Anyone a Flathead Fan?

[blkfordsedan]

Anyone know something about Flatheads? Particularly the valves? My brothers and I have a '33 Ford pickup on 40 Ford car chassis. It has a Flathead V8 and '36 Ford car fenders, Chevrolet box and dual exhaust "stacks" (no mufflers) that come up behind the cab like a big rig. Our Father built it back in the early 60's and drove it full time until buying a new F150 in 1968. Our father passed away 7yrs ago from cancer and always told us it ran good except it had a bad valve. Over-all it's in super nice original condition and we decided to try to get it running and take it to local car events as a "Rat Rod". Kind of a tribute to Dad.
Does anyone have experience with Flatheads? I may need some help!

[FB71]

I love flatties! If indeed it does have a burned valve, you;ll need to remove the intake manifold to replace it. The valves sit upside down in the block, and the retainers are accessed from the lifter valley, under the intake.

[blkfordsedan]

Dad always talked about a special tool he made to do valves in a FH. Maybe a special spring compressor? Are there tappets between the cam lobe and valve stem? Where are the springs? Sorry for all the questions, guess I could search the net. I am excited about digging into it, and with Speedway Motors down the street from work I am fighting the urge to do a complete rebuild with a "3/4 RACE" cam (I love the old lingo) and some aftermarket heads and intake! Dad had a 40' covered trailer full of old FH motors and parts that we sold when he died. Just didn't have room to keep everything!

[Mike McKown]

Dad always talked about a special tool he made to do valves in a FH. Maybe a special spring compressor? Are there tappets between the cam lobe and valve stem? Where are the springs? Sorry for all the questions, guess I could search the net. I am excited about digging into it, and with Speedway Motors down the street from work I am fighting the urge to do a complete rebuild with a "3/4 RACE" cam (I love the old lingo) and some aftermarket heads and intake! Dad had a 40' covered trailer full of old FH motors and parts that we sold when he died. Just didn't have room to keep everything!

It's been a long time but...........

I think the spring compressor looks like a big pry bar that fits under the spring so you can collapse it and release the keepers. (I may be confusing this with the valve guide remover. Can't remember)

There are tapppets (lifters) between the cam and valves. Stock are non-adjustable. You have to grind the valve stem for clearance. Johnson adjustable tappets were a popular aftermarket replacement.

The valve guides are split and can be pushed out of the block for replacement.

I think Edelbrock has started re-popping speed equipment for this engine.
Flathead were bad about cracking the block across the exhaust valve seats.

There were three different series of blocks as I remember. '32-'36(?), '37-'48, and '49 up. The early blocks differed in the number of studs to hold the head to the block.

Some of this may be a little inaccurate but it's enough to know to start asking questions.

[hotfordcat]

This should help you.

http://www.vanpeltsales.com/FH_web/flathead_valveremoval_tools-1.htm

[elcamino1]

I don't know a lot about them but they are cool,a good friend of mine swears by them,he has a built one in a 49 Mercury!

[bobstad]

Check out VINTAGE AUTO PARTS; somewhere in the metropolitan Seattle area if still doing business.(seemingly not likely; though thriving during the late '60s & early '70s there)

I had a '37 Cadillac LaSalle; which has an unusual flathead V-8 with the exhaust manifolds in the motor's V with the intake manifold and carburetor.(I'd bet entirely for the cosmetic effect; to given an especially long, narrow hood remniscent of the two different design V-16s Cadillac produced during the '30s; one egregious in that there'd been no return of the oil, allowed to drip off the motor after lubricating the valve train!)(I've been challenged on that, but what I read somewhere which seemed reliable)

That was in '69 & '70, but a huge place with an incredible selection of very rare parts as well as all the more standard stuff in quantity.(complete with a wrecking yard, but also a huge showroom facility; including such things as dual overhead cam conversion kits for model A Ford four-cylinder flatheads, which were an after-market item produced during the production run of that car I'd been impressed with, in part since my wrenching began with a father/son '29 Model A project when I was twelve and hated the stupid thing I'd been expected to hand wire-brush rust off of during any free time available; a constant source of torture and rebellion until traded for a '49 GMC pick-up later sold for $50 that was a further annoyance since running and nice!)

I'd also been given in high school by a friend of the family; a '42 Ford flathead V-8 pick-up which never ran during the time parked in the two-acre field my sister's horse lived in adjacent to our rural home near Snohomish, WA during the late '60s.(a rare enough vehicle since one of the last made before WW II ended all civilian production; and after which the designs all soon radically changed, sheet metal then innards too)

The valve tool for flathead Fords is a big C-shaped thing capable of compressing the valves; which I can still visualize and vaguely imagine as functioning a little like a pair of Vice-Grips, perhaps? I'd guess VINTAGE AUTO PARTS sells these regularly.

Here is a link for a place called VINTAGE AUTO PARTS, in Denver, CO.(with no mention of the Seattle place) <http://www.vapinc.com/>

This is a place with a similar name; near Salem, OR. <http://www.brilesvintageautoparts.com/>

Here is another outfit in Ohio, also similarly named. <http://www.vvap.com/>

I guess the place in Seattle is defunct now; which was immense so a loss.

