I lucked into this gem on the online auction site, and two long days of driving later, it was resting in protective storage in my shop. The seller was moving stuff out after his friend has passed and had no history on the motor. It is resting on a homemade cart that it came on. I'm starting to piece together the history of the engine, but would appreciate any help with thoughts on how this strange mix of parts came together. Intake - Edelbrock super dual with a chrome 97 and regular 48 QUESTIONS - What vintage is the intake and is the other carb a 48? Heads - Weiand aluminum cheaters QUESTIONS - Sparkplugs are kind of loose in the heads, how bad is that? Ignition - Stock with angle drive adapter??? No coil Other - Alternator conversion (what era??), 6-blade fan (what from??), automatic bellhousing (why???), block date (no cast in bellhousing, so 49-51???) The owner did have several 49-51 fords, so it's possible it came from one of those. I'm going to tear this down over the weekend to see what the cam, crank and lifters look like. I'll keep this updated. Thanks, Ken
Marine? Fan is late 40's-early 50's truck. One the carb, look on the opposite side as where the "97" is, it should have a size. 31/32 is a 97, 1 1/32 is a 48
Engine is some sort of '49-53 block, early heads (repro of '47-8 Ford of Canada), distributor is stock late flathead and is an evil piece of junk(discard, rebuild with earlier ignition or with aftermarket) , pumps are '48-52 truck which also fit early Ford mounts, alt is I think Ford, manifold is fairly old version of one the still sort of make, equipped for '49-53, I think bellhousing and rat's nest of linkage may be '51-53 Fordomatic, Sparkplugs...can they be tightened or do you mean threads are shot? If that, your best bet is simply some helicoils.
Wow, thanks everyone. Chris - I should know that, I'll check when I get home. Nomo - They "why??" just means if they went to the trouble to hop up the motor, why have a slushbox. We were thinking it was built in the 60s and automatics were hotter than 3 spds. Bruce - All good info, thank you for taking the time. I'm trying to piece together the timeframe this motor was put together. I'm thinking the PO could have bought the repro alum heads and the intake from a catalog at the same time... so if I can date the manifold I can figure that out. What else can I look for that would date the assembly of the motor? 46 - Are there numbers somewhere to ID the alternator as a stude?
Well, HOPEFULLY, the plugs are loose because someone had the foresight to squirt ATF in the holes before storing it.
Manifold has block letters, but I believe that E changed those to script considerably later* than on heads. The cheater heads...I think I have seen them in late 1950's catalogs, they were avaialnble through the '60's and orphaned out maybe1970ish. * or maybe never??
Pop - there is still oil in the pan and all of the plugs are easily unscrewed, so maybe??? the guy selling it said he turned it over with a wrench on the torque converter, I haven't had a chance to lube the cylinders and try it too. Bruce - I'll do some more hamb and internet research for catalogs. Thanks again.
On the Cheater heads...Honest Charley was I think closing them out late 1960's, simultaneously selling a stash of the real Canadian heads they were copied from... Joblot in NY got the last Canucks, the Danbury CT racers bought all surviving cheaters early 1970's.
I proceeded to tear down the flatty a little further to see what was underneath the pretty exterior. I found some good, some bad, some ugly. Good - Adjustable lifters, surgically clean lifter valley Bad - oversized plug holes on 2 cylinders (in photo- oversize on left, normal on right) Ugly - homemade plug adapters, brass carved with a rock Is this a killer for the head? or is it still a candidate for threaded inserts?
An 8BA (49-53) block, with the 59A heads. The heads are easily replaceable.....so the plug holes are not an issue. 51 was Ford's first automatic, The clean lifter gallery is a very good thing! 4TTRUK
Plug holes are easily fixed as well, helicoils are a good idea and if the holes are too damaged for that, they can be plugged, welded, and redrilled/tapped. Valley looks nice! Pop those heads off and lets have a look at the bores and check the deck for cracks.
Thanks for the reassurance on the heads. I'm a little afraid to pop the heads off... I kind of just don't want to know if there's any cracks and just see if she'll run. How bad of an idea is it to thread those adapted plugs back in the holes and try and start this beast?
Edelbrock Supers never got changed to script logo. For some reason they were always made with the block letters. No way to "date" it.
I've fixed real bad aluminum heads by threading with a pipe tap, screwing in a piece of brass pipe and retapping or installing an insert in the brass. Aluminum pipe would work if you can find some the right size.
