Something just occurred to me: Ford France sold out to French companies before WWII, and never made 221 or 239 motors locally, I believe. Ford GB made 60's from 1935 on and made 221's...but never produced Mercs as far as I know. Ford Germany made Mercury engines throughout WWII, and updated the G29 1942 Merc style engine with late type heads and rear distributor well into the 1950's. The French produced their military flatheads after this time, using early basic block design, late type heads, and rear distributor... It makes no sense that they would start fron scratch with tooling for an ancient engine design...SO...has anyone had a chance to closely compare a 1950's G29 with a 1960's French motor?? I'm wondering if the French flathead might actually have been made from slightly modified German tooling. The design parallels and timing seem suspiciously close...
Hey Bruce, I think Hotrodmicky here can help you with that ! Here are some links for you, maybe these people there can tell you more about the production history. I´m sure they speak english. http://www.ford.de/safari/ueber-ford/ford_geschicht/uford03/-/-/-/- http://www.fomcc.de/ As far as I know both the french and the german plants had their own dies and machines. I only have a german G29T block, so I can´t compare with the french V8. Hotrodmicky has both.
I think the French Ford Vedette used a version of the flathead V8-60 until the mid 50's. The car looks like a smaller version of the '49-'50 Mercury.
I did run this link http://www.fomcc.de/ on www.altavista/babelfish since im not mastering the German language. This is what i found. and i guess it means that knowledge and tooling was mixed between France and Germany. ############ On 29 September 1939 the air driving Ministry arranged the building new frontlenker of a truck. But with bottlenecks, standing semifinished truck, which was stored with Saint Cloud in a tunnel, remained this an unreasonable venture. Only with a financial syringe of 220 million franc reached the works in Bordeaux, Asnières and Poissy their production goal from monthly 1,200 trucks. But the front always approached: On 3 June 1940 German airplanes Poissy bombarded, it came however to no larger damage. On 10 June the instruction was given to the retreat. On boats, truck and by course was transported everything that could be dismantled somehow, from Asnières and Poissy to Bordeaux. Dollfus tried to arrive into the vacant zone, but one did not let him enter. After its return to Paris there both works were already under German control. Poissy built now truck for Ford Cologne, the first trucks from the new work. One supplied with also engines to Antwerp, everything under control from two organizations, the French COA (Comité d'Organization de l'Automobile) and to the German GBK (general authorized person for the kraftfahrwesen). During this time it came also to considerations a manufacturing into Algeria to draw up, then 1941 Fords Afrique SA were created and the headquarters of the SAF von Vichy was shifted after Oran. With the invasion of the allied ones in Algeria and Morocco these plans were again given up 1942. The armed forces strove for rationalization and standardization. Starting from February 1943 in Poissy the building of the own truck was stopped to favour Cologne type. The quality remained however bad. 1942 bombarded the Royal air Force four times the work and caused large damage. Mrs. Dollfus, a native Englishwoman, congratulated to the British pilots to her success. Their man was against it endeavors production upright to keep, in order to give to the Germans no reason to the disassembly and Deportierung of the coworkers. 1943 it reached the classification as "speer enterprise S", which secured better conditions for the work during the material and power supply. On 26.-28 August 1944 Poissy was released after two artillery engagements on the work area. Poissy began to supply now for the released France and the allied ones, some workers also for the repair of the Seine bridges was turned off. Other eliminated the damage in the work, built truck for the French army and repaired tank engines. After end of war one tried to repel first Ford France to a competitor, it was however no suitable prospective customer. Thus one concentrated again on for the reconstruction the as important trucks as the Matford 92 V8, starting from 1946 in Ford F472 renamed. But surviving did not seem safe yet. Dollfus returned two plans from its journeys to Detroit also: for 1941 a small passenger car and for a Diesel truck, sketched in the USA. ########
I'm far from any expert status on anything, much less continental versions of the venerable flathead we all know & love. However, I have touched each on numerous occasions. One of the similarities is the German usage of the Bosch rear-mounted distributor rides in a boss eerily similar to that of the French governor. The mix of early & late styles also implies a great deal of cross-pollination as well.
Hi, if you compare the blocks,they look similar , but the rear boss is different. Also casting numbers are completly different. I don' think they shared toolings. They may modified them. French engines have one piece valve guides , Germans split ones Michael
No question they are different castings, but I believe there was common tooling... Didn't have the blocks side-by-side, but the governor/distributor bosses looked very similar on the top & height - the governor had the additional boss on the side of the vertical. If the top is the same, the dizzy should fit a french block...but I don't know - just guessing!
I have a french 90 degree distributor drive and my NOS Bosch G29 Distributor, fits perfect! So i say the german / French distributors have the same mounting mesurments.
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