to make a long story short, i found a barn full of flat head eng with trans, 8 of them. can you turn diesl eng to gas?
Are these ford flathead V8's? If so they aren't diesel unless someone converted them. Can you post some pics? Where is Montclair?
It would be very hard to convert a flat head engine to diesel. Gas flat heads have a compression ratio of about 7-1. Diesels have to have very high compression to run around 18-1. I thionk it would be pretty hard to get that kind of compression on a flatty. Now to go the other way diesel to gas. That would take some work but it could be done. There are some engines that start on gas then switch over and run on diesel.
Post some pictures! Convert? Probably not. I've always been told the Triumph TR-3 engine was a converted farm farm tractor diesel engine. And we all know what a disaster the 350 Olds was when GM converted it to diesel, the first 5.7 . Post the pictures and someone here will give you the answer. Lucky667
thay were all v8. thay came out of tracters that carry milk. thay used to deliver around town and the serounding areas. i dont have any pic cause i was doing a job and needed to get in and get out. thay are located about 2hrs north of wher i live. in the city of wasco. 20min north of Bakersfeild. who knows how long thay have bean siting but thay are all in tack. from carb to trany.the guy i ask why so many flathead eng, he told me the state made the owner of the dairy chang the engs out or replace all the trucks. if ti can be done then im going back out ther and picking one up, thats if the owner sells them, any one up for a flathead v8?
The TR engines were built by Standard-Triumph for Ferguson tractors under contract. When they were developing the first TR's they needed an engine and the Ferguson was the obvious choice. It was always a gas engine...
If they had a carb they weren't diesel, possbly propane or natural gas. Diesel uses an injection system. The extremely early diesel engines that were built by Diesel himself did have a sort of "drip" style carb that ran off of vegetable oil. That's right the original Diesel engine was a biodiesel. But other than that diesels are injected and that's actually how you set the timing.
so even if i wanted to pick one up and rebuild it, convert it to gas, its not worth the try? darn!! then that explains why thay have bean siting for a long time!!
to far to go back out there for pics. will take some next time i go. if thay have been there for 50yrs then im shore thay will be there agin, but with my luck may be not.
If they do in fact have carbs then they aren't diesel and they might very well be salvageable. If they are diesels then yes they would be much too difficult and expensive to modify to gasoline.
They probaly the old chysler motors that they used in the wind machines and water pumps and del trucks They looked like old flat heads seen alot of them when i lived Visalia,Cal. My friend had a bunch of those on wind machines in the orchards then the electric company made deals with the farmers to change to electric !
The Triumph TR2,TR3 and TR4 engine is a Standard Motors Company of England Vanguard gas engine, a derivative of which was used by Fergusson in the TEA series tractors , but was still a gas engine. The first diesel Fergy was a 35 which had a Perkins engine.
If they are flathead V8 motors they are not Diesel and are fine for use in hot rods as maybe a million of them have been used as such. Bring as many home as you can.
This is interesting, I was a heavy equipment mechanic, so I'd like to see a Flat head Diesel, never have. Post some pictures lets sort this out.
The Jalopy Journal