X2. The heads changed in mid 1947, according to my research on them. The part that is throwing me off is the piece on the front. It is hard to tell from the pictures, but it looks like the cast piece has an oil fill hole on it ... ? Is the intake drilled for that or was that just part of bracket for the alternator? The block is 1949-1953 truck. Or, it at least has a truck fan, pulleys, and pumps. The heads look like stockers, but all of the aluminum ones I have seen say Canada on them. Look on the water-outlet boss, on the side abutting the intake, and see if it is marked. All of the 'cheater heads' had the logo there. The other part that seems odd is the linkage. Even the pieces coming off of the butter-fly shafts are totally unfamiliar to me. From the pictures, the linkage almost appears to be designed to work backwards. When combined with the narrowed water necks and automatic bell housing, it immediately makes me think the engine may have run backwards in an old V-drive boat. But, then why on earth would it have a fan?!
Don't take this the wrong way, but I'd call it a terrible idea. Why wouldn't you want to know the internal condition of an unknown engine before you fire it? Especially if you're planning on putting it in a car. If it were mine, I'd be pulling it down completely, checking bearing clearances and the whole bit before doing anything else. Small problems are much easier (read:CHEAPER) to fix while they're still small.
It might have the front piece from a stock manifold bolted on top of the Edelbrock, to get the 8BA style generator mount (now used with an alternator) mounted in the stock location. Hence the (non operative I guess) oil filler hole. Mart.
You're right, I was trying to take the lazy way out. It's only a few more bolts and I'm there. Also, it spins over so smoothly to a point then stops. I'm hoping thats a torque convertor issue... So, I'm yanking the heads and pan as soon as the rain lets up a little. I hadn't even noticed that in the mess that is the alternator/fan mount. As this is my first real flathead, I'm learning new bits and tricks every day. I wish I could have seen the car this was in, the PO was very inventive. The piece of old intake is closed in with some brazed steel and one of the water pumps is a car pump with a mount brazed on!!! I snagged a couple of truck pumps to replace these (sounded grainy when turning over) and a mallory dual point. Should be here next week. Another question - the intake has one 48 and one 97, but the 48 is on the back. I thought that if you were going to mix carbs, you put the 48 on the front???
Seeing how some of that is so cobbled together is just all the more reason to open that puppy up and make sure all is well inside. Who knows what you'll find in there! Mixing carbs is generally not a great idea, but I can't see how it would matter which one was where. I reccomend firing an unknown engine up for the first time on ONE carb on a stock intake. Less variables means less potential problems/troubleshooting.
It came with a couple of stock intakes, I'll take that advice for firing it up the first time. I like the cobbled together nature of the motor, but the more I find, the more I think you're right and I'm going to open it up and find some interesting "fix" inside. I'll put up some more photos when I get it open.
I pulled the bellhousing, flexplate, heads off last night to try and decipher why the engine has a rough spot. Some good and bad - Good - relieved block, aluminum pistons .060 over Bad - mud daubers built nests in the water passages. if you look close at the block photo, you can see one of those suckers poking up out of the passage. it looks like there's a 1/2 ton of dust in the block. STILL WILL ONLY TURN OVER 710 degrees! That's right, it turns over ALMOST 2 complete revolutions but stops just short. Is that a timing gear issue? Pan and timing cover come off tonight. Thoughts?
Well, it's a valve/cam issue. Remove the 4 bolts holding timing gear on (asymmetrical pattern so will only go together correctly, unless you're a REAL hotrodder) and now lower assembly should turn freely. Now turn cam and see what isn't moving...it sounds like you have a single valve stuck. Common prob on stored flatheads as oil runs out of guides...first, soak the culprit in penetrating oil and see if light tapping on center of valve will persuade it to close. If so, keep oiling, turning, and tapping til it's free. If no go...find a HAMBer, I think we have at least one in your part of Mexico, with a valve bar, pull guide down a biot with that and extract the thin steel keeper where guide goes into block (hahahahahaha!! "pull guide down" sounds so EASY and BLOODLESS!) and extract entire valve assembly. Rush it to a specialista for advanced therapy or replacement.
I was watching the valves as I spun it over last night, but it was getting late and I was going crosseyed from blood loss to mosquitos. I'll try again tonight to gently coax out the offender. I was spoiled in that all of the head bolts came out with only minor complaining. No heat needed.
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