Well here's some more good news, in light of adjusted priorities. The stuck passenger side water pump broke loose today. I had an inkling that it was probably stuck on the outside of the shaft where it goes into the block so I hit that with a little PB blaster, let it soak, and then tapped it with a mallet and now it spins free. Since it'll have a radiator hooked up to it pretty soon I figured I'd better go ahead and figure out how to clean out the water jackets. The amount of crud @RMONTY and I were seeing was giving me some real worry, especially for the side with the stuck pump, so I went ahead and pulled the outlets off just to see what I could see. It was a real 'duh' moment when I realized that of course there are thermostats in the outlets and what we were seeing was just gunk that had settled on top of them. Inside the water jackets are spotless (well, they are pretty clean) and the valves seem to still work, so now I just need to clean the outlet necks, make new gaskets for them and get some belts, and then it'll be ready for the radiator. edit: In fact, NAPA has the gaskets in stock at my local store.
You certainly could install the old thermostats if you want to , but boil them 1st and make sure they actually open. If it is as hot in Texas as it has been in Kansas, you might consider just leaving them out for now. While I did install a mechanical temp gauge. I have found that using one of those digital temperature laser pointer guns is really informative, as I can check the temperature of everything I might want to know about. I bough mine at Harbor freight cheap and it works great.
Great Thread, and very informative. I am tearing down an 8BA & running into some stuck guides but making headway. Back in the summer of 1970 I did a real cheap engine swap in a 53 ford wagon with my younger brother. got things together & running. It smoked something terrible. Took a 5 gallon can of oil with us & did long drives in the country. The smoke lightened after a few drives & that car lasted him for a few years.
Huge thanks to @amodel25 for lending me this rad out of his super cool Tudor. You were right - no leaks! If I can just figure out what size the fan belt is supposed to be we'll be ready to really start cooking. Supposed to be 32 but that was too small even with all the tension let out. I think the fan pulley is bigger than factory, so going to go a few sizes up.
How tight are the belts supposed to be? I swear the generator belt can't get any tighter and it still feels sloppy, but it's definitely the right size. On fordbarn I saw someone say it's supposed to have 1" of deflection?? How can it run like that?
“Right size” means it fits, not what some parts book lists for it. Belts come in a million sizes. Get the next size.
Gates green stripe TR26366 20A0935 for fan and TR20544 15A1380 for the water pumps is what fits my 8RT. I think the TR number is the part number.
One inch of deflection is not loose. The belt will be tight and with your pointer finger you can press the belt in an inch with force and it bounces back. Its not slack. Also both belts need to be in adjustment kinda at the same time. The whole thing slides up on the stud off the intake manifold. The fan slides on the 2 bolts next to that stud. I let the 2 fan bolts stay slack and just do the generator belt. Then carefully with a bar pry up on the fan then tighten that up. That fan should have oil in it. Motor oil is fine.
Thats where the fan oil goes. Just back that screw out but with it facing up and squirt some oil in there. Oil can or small funnel are needed
Thanks for the tip about oiling the fan, I would have never known that was there. A surprise thunderstorm has sent me inside for now but I think I have the generator raised as high as it can go, so I'm going to have to go down a couple inches on the generator belt. I have reinstalled the thermostats and the outlet titty things and am working on the 90 degree elbows on the return side of the water circuit. Decided to use galvanized conduit pipe for the elbow because it's significantly cheaper than preformed rubber hoses and looks pretty cool. I pushed some water in through the inlets and found that the driver side water pump, the one I thought was good, has a bad leak around the pulley shaft, so I am definitely going to have to replace or rebuild it before we can really run this puppy. amodel25 actually loaned me some extra water pumps he had but it looks like they are for a 59A (pulley shafts too short) and won't work.
Looking kind of cool. Oh. I don’t know how I didn’t notice the outlets aren't symmetrical. Oh well, just need a little extra hose on the passenger side. D'oh.
Man, this is a great thread! Looking forward to reading about your progress!! Maybe someone can correct me if I’m wrong (happens a lot these days) but I’m pretty sure on an 8BA you can run the engine without a fuel pump pushrod without losing oil pressure. pre ‘49 59A stuff you need to have the rod installed. Eventually you’ll ditch the loadomatic dizzy. I dig the early Mallory units with the 3 piece cap. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Wow what a great success story and what a great community! I really admire your approach of getting her running before anything else. The flathead I bought had a couple of stuck valves, as a result, I went for the full teardown; however, now that I've seen your success I'm second-guessing my decision. I dropped my block off at the machine shop yesterday and am looking forward to reaching the assembly process. Without a chassis, I'm in a similar boat as you and look forward to learning/sharing experiences. With any luck, we'll both bring back some life to these old machines. Cheers from a fellow N. Texan!
Good luck! I’m glad I’m not the only one taking the ass backwards approach, starting with just an engine and all. Let me know if you need any of my spare/takeoff parts as things move forward if you have an 8BA/8RT. I don’t know what all I have yet but just holler if you need anything.
Trevor - We need to be rolling before the 90th birthday of the flathead (March 31, 1932). Wheels on the ground by March 2022! Let's get to work!
There are several that take that approach on the H.A.M.B. It's not a bad way to get moving on a project. You have a running engine, just need 4 tires and a steering wheel to go down the road!
Lots of progress today with @RMONTY. The control panel he made up looks great. My welds don’t do it justice, but they’ll hold it aloft. Sunday it’s getting wired up... I think the big radiator pipes look slick as hell but boy were they ever a pain in the rear. Got some piddly things to do on it between then and now like hose clamps, getting the plug wires hooked up and stuff like that. I ordered an oil pan cleanout gasket yesterday and was very surprised when it arrived today. Long story short, I ordered some on eBay like 2 weeks ago, totally forgot about it, ordered another set yesterday, first set arrived today.
