Technical ***October 2023 Banger Meet Thread - Halloween Month***

Shit. Since when did getting a usable T radiator become a 6 month project?! On a side note, I have also increased my banger capacity by a lunger. The temperature of my garage has dropped below 100f, time to get back at it. Happy October.

 

No it doesn't. Barely above the HP threshold that is.

 

I've joined the dark side and pulled the banger from the '29, but was looking around for carbs for my 8BA when I stumbled upon this ad in San Diego for a set of Winfield's. I think they'd work awesome on a banger. (they'd work on my 8BA too, but I'd lose the super cool brass fuel connector). Pretty steep on price.

https://sandiego.craigslist.org/nsd/pts/d/carlsbad-vintage-winfield-carburetor/7668794584.html

 

Looks really cool, I agree.
You should pull the pictures and post them here. As soon as the Craigslist ad is gone the pictures will be gone for good.

 

I had one like that in the "BB" size, on my engine for 2 years. The banger wanted more and ran better with 2 81's.
I think the whole problem with the carb I had, was the cast aluminum adapter, necking the throats down to Stromberg size.
My old carb is now on Elrod's ? mark coupe.

 

My old one I got from Hugh Coltharp

 

Done.

 

There was a guy at Hershey in the chocolate field with a set of Size As including the adapter.
He wanted $2000. I have his info if anyone is interested.
They looked as clean if not better than those from the Craigslist post.
I’m not sure what you’d put them on because they’re so small, but they look cool.

 

Is anyone still actually making and selling new hop-up heads at this point in time? It looks like the Winfield repop heads are out of production as with the Lion heads, Thomas... the 6:1 iron head from Snyder's looks like it performs great, but those stock-looking heads are missing a bit of the flair that I enjoy....

 

Jim Brierley is. He is active on Ford Barn if you want to reach out.

 

His contact info is:
Jim Brierley, 39480 Colleen Way, Temecula, CA 92592.
email: jimb4e4@gmail.com
phone: 951-695-731

 

Thanks! I did not know Jim was doing heads as well as cams.

 

Also check out dan4banger.com, (Dan Price) he is selling a finned aluminum 7:1 flathead. Requires a 3-bolt Model B water pump which is also available from him.

 

Regarding the ally timing gears, as the stock fibre gear probably doesn't expand at all when hot, and ally expands a lot, is the standard .003-.005" backlash sufficient ?

Has anyone ever had a problem with this?

I ask because the new ally gear I'm trying to fit is tight with no back lash at all, probably due to less than perfect main bearing line boring. Which would also explain the short life of the fibre gear.

I'm working on a solution but would like to know what lash to aim for.

 

You have to remember that the block will expand also the .004 backlash is adequate
Dan McEachern and others offer gears with positive and negative sizes to accommodate out of spec line boring

J

 

Good point about the block.

Even if non standard gears were easily obtainable over here, I've no idea how it would be possible to check what size I need with the engine in the car before ordering.

My workaround is working, but it's slow!

 

As John said, I have them on the shelf. Happy to ship to UK. What ever you are doing to make a gear "fit", I doubt you will be happy with the result. Best of luck. Dan

 

Thanks but i've already paid for one gear, which was marked when fitting it due to tightness so non returnable now, also shipping and taxes will kill the deal for me.

 

Sorry to hear that it is a problem
This is to be expected with older cars or whatever
It will never be easy or cheap to undo years of neglect or improper repair but it can be done
There are many people on this site that can help direct your efforts if you need
J

 

Got the Riley running today. Runs like a sewing machine.
Question, what are you doing about blowby? I was thinking pvc valve back to air cleaner.
Thanks.

 

Call me a controversial over confident optimistic cheapskate, but as the new gear is now worthless, I thought I'd have a go at it. So here we go with my workaround to fix the zero backlash when fitting a standard ally timing gear to a B engine that has out of spec line boring.

Following methods that have served me well when removing the high spots from any two metal mating parts, sharpy was applied to the non thrust side of the gear teeth.

This initially showed up the spots to be filed off with a small diamond file, after a few cycles of filing and marking, rotaing the engine gradually became easier.

In order to preserve the correct angles on the thrust or driven side of the teeth nothing was removed from that side, only the non thrust side had any metal removed.

After quite a few cycles the engine became easier to turn, and witness marks became harder to read, after that point marking continued at every rotation, but was only used as a guide to show where metal was being removed evenly across each tooth, in order to preserve the tooth profile as much as possible.

The change in effort needed to turn the engine once clearance was achieved was quite remarkable, after that a dial indicator was used to check progress after each mark and file cycle.

I’m probably only taking off tenths per cycle (told you it was slow!) and I’m at .002” backlash now, I’ll probaly leave it at .003” as some bedding in will happen.

This may be a bit hard to follow so I’ve been taking pics and video, so I could put it together and post it if there’s any interest, I may live to regret that, as any criticism, good or bad, is always welcome!

 

I made a little video, comments welcome.

 

^^^^^^^^^
What patience!!!

 

The reason Ford used fiber for the gear is chatter.Smarter guys than me can explain the actual effect but I believe the non thrust side of the gear is the offset of this. Hopefully that doesn’t affect what you are doing.

 

Was that because chatter caused undue wear, or just noise?
Chevy also used fibre gears from around 1916 in their OHV bangers, they have a pressed steel cover so noise may have been one reason, I would think Ford engines having a cast iron cover are much quieter so that may not be the reason.
There are ally gears available for Chevys as well because they suffer the same breakage problems.

Seems to me that if a Ford gear was failing at high speed at full spark advance, some quite damaging random detonations might occur before coming to a halt, I think I was lucky to have avoided that happening, even though there would be no valve to piston damage.

The good thing about this Ford engine is that I can start it up and get it hot, then remove the side gear cover to easily check the backlash and contact patterns.
This is a huge plus as I'll know straight away wether it's worked or if I'm just a raving lunatic!

 

Just how tall the body is doesn't really compute until the stock tall radiator is on and a shell mock up is done. The last one tried to mock up the valence. Was thinking an exposed wood sill, but maybe not.

 

I could be wrong but I believe during the chatter the back side of the tooth takes impact. Like I say, I’m not the smartest guy here. I do know the A isn’t an interference engine, impossible with a flathead .. good luck, and post up your results, good or bad. I did the same job you are doing on a Volkswagen air cooled engine..it worked, just changed the oil a few times in the first 2 hours of operation to get the sloughed off metal out.

 

Dan,

Would you happen to have any fine tooth T gears on the shelf?...asking for a friend

 

Glad to know it worked for you, that's encouraging!

I presume that chatter only happens at tick over when the valve springs can exert a reversing pressure via the cam lobes.

Edit: Chatter could happaen at higher speeds due to crank flex and firing pulsation I suppose,

 

Youre theory could be spot on for all I know. I do know the chatter can be enhanced by cam profile. The Volkswagen fit test cam to crank gear is typical German efficiency.. you place the bare crank and cam in a case half, turn the crank by hand, if the cam doesn’t ride up out of its bearings the fit is good. No way to do that with an A obviously .. but you are reducing effort so I’d say you’re on the way.