As some of you know, I love to restore antique vehicles/engines/machinery.
My most beloved, My originally restored 1949 Ford F-1 Pickup, I refer to as "My Mistress". (my wife named here, LOL!)
Well, her engine started missing on me last Thursday on the way home from work and I ended up pulling the heads last Saturday to see what was going on. I kind of wish I hadn't.
Not only did I find that it had dropped a valve seat (which could have been repaired) but I also found a nasty crack in the block between an exhaust valve and the #3 cylinder (which cannot be reliably repaired).
Unfortunately, Ford Flathead engines are notoriously poorly cast and cracks like this are not uncommon as the engines age. This one's limit was apparently 63 years.
So, I'm now out in search of a machineable 8BA Flathead Block and my mistress is garaged indefinitely.
Tugboat"I miss driving her already"Cap!
[b][i]"It's always funny until someone loses an eye!"[/i][/b]
07-27-2012, 04:08 PM (This post was last modified: 07-27-2012, 04:12 PM by Tugboatcap.)
What you're looking at is the surface of the block! The valves are in the block on a flathead, not in the head. It's like a lawnmower engine only with 8 cylinders. Shaving the head wouldn't do a thing but increase the compression slightly.
Unfortunately, this block is now just 275lbs of scrap cast iron.
[b][i]"It's always funny until someone loses an eye!"[/i][/b]
Oh, sorry about that. I've overheated a head in a 91 Cavalier, many years ago. I've learned a few things about shaving, replacing, etc etc. I guess they weren't always like that, eh?
(07-30-2012, 02:08 PM)JustSomeone Wrote: Oh, sorry about that. I've overheated a head in a 91 Cavalier, many years ago. I've learned a few things about shaving, replacing, etc etc. I guess they weren't always like that, eh?
Ford didn't introduce their first engine with valves in the head until 1951 with the 239 Y block engine. Before that, they were all L Head designs (affectionately called Flatheads). Valves in the block = fewer moving parts.
The one BAD thing about a V8 Flathead is that the Exhaust passages go through the water jacket to reach the outside of the block. This one little design "feature" makes it warm up really fast in the winter but also leads to easy overheating in the summer and many cracked blocks.
TugboatCap!
[b][i]"It's always funny until someone loses an eye!"[/i][/b]
I had a 1953 Mercury in my teens, had a 255 flathead V8 in it. Never ever had a single hitch! The powerplant was a bloody brilliant design, but the car was severely underpowered and I let it go for next to nothing when I was about 17.
(07-30-2012, 09:48 PM)Bonecracker Wrote: I had a 1953 Mercury in my teens, had a 255 flathead V8 in it. Never ever had a single hitch! The powerplant was a bloody brilliant design, but the car was severely underpowered and I let it go for next to nothing when I was about 17.
SWEET! Yeah, when these engines are right, you never have any problems with them. This one has given me nearly 10 years without a single issue.
The 4" crank in the Mercury engines makes a big difference! The 255 block is identical in all respects to the 239 I have in my truck except it has 1/4" more stroke. Those 4" cranks are coveted by hot-roders because of the added stroke.
Horsepower to weight ratio of the flathead is not good. 705lbs of engine and transmission and it generates 100hp on a good day (Mercury engines 135hp).
Just to put it in perspective, the Ford 460 police interceptor weighs in at 735lbs and generates 385hp stock!
TugboatCap!
[b][i]"It's always funny until someone loses an eye!"[/i][/b]
08-03-2012, 11:55 AM (This post was last modified: 08-03-2012, 11:55 AM by Agent Dee.)
ha the only ford I ever had was a 94 Thunderbird with a weak ass 140hp V6 which was pushing almost 2 tons of Ford. It was fine in Florida where it is flat as a board but my car had real problems going up big hills unless I had a running start he he he.
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Good luck on the flathead build, captain! I've built a couple of them, one for a 53 Ford truck and the other for a 49 Ford, I actually have an 8BA 24 - stud engine sitting in my garage waiting for me to find the rest of the car to put it in. I keep hoping that someday I'll find a nice little coupe or roadster body to put it in and build a nice little fender less highboy hot rod. Unfortunately, the price of that kind of vintage iron has skyrocketed to the point that the only affordable starting points I've been able to find are rusted-out hulks almost too far gone to repair.
Here's hoping that you can find a good machine shop in your area. Do your research carefully, ask lots of questions, ask other local car guys and auto shops who they recommend and avoid. I've had more than one engine block fubar'd by poor machine work.
11-23-2015, 02:16 PM (This post was last modified: 11-23-2015, 02:26 PM by Tugboatcap.)
Yeah, I know about machine shops screwing up a flatheads. That's what caused the first one in my '49 to fail. This is my 4th 8BA powered vehicle (2nd '48-early 50 generation F-1), I restore old Ford Iron.
The original engine for the '49 F-1 this is going in had a good block, just needed punching out. The machine shop I found was building a Model A engine at the time and had good credentials. The machinist told me I needed to deck the block. I told him under NO circumstances deck the block, the decks are thin enough without surfacing them needlessly. When I went to pick it up, it had been decked. A LOT!
Fast forward 12 years and 10,000 miles and it started loosing a little water from the radiator, about 1/2" a month at most, never affected the way it ran. I suspected a very small crack but about half of the flatheads out there running have at least one. It had never been overheated, not once.
I was driving it to work one morning and it started missing on one cylinder about a block from work. Got it to the parking lot and let it idle a few minutes with the hood open so I could see if I could find which cylinder it was and all of a sudden, as quickly as it started, it quit and started idling fine.
On the way home that evening, it started it again and didn't stop.
A few weeks later, I finally got time to pull the head and found that one of the cylinders cracked between the exhaust valve and the cylinder bore so badly that the valve seat jumped completely out of the bore.
[b][i]"It's always funny until someone loses an eye!"[/i][/b]
Nice work! You do everything yourself? I don't have any pics of my past projects on my phone, or any of the other people's vehicles I've worked on over the years, but my baby is a 400 horsepower Big Bad Blue 69 AMC Javelin, and over the years I've had a 63 Chevy Impala, a 67 Mustang, a 62 Chevy 1/2 ton longbox that was dropped, chopped, channeled, flamed and even had flamethrower exhaust. (Really wish I never sold that one) plus a couple Jeeps and even a turbo charged Honda Accord with the engine out of a Prelude in it. So as you can see, I have no prejudice to the breed of speed.
Yup. I do everything from sandblasting the frame and parts to bare metal to building the engines to making parts with one of two metal lathes I have.
I was going to buy a '31 Model A truck a while back, had the deal worked out and everything, and the guy sold it to someone else the day I was supposed to pick it up. Pissed me off...
[b][i]"It's always funny until someone loses an eye!"[/i][/b]