Here is another in New York state. <http://www.bhwincvintageautoparts.com/>

I did a web search which got over 350,000 results; for "Vintage Auto Parts" with many other places which look interesting.(those late '40s, early '50s Fords and Mercs are sure cool; IMO!)

[jr.fester]

hot rod magazine just had a article on 101 handy tools or tricks or somthing like that and they had a flat head valve tool in it.

[FB71]

http://www.flatheadjack.com/

http://www.motorcityspeedequipment.com/qa.asp

try those as well

[IdealSociety]

Theres a TON of awesome forums for flathead enthusiasts out there. Flathead hotrodders have started becoming more popular in the last 7-8 years ive noticed as more and more aftermarket companies decided people who like the retro-rod look wanted unique parts and performance from what had become an unconventional engine.

At a statewide car show here in MN i seen a pretty wicked t-bucket that ran a flathead setup with triple 2-barrel carbs using an edelbrock intake mani. the carbs were all ratty looking along with the car and had bent car exhaust tips for individual intakes on them.

Also seen a turbo flathead 49? i believe at that same show. didnt think with the design of the motor it would be very turbo friendly.

my grandpas got a 49 coupe and a 48 4 door sitting in his garage (he has kept every car since his first ford in the early 40's's). someday id like to dig into it and do a clean restoration project on it.

Good luck on your project! its nice to see someone not just tearing out a classic engine for an LT1 or LS1 for once

[bobstad]

Come to think of it now; during '70 at the Seattle area VINTAGE AUTO PARTS they'd had a Ford Flathead V-8 with a contemporarily built hemi-head overhead cam conversion kit.

With this in mind I'd guess that an accurate overview of all the various speed parts produced from time of production until now would reveal an incredible variety for those flathead Ford V-8s.(some of the vehicles themselves were exquisite...the '36 model with those beautiful headlights comes to mind as my favorite; whose graceful lines are really superlative)

Before the small block Chevy motor that Ford V-8 was the first heart of hot-rodding; and for instance was often a motor of choice for salt flat type speed record vehicles.

I'd be surprised if the production of after market speed parts for Ford flathead V-8s ever entirely died; and the resurgence of their popularity is heartening.

For one thing, they are essentially hardly more mechanically complex than a Briggs and Stratton lawn mower motor; and to me simplicity trumps many other things, when combined with inspired design to make simplicity function in rivalry with the incrementally declining advantages and expense of greater complexity.(one thing I've wondered at is the popularity of expensive cars during the depression; when evidently the plutocracy was far from suffering despite the ravages suffered by others due to the economy of those times...and these times are dishearteningly similar; though also with quality marques for the masses like Toyota and Honda, somewhat in the tradition of Ford back when...with the Festiva an often unheralded through back to Ford's greatness; sort of like Colt hand guns as a great equalizer of another earlier era?)

[bobstad]

Thinking further now; I remember in the early '90s running into an older guy living his after retirement years near Davis Creek, CA who kept busy splitting and selling cords of wood who'd attracted my attention by the small yard of interesting old cars and trucks outside the small cabin like home he'd had.(an area alongside Goose Lake in the corner of California adjoining Nevada and Oregon...I'd spent a number of years living out of a '66 VW square back more or less indigent though with my reliable monthly disability income; combing many of the back roads of the three western states and some of the places near by, without too much evident purpose though much more enjoyably than being cooped up in an apartment and rotting life away somewhere...)

That guy befriended me and used to talk about a late '40s Chevy half-ton pickup he'd had with a supercharger that must've been a fairly popular after market device. Ninety mile an hour all day long driving which a wife eventually forced him to sell if my memory is correct. This was a six cylinder motor and must've been a real bomb. I like the idea of a daily driver being all souped up; and as much of a sleeper as possible too, and that old Chev pickup was probably indistinguishable from stock; until a person tried to pass...ha, ha!

He'd had a big trench in his back yard, really a huge field, that was about six feet deep and a dozen wide and maybe twenty yards long he'd had scooped with a road grader; and water stood in the bottom as anyplace there with a hole in the ground.

He'd shown me a small copper colored fish they'd proven had evolved in under ground rivers from Mount Shasta that were able to travel from there right into the subsurface ground water there hundreds of miles away.(they'd had a pamphlet all about this sold in the general store about a mile away; which was only discovered due to orchards being installed in the area where the hard pan top soil was broken through to plant the trees then one year water flooded up from underneath the trees wherever there was a hole in the hard pan)

[FB71]

Come to think of it now; during '70 at the Seattle area VINTAGE AUTO PARTS they'd had a Ford Flathead V-8 with a contemporarily built hemi-head overhead cam conversion kit.

Ardun OHV conversion, circa 1950's

http://www.ardun.com/ardun_histrory.htm

Oh, and the head kits are still available for a measly $14,000 (not a typo)