@trevorsworth I'm glad you started this thread! It is filled with a tremendous amount of good knowledge for those of us that do not have mentors and/or experience with flatheads. I'll be following along and learning, too. Thanks to everyone who is contributing these great tidbits of information, too!
As long as the base of the carb seals to the manifold, that is all you need at this point. You got confirmation on that. Make sure that you listen to the guys that keep telling you about sealing the hole for the mechanical pump pushrod. @alchemy explained it well on what he did so it was reversible if you want to run a mechanical pump in the future. Keep the faith
Pistnbroke I believe that the cause of points burning out is caused by the key being "ON" and the points open, there is an arc going across the points that causes them to burn. With the points closed current just passes through them with no arcing. Pat
Okay, let me try and there were lots of breaker point ignitions up into the 70's that were on 12V systems after Ford changed in 1956. Every time the points open and close, there is a small spark or electrical arc. Even on a micro level there will be enough heat generated and homotrons moving around to transfer or vaporize (burn) the points. The item that helps reduce this is the condenser. It is a capacitor. It takes a small electrical charge and in the process reduces the arcing harmless. I suspect that the 6V value capacitor gets left on a 12V conversion. The condenser is rated in micro farads (uf) and volts and needs to be changed to meet the application. I believe a 12V capacitor needs to have some were around .220 uf Don't know if I explained this in an understandable way but I will let it stand as is until corrected Larry
Yep! I have some questions about that but I’m waiting for my pushrod to get here in case those questions answer themselves once I have it in my hands as often happens...
Well done winduptoy. That's kind of what I remember. My hard drive has been over full for years and I can never tell what's been kicked out. I'm just an analog guy trying to survive in a digital world. If I remember right most capacitor's have there value's stamped on the end of the canister. You could make yourself a headache mixing things up. So a 12-V points system without any resistance needs a 12-v rated coil as well as correct capacitor and a 6-V system with a ballast resister still needs the 6-V capacitor to run 12-V. Does that sound correct?
Got the carb on mostly but I don't have anything that can quite crank those nuts down. My socket wrench can't get in there so I guess I need to go get a box wrench that will. Working on cleaning up the engine. Sucked a bunch of dirt dauber nests out of the starter housing... still probably need to get in there with a brush. I also sucked this out of the starter housing. Any idea what that is? It doesn't look like it goes to the starter anywhere and that was the only loose metal in there. It's the same size as the flat spring wound around the end of the starter shaft, but isn't a fragment of it.
trevor....can you post some pictures of that starter? I wonder if anyone can take a visual look at the starter and see if anything apparent is wrong. The bendix moves towards the starter motor it seems. The gear looks like it "backs-up" into the ring gear. The spring that pushes the gear back is pretty weak I noticed. How important is that spring? Can someone explain the mechanism on the end of the shaft?
That broken chunk looks like a bit of Bendix spring. You can take that front plate off the bellhousing to clean more. No gaskets that would be ruined by doing this.
Ran to Harbor Freight and picked up some box wrenches, got the carb on. Here's what we've got. The Bendix moves toward the motor when the starter spins up, but the spring doesn't really try very hard to push it back out. In this condition I'm not sure the starter would disengage from the flywheel after starting the engine.
Yep, that's a piece of broken Bendix spring. May be from the one that caused the damage to the tin can but don't appear to be off your starter in the photo. I guess that's good news. You don't need to worry about the Bendix staying engaged after starting, the motor R.P.M. over runs the cranking speed of the starter and pushes it out of the ring gear. I was told it's called a Fly in Bendix. Starter motor spins and sends the gear piece "Flying" into the ring gear. Once the motor is running the flywheel R.PM. spits the starter gear back up the spiral shaft disengaging it from the ring gear.
Not that it won't run but that Load-a-matic distributor NEEDS that vacuum line that screwed into the original carb. Those distributors are vacuum advance only, no mechanical advance at all. Dave
My first thought upon seeing the blown out starter can was that the starter had blown up, so that makes sense. Funny that they didn’t quite get all the pieces out. A bit concerning too. I was afraid of that. The new Stromberg doesn’t have anywhere to hook up that vacuum line. Is there any way around replacing this distributor?
Yeah. Replace the carb. One or the other will have to go eventually. My 8ba in my '40 has a WCFB 4 barrel carb and an old Mallory dual point distributor. Also will need to suck on that vacuum line and see if the vacuum can leaks and if the engine pans out, buy a new vacuum can for the distributor. Dave
For now I'd not be to concerned about it. Loosen the dist. hold down bolt just a Tick and once the motor fires up just gently turn the dist to advance enough to keep it from laboring to run. You just want to make this motor run enough to find out what you have. Your not going across town just yet. Your just gathering info about it. Heck you may go through all the different ways to get vacc to the dist just to learn the diaphragm is dried up and gone. Don't sweat the small things.
