake area (rear RHS). I have a pretty detailed table of VINs per calendar year for German Ford pre-war passenger cars. I'll post it here once I'll find the time to scan it.
Not sure how replacement or industrial engines were treated though.

 

Ford practice here was that an engine (usually the normal engine/trans unit, actually) got a serial number if and only if it was fully completed and run tested at the Rouge...our numbers of course went on trans except odd cases like industrial engines with no trans.
So a bare block or a short block would not have been numbered, a complete run-in engine would have been numbered even if not headed for assembly line.
I think a few others got top stamps if sold in a locality requiring that, and of course cars exported.
Ford Germany was at first an assembly plant, became a true Ford factory making its own engines in 1935...?

 

Cologne started manufacturing the V8 fully in-house in 1936.

 

The differences are interesting, especially the cars themselves.

 

Now that is the only number I found on the drivers side intake area.

 

The number appears to be period correct, but I was expecting a seven digit number (3xxxxxx) on a German 1937 Ford.

 

So Flathead Micky is right , it´s a french Matford !? I would really like to see another french Matford block, just for comparison. Matford anyone ?