I picked up a 1949 8N Ford tractor with a loader to putter around the yard with, clear brush, etc. It has a flathead 4 cylinder with an updraft carb and the distributor on the front. Is this thing in any way similar to a banger motor? Can I swap any parts, or ever better, hop up the engine some, just to say I did? I know they used to swap v8-60's into them, and there's somewhere that sells kits to put small block chevy's in them, but I'd just like to mess with this 4 banger a little. Thanks.
It is it's own beast. It is half a Mercury flathead same bore&stroke same valves guides and springs. You will have to make your own speed parts. D
I personally can't tell about the bangers, but the conversion for the V8 was a Funk conversion. They had them for 6cyl and V8s. With a V8 60 with the pipes turned straight up they sound awesome!
It's not a Continental, that was in the very similar Fergusen tractor, a TO-20 Fergusen is in a class with the 9N-2N-8N Fords. A very popular hop-up in the old days for the 8N (around 20hp stock) was to leave the sleeves out and use the Merc flathead pistons for a big-bore kit. As the sleeves were only .040 thick, you got an .080 over, enough to feel it- I plowed snow for many years with a big-bore 8N that had a Wagner loader on it as a kid in NY. I now have a sweet little '50 8N with 1050 hrs on it, Proofmeter and a Howard Reducer transmission
Tiny engine, I think 122 CI, and physically much smaller than an A-B, so really nothing crosses over.
WRONG All you have to do is look at it and you will see that every piece looks like Ford made it... and they did. There is a thread on the HAMb with an original 40/41 pickup with the original 4 cylinder engine that looks just like the tractor engine I have a 41 9N and a 43 2N tractors
Want more power, get a Ferguson TO-30 with the Continental. Better touch on the hydraulics too. After FoMoCo tried to screw him over Harry Ferguson took his three-point hitch, hydraulics, knowledge of implements design, and all the improvement ideas he had that the bean counters wouldn't let him implement and using some of the same common aftermarket parts started his TO/TE series of tractors. My dad and I are currently working on a full restoration of one of the three TO-30s he owns. Seriously though, If you want to get more fun out of your 8/9N look around for a Sherman auxilliary transmission that was avaliable as an option back in the day. They come in a number of step-up/step-down and combination ratios. I used to love driving my dad's '55 Fergie between landscaping jobs with the york rake on the back. Buzzing down the road with only rear brakes (mechanical) with the front wheels bouncing off the ground and no rear suspension or steering dampers made driving some of the rat rods they build today seem sedate.
Correctamundo- The NAA model came with OHV's starting in '53, and the '53 models were called the Golden Jubilee, as it was the 50th Anniversary- had it in the front emblem above the grille. Later it became the 600 series. The little Fergie was almost identical to the 8N, and had the OHV Continental engine. I'm working on my neighbor's TO-35 right now.
Very accurate post- and the other option was the Howard Reducer, built by Howard who built a great rototiller, but the little Ford travelled too fast for the tiller to work, so they built.the trans to make the package work- my 8N has one, and you can walk circles around it in low-low
Here is a pretty good site for that tractor, and the guy that runs it really knows the low down on them. JC http://www.oldfordtractors.com/index.html
The Jalopy Journal