Hopefully getting my air conditioner repaired tomorrow... For now working on cleaning up the engine. Progress on this is slow going... the casting texture really likes to trap that old ass grease and degreaser is doing next to nothing. Probably going to pick up a soft wire wheel for my grinder. My first thought was to do this the way I do my old guns... but I don't think enough 0000 steel wool exists on the planet for that.
Your distributor uses a combination of vacuum signal generated from the carb. If you connect it to manifold vacuum it will not function properly. If you get good parts (correct carb. and dist. vac. diaphragm) it should run fine. Also the "load a matic" distributor used an internal resistance coil with 6 volt system. I did this on my '41 pickup and it runs well. 8ba engine.
Mike, I noticed he doesn't have the light spring on the Bendix, to hold it in the rear position while at rest. When I got my Track Roadster running, I fought an intermittent tinkling noise coming out of the front of the trans. I pulled the trans, and a friend who assembled it, took it apart and couldn't find anything wrong. After a year of driving it, with the noise coming and going, I got lucky, and the starter broke. Upon replacing it, I noticed the broken spring, problem solved ! Anyone else ever have that problem with a Flathead starter ?
There is a light spring on the gear to push it back but it is all but collapsed. What does the spring looking thing on the end of the shaft do?
Marty, your pretty close. If you look at all 3 photos on post 130 you'll see that there is a return spring on the shaft. As I understand the job of that little spring is it's more a anti rattle spring than return spring. The bendix return is done by the ring gear over running the starter speed and kicking the gear back up the reverse spiral then that little spring keeps it from drifting back to the ring gear. I don't believe a healthy spring would let the gear lay at the engaged location. I don't actually know what info I was given some 40 years ago is true but this is what I can look back and see. We were told that using a 12-V battery will burn up a 6-V starter. I was told using a 12-V batt on a 6-V starter would cause the Bendix spring to brake. The impact of the faster speed was the explanation. I've "learned" that if your Motor isn't tuned well so it starts as it should you can burn up a starter weather it's on 6 or 12 volts. I have seldom found broken Bendix springs on vehicles running 6-v in fact don't think I ever have. I have done the Bendix repair on a few 6-V starters using 12-V. So I don't know what actually is the the cause but I know if your Flathead is hard to start you need to do some Tune-up work and the end result will be a longer lasting starter. RMONTY; The large spring on the end of the shaft is to absorb the recoil shock from the Bendix gear coming out of the Ring gear. It's hauling ass up the shaft.
Right, the light spring keeps clearance between the starter and ring gear. On mine, it would make noise after hitting a bump in the road. BTW, we have been running 6 volt starters on 12 for years, without problems. A properly tuned Flathead, only needs a bump on the starter button, and your off and running !
@RMONTY came by again today and we made some more progress. The good news is it seems to be circulating oil and 7/8 cylinders have compression. The one that didn't is the one I couldn't get the sparkplug out of until today because I needed an extension to get past the oil filter can. After giving it a little time to soak up the Marvel it started building compression but obviously needs time to sit so we stopped messing with it for tonight. All of them are a little low (40-80 or so psi) except #1 which is at 91. Gave them all another helping of Marvel+ATF and I'll keep giving it some daily & retesting the compression until next weekend.
Not yet, but we figured out where to put it. Looks like it had an electric gauge before but we broke it trying to get it to come loose. When turning it over, oil squirts (bigtime) out of the hole where it used to be, so it's definitely circulating oil. I'm buying one next payday along with a couple other needed nicknacks. The fuel pump pushrod will be here tomorrow. Passenger side water pump is seemingly badly seized but that is a problem for later. Driver side turns free. Looks like those are annoying to take off. Rebuild kits are $30... not too bad.
Think an exhaust valve is broke or stuck open on cyl 2. Pouring atf/mmo into it the entire volume pours out the exhaust pipe lol. Uh oh Noticed it last night when RMONTY was over too but I figured maybe the valve was just open, but after turning it over a few times today it's still pouring out the same cylinder...
Question for someone with knowledge, cuz I am a bit shy of it in this area..... Not knowing much about these flatheads, could the valves be sticking on Cyl #3 and #4? What I am envisioning is possibly the valves are moving partially through the guides, and just not sealing tight against the seats. Maybe weaker springs on those 2 cylinders? Would it be prudent to do a "leak down" test at this point? At what compression should the engine fire up, and what damage could be done by doing so?
The Jalopy Journal
