John heeded roseville carl's advice and changed over to a flexible line....showing again the great amount of useful knowledge available on the Hamb...thanks, roseville carl!
View from inside the car. The 39 Ford trans is ready to start shifting gears. John will run the 6 volt system that the old rod was built with back in the day.
It won't be running again, it will be running for the first time. This rod was built in the late 60's but the engine was never fired and the car has never been driven. Thanks for the suggestion of a video, so John will make arrangements for the first firing of the flathead mill to be on video.
If it has never been run I would get some Marvel Mystery oil and add some to each cyl before I ran it, spend some time turning the engine over each day by hand with the oil in the cyls not a bunch just enough to wet the walls and rings................
Score on that one-looks like it'll be a blast to tool around in.But did you say TOO MANY cars??I've never heard of such a thing! Have fun, be safe, and drive the wheels off 'em. Mike from Mass.
Wow! This is an incredable find! I'm having a "T" Gasm just reading about it! Can't wait to see more!
What John is doing is really preserving a piece of local hotrodding history. This effort has not attracted the local attention that it should, so thankfully sites like this allow the story to be shared with a much wider and appreciative audience. John is slowly working on the old hot rod through the winter, and we should have some updates soon.
Thanks, George, we appreciate your interest and input. The reference was more to the southern Island area - a lot of rodders here might know about the history of this car but are content to remain as lurkers on the site. The real interesting thing about this car that is so far unanswered is how come it was almost but never completed? It is not uncommon to come across half-built cars that the owner lost interest in or ran out of money, but this old rod was 95% done and needed very little to finish. Why is sat in various garages and basements for 40 years in that almost completed state is still a mystery.
Some more photos coming your way....here are the friction shocks mounted on the front end. John has been busy working away on the Chev-bucket.
Distributor wired and coil installed. The second photo shows the oil valley, and you can see some of the port polishing that was done over 40 years ago when this flathead engine was built.
John could use some help from you flathead experts out there. The engine in his rod, a 46 Ford motor, was completely rebuilt in the early 70's. It was installed in the old rod, but never fired. So John has been working hard this winter to finish off the little details of this build, and to get the car running. The problem is that the motor does not turn over when the plugs are installed. It does turn over without the plugs, but not well. There is a further problem of low compression on one of the cylinders, I believe it is number 6. There is oil pressure at cranking speed with the plugs out, and the motor is wired for a 6 volt system with a new, fully charged battery. The starter has been rebuilt, and John has tried a couple of starters to see if that was the problem. Any ideas that would help him out?
When I was firing up my flathead on an engine stand, had lots of slow cranking issues, till I got some 1 gauge battery cables. Problem solved. Hope that helps
man those pics with the redlines tires are SPOT ON... the owner taking that trophy looks like Steve McQueen!- regular bad ass! What a cool find... I'd put it right back to that late sixties red line version... so RAD. Tuck
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