Thanks gents, I'll check the block again to make sure, yes two bbll carb, I need to do atune up and compression check, it was rebuilt last year but has no miles on it and doesn't sound good, its tough to hear this one as the trans and clutch make a hellva racket, but it does have a slight miss. Looks to be an orginal manifold, would these have come out with a 4 bbl in their day.
Thats either a 264 or a 322. As DualQuad said, motor mounts, exhaust manifolds and canister filter give it away. It's also got the '53-early '55 valve covers, and a road draft tube (though I don't see the oil fill tube). The early nails had round exhaust ports as well. And on that engine, you can see where there are two bolt heads on the side of the head between spark plugs: those are plugging the holes that would have been for the spark plug cover studs on the passenger car engines. -Brad
Tell me what I got....It is in a 49 F-1 that I just rescued. It says FIREBALL V-Eight on the valve cover....does not have a Harmonic balancer..just a pully....with a Stromberg WW carb on it...Adapted to the stock 4 speed Ford trans. Any idea what year and what it came out of?
I've left the bus with the nail head in it parked for quite some time and decided I wanted to see what was wrong with it, first off it runs extremly hot and blows water outa the rad so last nite I pulled the thermostat and some joker had cut the top of it away, now I'm really puzzled, is it running hot because it isn't getting enough time to cool water because of the constant rush of water thru the rad or is it running hot and some one clipped the stat thinking it would run cooler, I'm gonna put a new stat in it today and see but I have a gut feeling that something else is wrong are these Buicks prone to head or block problems or would wishfull thinking be ahead gasket, any ideas. What trucks did GM put these in I know they put the Pontiacs in the 55 1 tons, but didnm't know anything about a Buick in them. Thanks
Check the timing as well. Nailheads are real finicky about timing and overheating as well. I like to flush them real good. Do you have an accurate temp gauge that you can get a real number with?
ALLRIGHT,its a little off topic,but if the nailheads are torque monsters does that mean that a 37 ford rear wont stand up? ,i am building a 37 chevy truck with 37 ford front and rear,1966 buick nailhead with 6 strombergs,4 speed,,,wondering if i should ditch the rear before i start?
Prost34--Ohio George Montgomery ran a 40 Ford style rear behind his blown Cad powered 33 Willys before swapping to SOCH Ford motor, and Chrisman ran an early ford rear behind his Hemi powered model A sedan. Both cars were national record holders with these setups. It's all in the prep work. However, unless you want to tempt fate, swapping the rear out now will save you the aggravation of doing it when yours explodes. VimtageIron--cutting the top of the Tstat away should still keep the flow to the same rate as a fully opened Tstat. I run one that way in one of my cars because Im too lazy to change it. If it is blowing water out of the radiator before coming up to temp, you have a major compression loss into the cooling system, either a real bad headgasket, or crack in head or less likely block. Is the waterpump actually moving coolant, does it and the radiator have good flow? Is there a fan and good shroud on the engine? If it is blowing water out of the radiator before coming up to temp, you have a major compression loss into the cooling system, either a real bad headgasket, or crack in head or less likely block. Is the waterpump actually moving coolant, does it and the radiator have good flow? Is there a fan and good shroud on the engine? Check the timing, but I haven't had any issues running mine with 40*+ timing on premium pump gas. Check for vacuum leaks etc... But I would spend my time on the cooling system first if it heats up then pushes coolant. If it has gotten really hot, you are gonna want to pull the heads and have them checked for flatness. Personally I would check: fan/shroud/radiator for blocked air flow cooling system flow timing/carb adjustments engine mechanical-ie head gaskets, cracked head/block.
I put new stat in today, it now takes longer to heat up and blow water out, I ran a die test to check for exhast gas in the coolent, zip its clean, then I pulled the bottom hose off and flowed the radaitor it runs out as fast as it goes in. Couple things I'm thinking is that I'll pull the belt off the air compressor and cap the water lines and see if that does anything, and pop the thermossat out and with the belt off the water pump see if there is any bubbles coming from one head or the other, I know it didn't show a gas leak but it won't hurt to check a different way. Yes the guage is good, on a recent rebuild they put VDO guages in, and when it gets hot it blows water out the overflow 210 to 220, I guess I'll try a radiator pressure test also and see if that gives anything up, then there is always the water pump has anyone had problems with that. I can't see in the radiator as there is about a 1 foot extension on the top tank to go thru the side of the body so I don't know if it flows well or not.
Prost34: I successfully ran a '40 rearend in my car, combination drags and hiway trips without a failure, I was told to lap the axles to the brake drum and tighten the axle nut real good. Since I didn't have a torque wrench that would go high enough I jumped on the wrench a few times. At the drags I've power braked the car till it slid the front tires. I used the '57 Dynaflow trans. When I built the car there wasn't much of a choice for a trans. '39 Ford, or Cad/LaSalle, they were probably more fragile than the rear end! Pat
Shouldn't be blowing anything out at 210-220. The factory manual even said they'd run in that range. Something is amiss. What pound cap do you have?
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