So I recently purchased a 46 business coupe and finally got a chance to really sorta inspect everything. I noticed this stamped on the passenger head(made in Canada). Could it be just the heads? If it is a Canadian, pros and cons???? Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Canadian Fords came stock with aluminum heads. They were a popular "cheater" mod for stock car racing, maybe someone thought they would be good on your car. In fact you can run a little more compression without overheating or pinging. Old racers said the Canadian blocks were better too but don't know the details. Your serial number should tell if it is a Canadian motor or just the heads. Also the casting number on the back of the block.
Yep you got lucky and got the good stuff. All the stuff we got here in Oz was Canadian also except near the end of the flathead and they started making blocks etc locally.
The biggest difference is when you finish working on it at the end of the day, when you would have popped a Coors or Bud, you will now have to pour yourself a Labatt's and then turn off the Padre's game and switch on the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Thanks for the laughs this morning guys! That was pretty funny, but those don't look like alum. heads in the pic,are they? Not all Canadian flatys had them.
I dont believe they are aluminum either and yes, i agree with the laughs..good times...keep the info coming as well fellas..thankssss
I don't remember the details but Canadian blocks were supposed to be stronger, or thicker castings or something like that. The aluminum heads were used from the thirties up to 1948, the redesigned 1949-54 had iron heads (yes Canadian made Fords and Mercs had flatheads in 54). In those days ALCAN was one of the world's biggest producers of aluminum and aluminum was cheaper in Canada than elsewhere.
I ran a set on my 39 with no problems, always got comments on them. Dare to be different and run the shit out of them. You might have an issue with unleaded gas.
There are at least 3 Canadian '46-48 heads...don't have the charts here to sort everything. Earliest was a C59, exactly equivalent to a US 59A head. The there were 2 different ones with C7RA numbers, different PN suffixes but one was aluminum, the other iron, so no need to squint at PN details. The iron one was equivalent to USA 59AB head, slight compression increase over the 59A heads. The aluminum one had a larger increase in compression, and was used as a stock car cheater and as the visual outer design for a higher compression Weiand cheater design.
Here are couple of pics of a flathead still with the rebuild tag attached. Posting from the shop of the hot rod gods.
FWIW Late Ford flathead aluminum heads are cast with C8BA and made in Canada. I have no idea of the numbers cast but they must be fairly rare. There was also an aluminum intake manifold that was likely on the same engines as the heads. Jack