I don't know much about mechanical issues. My uncle the mechanic told me to buy a car pretty much all together the way I want it. I will not go into why the heck he said that.
Aw mannn haha. Getting into the meat of it now. The good news is we got fuel and water squared away today and after wiring up the solenoid it fires right up and even more or less idles. Doesn't seem to be blowing any more oil smoke. Still burning off lots of carbon. Bad news is both thermostat housings are cracked and leaking a lot of water and the driver side water pump is definitely toast, lots of water is getting out past the pulley shaft. It is still running very rich. We won't be able to tune the carb until I get the water situation sorted and it can actually be allowed to idle and come up to temperature, so that's first on the agenda right now... only I overstretched my budget already so now it gets to sit on ice for a little while. I'll get some video up once I decompress, but for now take my word for it, it sounds amazing.
I have enjoyed sharing what mechanical and fabrication skills I have with trevor and working side by side with him. . He is eager to learn, and is a sharp and intelligent guy. And he IS a hot rodder through and through, even if in his infancy of the hobby. We need to figure out the throttle linkage on this carburetor. It obviously isn't working properly, and although not in this video, I was having to work the linkage on both sides of the carburetor to get the engine to rev up beyond that idle. I monkeyed with the left side while moving the right side linkages and was able to get the RPM way up on the engine, but it seems they should be tied together somehow. As stated before, I know nothing about these carburetors. I will be glad to see trevor getting the items needed to rework the cooling system. The engine runs, and there is no major repairs that are needed it seems. It will be nice to see the engine run more than a couple of minutes at a time so we can dial everything in. @winduptoy, (or anyone that is familiar with this carburetor for that matter,) can you offer any insight on the operation of this carburetor and how the linkages should all tie together? If this were my engine, I would be convinced that I could run it in a car even if it were to just to move round town in short trips for the time being. I'd be looking for a rolling chassis to get started! Go trevor go!
We really need a return spring on the throttle, I think that alone would help a lot, right now it wants to open itself up if you leave it alone. I am definitely keeping my eyes peeled for a car now! If a good deal on a roller comes up, I'll figure out how to pay for it, even if I have to sell some stuff. It's definitely healthy enough to haul itself around. I think instead of trying to rebuild the driver side water pump I will just replace it. I think the passenger side pump is actually working fine so I'm going to try to cheap out for now and replace just the one. If it winds up quitting I'll just replace it down the road.
Ignore the linkage on the left side. As I posted before, it's set up for the throttle LEVER, not the foot feed throttle. The lower ball on the right side will open the throttle plates. Your throttle pedal will be connected to this. Use this ball when you are trying to open the carb and give it gas. The upper ball is the choke plate. Maybe you will choke it a bit when it's cold, but you probably shouldn't need to mess with this most times.
I understand and am aware of what the choke butterfly is. It richens the mixture by restricting the air flow into the carb during warm up. When the linkage is moved toward "low throttle", the butterfly slightly closes. Which is what I would expect. So at what position should that left side lever be set at? All the way forward? All the way backward? Should it be tied down so it doesn't move? Should it just be left to free-float? It seems to want to react to the linkage on the right side of the carb, but I am not in front of it at the moment to either confirm or deny that statement. Not trying to be difficult, I just don't understand what it does and why it is there. You mention the "throttle lever" and the "foot feed".......is the "throttle level" sort of like what you have on an old tractor......set it for a steady RPM and let 'er buck? A "cruise control" from the 40s'?
See the knob left of the radio? That's the throttle lever. As you said, pull it and let er buck. Hot rodders don't need these. I've always just removed the left side linkage when I've disassembled the carb. Should be a small pin running crossways through the shaft. Punch it out, pull the arm and stuff off, then bolt the carb back on and go about your fun.
I don't have a carb in front of me but as I remember it, Yes there is a sort of Antique Cruze Control. On the dash there is actually a Choke rod and a Throttle rod. The throttle attaches on the left side and has a free motion aspect so when not using it the Gas pedal isn't effecting it by it's movement. In other words it is separate but connected. Just ignore it all together. The Choke lever also has the idle stop screw set point on it but it moves with the use of the Choke. It's really kind of simple once you understand it. It's just totally wrong compared to todays Carb set ups.
Got it....I just didn't understand what it did/does. I found that I could move the left side and it altered the engine RPM and that puzzled me. In fact, if you listen to the video close, at the end, you hear me say...."hmmm"......I think the underlying issue is the carb was rebuilt and it needs to be adjusted properly. We haven't done any adjusting on it whatsoever. I know in the past when I have rebuilt carbs of various manufacturers, some of them have "benchmarks", or initial settings (turn out 3/4 of a turn, or whatever) to get you close, then you fine tune it. I feel like this may need to be done with this Stromberg. It is my first dealings with a Stromberg for sure. Once trevor gets the pieces and parts to keep the engine cool on extended runs, we will go about dialing everything in. What should be done about the vacuum advance for the distributor since the carb doesnt have a port for vacuum from what I understand. I would think the vacuum advance is needed to get the engine performing at optimal performance.
According to Stromberg, the ("weird and wonderful") Load-o-Matic distributor is only compatible with the EAB carb that I took off the engine or a rare period variant of the Stromberg 97. Even if I reverted to a stock carb or tracked down the vintage 97 variant, Load-o-Matics still I guess have a reputation for being temperamental (such as not liking aftermarket cams). So I should probably just start planning to replace the distributor with a mechanical advance only unit.
The Jalopy Journal
