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Air cooled flat heads

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by candyman, Apr 24, 2005.

  1. candyman
    Joined: Jun 29, 2001
    Posts: 355

    candyman
    Member

    Ok. So I stopped in and visited with my grandfather this week. Our conversation turned to ww2 stuff. My grampa goes and tells me about how the germans were using ford flathead engines in some of their vehicles. He said that the germans took the motors apart and rebuilt them as air cooled engines. While he was in Africa these engines along with volks wagons were flying around the desert without any overheating issues. At the same time, all the American fords were burning up in the heat.

    Cut to the chase hear. Has anybody heard anything about this here? If so, what does an air cooled flathead perform like?
     
  2. Mr 42
    Joined: Mar 27, 2003
    Posts: 1,215

    Mr 42
    Member
    from Sweden

    I find it very hard to think that it is possible to change a Ford Flathead into an aircooled engine. Maybe they could use crank,rod's,piston an other parts.

    Maybe it was Magirus Deutz V8's or V12's they are Aircooled.

    http://www.armyvehicles.dk/magirusjupiter.htm

    1942-1944, half-track, 2-ton, 4-cyl. 80hp Diesel (70k b/w)
    [​IMG]
     
  3. candyman
    Joined: Jun 29, 2001
    Posts: 355

    candyman
    Member

    My grandpa may not be the know it all of everything.. but I can assure you he can reckognise a ford flathead when he sees one. This would be an earlier flathead though.. he was in Africa early in the war. It would have taken the germans time to develop the technology as well as still able to acquire them from us. I believe we still did business with Germany up until '41.
     
  4. Sydney Allard built this if it's any help - an aircooled Steyr V8 mixed in with a load of early Ford running gear?
    [​IMG]
     

  5. biscuit
    Joined: Aug 8, 2004
    Posts: 35

    biscuit

    http://www.memaerobilia.com/engineselection.asp#top

    It mentions a inverted Ford engine that's aircooled and it was developed before WWII.

    The Ford F60 was the truck used by the US Army in WWII, but I'm not sure why they 1. would waste time converting a captured truck or 2. if it's even feasible.

    I believe by the time the Allies were in Africa, the Afrika Corps was using the Opel Blitz and the Kubelwagon. I'm not discounting what your grand dad said at all, I'm just not familiar with that conversion except as an aircraft engine.
     
  6. candyman
    Joined: Jun 29, 2001
    Posts: 355

    candyman
    Member

    Sure guys.. this is some pretty weird stuff really. My granda pa knows his cars though... for one he spent time working in the motor pool during his service time. Also, he owned many cars over the years... from Jaguars and Gull Wing Mercedes Benz to Mustangs and Cadillacs. He also owned his own machine shop.

    The thing that struck me about the Air cooled flat heads was that they are well known for running hot. So if they could be converted to realistacally run as air cooled the performance potential could be awesome. I mean, there would be less drag on the crank from water pumps and such. I was just wondering if anybody around hear had heards of one of these beasts.

    That track car up there is bad ass!
     
  7. Baudoux
    Joined: Sep 26, 2013
    Posts: 3

    Baudoux
    Member

    I dredged this up after a google search. Dad (1921-2009) Was an army trained mechanic, and owned his own shop for 50 years. He told me many times about the German trucks he saw in France, after the Allies reclaimed it. He found bombed out 6x6 trucks with fully independent suspension, and flathead Ford V-8's. The engines were cooled by high pressure air pumps, blowing air through the water jackets. I still have the knife that he made from a wood planer blade, from a blown up German wood working shop. His thoughts were the Germans had lost the war by building too good of equipment, instead of a large quantity of it. ('Murica, hells yeah)
     
  8. mustangsix
    Joined: Mar 7, 2005
    Posts: 1,403

    mustangsix
    Member

  9. Zerk
    Joined: May 26, 2005
    Posts: 1,418

    Zerk
    Member

    Interesting idea. I wonder if they would open the "water" jackets through the outside of the block to vent the heat away? Don't know how well such a conversion would work...probably in proportion to how much development time was spent on it.

    What I have doubts about is that this could have been a crutch job, figured out by a German motor pool with a busted American truck.
     
  10. Bruce Lancaster
    Joined: Oct 9, 2001
    Posts: 21,681

    Bruce Lancaster
    Member Emeritus

    Steyr is likely the reference...it was ame displacement as Ford, I think...might have used Ford lower end parts?? The Czechs had some independent suspension trucks, and of course the Germans controlled their factories after '39.
    They had no need to buy or convert Fords, though, because they built their own...after about 1935 Ford Germany was a full-fledged factory making both B and V8 Fords of all types completely on their own, including engine manufacture. Wehrmacht used several models of mostly normal Ford trucks, 1932 BB was in production there until 1940, and they also produced huge quantities of various 1935-42 type Ford trucks. Most were pretty much the same as ours, but there were specials like halftrack Fords as well.
    According to one book I have, ALL Ford V8's were requisitioned for the war, with the trucks going right into service and the passenger cars being cut down and converted into all sorts of special rigs like radio trucks.
    I think most of their transport ended up as Ford V8 and Opel Chevy trucks...Benz trucks died out early because parts replacement was primitive, invovlvin fitting by machinests rather than precision interchange.
    For BB/AA/V8 stuff was captured in huge quantities and put to work in the firs half of the war, and the Germans also used all the manufacturers thae had captured in France, Czechoslovakia, etc.
    They never had enough manufacturing strength to standardize equipment, so they had to use every variety of truck they could get their hands on.
     
  11. Normbc9
    Joined: Apr 20, 2011
    Posts: 1,121

    Normbc9
    Member

    I used air cooled Deutz diesel in five former gas engined fire rigs. All performed flawlessly and served in the central valley of California without any overheating problems. BUT... we did cut several air supply ducts and installed 12 volt fans to make sure they had a good uninterrupted air flow.
    Normbc9
     
  12. Air-cooled flathead built by Ford

    [​IMG]
     
  13. Bruce Lancaster
    Joined: Oct 9, 2001
    Posts: 21,681

    Bruce Lancaster
    Member Emeritus

    And it's a 60! Looks like barrels and head are cast together, and they sure got the auspuf aus faster than stock!
    Lower block casting is all new, too, so probably only rotating assembly and intake are standard.
     
  14. ventilo
    Joined: Aug 25, 2009
    Posts: 251

    ventilo
    Member

    For sure there were no air-cooled Ford flatheads in Germany. Rommel always complained about overheating Ford trucks during his raids in Northern-Africa. That's why the later Wehrmacht Ford V3000S trucks featured a larger radiator and additional louvers in the bonnet. It didn't really cure the problem though.

    Even the Cologne built post-war army trucks still featured a large sign on the instrument panel, instructing the driver to carefully watch the water temperature and avoid overheating.
    [​IMG]
     

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