A little back ground on this story is I was trying to get a fresh 8ba flathead to power my coupe. I made a deal with a buddy that has a low mileage great runner. My plan was to do the usual cam, heads and intake and hit the road. Well, I got a phone call with him telling me he is on his way to deliver the engine , only not the actual one we made the deal on, he'll tell me more when he gets here. He arrives and shows me what looks like another lightly used flathead. He proceeds to tell me his father pulled this from a car he was selling and put it in his basement for more than 25 years. Always planned to save it for a good hotrod. Well here is were it starts to get a little more interesting. My buddies dad always told him that it was a real hotrod engine that was built by a buddy that is kind of a big deal in local circle track racing and this was built like they did back in the days that flattys were the racers choice. Well that is perfect because my coupe was a jalopy racer in the fifties. So this does sound like the perfect powerplant for my coupe. My buddy's dads name was Harry Olsen ( H O) , also High Output. I am truly honered to be the caretaker of this hot little flathead. the crankshaft has had all corners radiused and every surface is polshed smooth.
This isn't going to be in real time because I have gotten it running but just thought I should share. I soon took the engine apart to check and inspect but got side tracked for awhile. In the mean time the tired flatty in my coupe just kept on going. Wasn't long after this that Harry passed away and it always bothered me that he didn't get to see his ol flathead in my hotrod. Fast forward to last July and my son said we should take the coupe the the Hamb Drags. It is a 6 hour drive and I asked if we should finish the HO flathead or just go wth the one that works? He said HO! and then we will race for fastest flathead award. That was the push that I needed . We had under 4 weeks to make this happen. This is also in our very busy Bmx season so with work, racing, and also being very involved with the local bmx track this was a lot on my plate. I did get the engine assembled and installed my Sharp high compression heads that I scored from Tuck. I also stripped off the Ford blue and sprayed it bronze
I did finally get the engine installed but I also changed out the transmission as I had been running around without 1st gear.The trans is now a 50 shoebox 3 speed with overdrive. Of course this means a new mount, clutch linkage, and driveshaft
I was running out of time to make our deadline. I did finally get it all done and running. I even installed a fan , if you know me then you realize that is a big deal.
Awesome car. Love the patina. Please post more pictures! Nick Sent from my Pixel XL using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Well I had video of the start up, but can't seem to upload the video. I also don't really have pictures of the next stage in this adventure, but it was fun.... After the beak-in I found out the throw out bearing was junk soo..... out it came. The time line was getting over tight. This was the friday we were supposed to be leaving to drive to Joplin for the Drags. We threw in the towel and drive the late model. It took a fee weeks to get over the defeat and get out to the garage and get that thing actually back on the road. Here is a pic during the first successful test drive
we started putting some miles on this new combo, which included driving to the Bmx track ( hauling the race bike was pat of it).
I didn't know Harry had that stashed away...I once bought a model A engine from Harry. The body looks a lot better, Jeff!
This little story is still going.... So, since my 15 year old son was a big push in getting this whole thing going I figure that this part of the story is also worrh telling. My son Owen and his older brother grew up with this hotrod around and they both grew OUT of the hotrod craze. Soo, when my kid started to show interest it was go time! Now, he wasn't there for every step of the way because I just NEEDED to get this thing back to hotrod status ( A hotrod doesn't have a stock tired engine) and I wirked on it with or without his help. So now we were putting some miles on it and just couldn't get it running right. ( no power, hard to start , and just general rough running). Well we had what was going to be one last nice weekend and conveniently there was also a Cars n Coffee at Speedway (about 50 miles away). We rolled the dice and went for it! Didn't go great. About half way there it died... just shut off. No spark. The Pertronics died..... but I do have good friends. A buddy that was at Speeway bought a new set up and delivered it to us on the side of the road. After a few minutes we had it running and running sooo much better. Ha, that was my problem all along. Stay tuned.... there is more......
I don’t know about that man! I’ve always been a pretty big fan of that little coupe of yours!! You need to bring it out for the Hot Rod Hillclimb one of these days!
Mike, I know.... we do need to do the Hill Climb. We talked to Mike at the GNRS and my boy is jazzed about the Hill Climb..... but it is the same weekend as the state finals bmx race....
we have one final adventure before the horrible winter hit. We still needed a good hotrod adventure. It was now November and we needed to go to a gathering at Eggleston Kustoms. There were a few things not really on our side..... it was a high temp in the low 20's and about 70 miles away. There also was a chance of snow that afternoon. Well a little over 25 miles into our trip we ended up with a flat. A tube just gave up. With the wind chill we were looking at single digit temps and I usually dont even have a spare for shorter trips like this. I grabbed the spare saying if we have it then we won't need it, wrong, just wrong. Got the spare on and soon found out that it was less than round. After a short drive we decided to bail on our trip and start heading back home.... ended up a good decision. It started to really snow. We did get home safe and sound ( and cold). Just good adventures and the HO Flathead didnt miss a beat.
So, I seem to have gotten a little side tracked with my stories and left out some of the engine build. I touched on the bitchen Sharp heads that I used. I also installed my Thickson PM7 intake that I did some trading for years ago and have been running on the previous old used flatty for the last 4 or so years. For carbs I am running a couple of 94's that I have been running as long as I have had this ol coupe on the road (running since '05) The ignition is a converted chevy distributor utilizing the mechanical advance. I dont have any real pics but this distributor has been in service for about 10 years. This is probably a story worth retelling.... I had an older neighbor that loved to do interesting projects in his well equipped garage after hours. He would stop by once and a while and ask if I had anything he could work on or build? Well this time I had been researching this distributor modification and I showed him the research and the parts. He asked if he could take it and see what he could do. In the end, he machined everything and then spun it on a distributor machine to get the advance right . He also at that time installed the solid state ignition. He always worked crazy cheap because he always said I was doing him a favor by helping keep him busy. Basically just pay for parts. He soon after retired and moved away and I have unfortunately lost track of him. I will look him up this summer and show him that some of his handy work is still going strong.....
It's amazing how people like your neighbor are such a great help on our projects and then they seem to disappear just as quickly. Hot Rod Angels! Sent from my Pixel XL using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Thanks for posting that photo, reminds me of all the stock cars and soon to be stock cars that were around here in the 1960's. Never took photos of them, but the memory is locked in my brain. Bob
This is why I gave up on Pertronix.... I too have had issues. More than once.... Sigh Sent from my Moto Z (2) using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
The Jalopy Journal
