I picked up a 34 pickup recently and I'm working on getting it road worthy. It has been sitting since the sixties with out a engine (but with a tranny) and it already has a juice conversion. I pulled the transmission out, bolted it up to an old running 59-AB, and dropped it back in Saturday night. I am sure somebody here has done this swap before. What can I do to simply bolt the motor in the front? Change the water pumps? If so to which ones can I use? I have been looking to see what water pumps the stock 34 engine ran and it doesn't look like they will work. Is this engine going to clear the radiator also? If i need to make spacers or adapters so be it. Any suggestions will be appreciated.
There is a 59 AB in my '33 Ford PU. It was in the truck when purchased. It uses the biscuit mounts. I have space for a Walker radiator with electric fan and shroud. I have since mated it to a C-4 with a FLAT O Matic conversion kit. Great kit, works well, and it is an easy install. Highly recommend.
FE late model Truck pumps will position the flathead to the needed height. Be sure you find the ones that have the mounting ears on the sides. I ordered a set one time to find out they make a set for FE Pickups with no ears.
Check out my coupe. I stretched the engine bay on my coupe about an inch and a half for my 59ab. I used the speedway pumps and they work GREAT. I would just build some quickey motor mounts for it and run new pumps. Your rad might not fit though. I actuall re-drilled my rad mounting holes to push it forward slightly. Good luck!
Front mounts were covered by Ford after WWII when 59 based engines became the universal replacement...kits included the mount fix. Stock biscuits (the rubber stuff stays there in the crossmember) are too low and too close together. Factory adaptor was just a folded piece of heavy steel, hole at bottom for biscuit, hole at top offset to bolt to 59 pump mount hole.
Do the thing thus: Crank centerline determines how high you need to go. Shove the starting crank through the hole in radiator, jack up engine til crank properly fits the ratchet nut in front of engine. Measure. Likely about 1 1/2"... Build a spacer...block of metal, piece of square tubing, etc., that thick. Bolt to biscuits, drill holes the extra distance needed over '34 spacing in top, bolt to pumps.
I made my own with some prebent U bends, i had to add another 1/2" to get the height right, like this
The '49-52 Merc spacers are very similar to the old 41A Ford conversion mounts...do not know how height compares. Late truck mounts force numerous other changes and do not solve the problem...same height. 59 + spacer is the old way and possibly easiest. Mr. 42's spacer is schematically the same as the conversion mount, though different in appearance...you can see how it could be made easily a lot of different ways. Other trad way is a Hurst part number A-28 (number stuck in my head since doing this on a deuce in about 1962!), a simple bolt-on tab arrangement that tucks into '28-34 frames right behind the crossmember and provides a 59A friendly hole. Requires drilling about 2 more holes than in making a spacer...I think Speedway or someone makes a current copy of the A-28. I recently got a pair of them or exact clones off of an engine swapped jeep in the junkyard! And remember to use the crank hole to get engine to proper axis for carb and stock driveline.
Hey...Fentons in a '34. Could you shoot us some pics of how they fit in steering box area after engine is let down to level??
Lifted these pics from Egay. Long time ago. its supposed to be the original type of engine mount adapters
I have 2 sets of those, slightly different from each other...no idea if 41A and 8CM or what. No provenance, no numbers. The general look of those pictured matches what you can see in the kit pictures in the '46 Canadian parts book... Anyway, there are lots of ways to move a hole up and over a bit.
Here is what I came up with this weekend. the adapters are 4.375 tall, enabling the crank to clear the cross-member. I'm going to have to trim the edges so they rotate into the right position. As for the Fenton manifolds clearing the steering, The driver side is pretty close; Right now there is about 3/16 of a space. The engine still needs to bolted down so I might get a little more room between the two.
those look great, when the shop mounted my flathead in they welded mounts on the frame and they ended up covering a hole that the hood hold down screw goes into, then broke a drill bit in it trying to drill the hole out again.
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