Three of my buddies were recently on an adventure to uncover a long lost chopped '40 Ford coupe. They found the coupe, heard the tale and took pics. Somewhere mid-adventure, the ol' fella gave my buddies two "Allstate" heads. They are severely milled and are only good for Wall Art. Does anyone know any of the history of this brand?
Sears stock replacement heads for Ford rebuilds back when Sears offered rebuilding services and parts
I had a pair years ago.Looked like NOS. But had a crack in the combustion chamber. Figured they cracked when they were new.Bad casting. Cheapo High performance piece.Not replacement parts. Standard (a brand Sears carried) made replacement heads.
In the '50s, Sears-Roebuck was into everything -including hot rodded Ford engines and speed parts. They had been in the rebuild/stock replacement market for some time but branched out into the Hot Rod scene with "built" short blocks and their own brand of equipment. I believe they offered a 2 X 2 manifold as well as the heads.
Sears was really into the engine parts / replacement engine thing in the 50's. My dads first farm truck in about 50 or 51 was a 34 ton and a half Ford that he wanted to haul beets with. Little weak in the power department,so he bought a rebuilt Merc motor, dual exhaust, ran like a scalded dog, but was a bear to stop with those mechanical brakes.
You could buy a house from Sears (you supply the labor!). An uncle of mine in S. Texas in the late 50s had a Sears rebuilt motor that burned so much oil you could see him for miles. He swore at it but it never broke on him.
Sears also sold Kaiser-Frazer Automobiles under the Allstate name for a while... http://www.searsarchives.com/brands/allstate.htm Here's another site that goes into more detail: http://www.cartype.com/page.cfm?id=1853&alph=all&dec=all
Yea they had their fingers into a lot of pies back in the day. Once Sears was the way to go for a 4WD also. For along time Dodge And Willy's Overland were the only American made 4WD vehicles. A couple of years back I saw a '63 Chebby that still had an Allstate 4WD under it. There was also a little car that looked just like a Henry J called an Allstate and unless I'm mistaken it was also part of the Sears Allstate product line.
Sears, (allstate) Montgomery Ward (riverside) and JC Penny (don;t recall) all had bolt on speed and "custom" stuff in the catalogs and in some stores uptill the early 70's. My guess was most of the stuff was MR. GASKET stuff rebranded for the particular retailer. They were all trying to get a piece or Whitney's or Warshawsli's pies. got my first rear speaker and reverb from Sears.....
The company that I work for got started by Sears. That is so cool on the find and the history that all of you have given this thread. Never new any of this about Sears.
Sears had motorcycles and scooters with the allstate name,a scooter came in the local cruise in last night and a motorcycle junkyard had a couple allstate motorcycles in it. Jeff
Allstate heads were rebadged Hotten&Sullivan heads sold by Sears. I once took Don Sullivan out for a long,"well-lubricated", lunch at a Detroit joint to pump war stories out of him regarding his long association with FoMoCo and racing of all types. He specifically told me that Andy Hotten, his partner in the Speed Equipment business, sold his aluminum heads to Sears without his knowledge and without sharing the profits with him ! This unethical situation caused the breakup of their business relationship and led to much bad blood between them for many years. Sullivan was the brains of the outfit, while Hotten was the salesman. Years later Hotten used to play the Big Shot when promoting Dearborn Steel Tube as a vender to Ford. In fact he had most people believing that he owned the Company, when in fact he was merely an employee who foolishly overspent his expense account when buying drinks for everybody within earshot of him. Don Sullivan was a graduate engineer who was in on the development of the Flathead V8 from pre-production days, to Y-Block, Windsor series, FE Big Blocks, and Cleveland engines. His racing experience streched from Indy in 1934 as builder and entrant of the Bohnalite Special, to LeMans in the Sixties. He was a very modest and unassuming guy who got along with everybody, until someone questioned his engineering theories or something he created. Then his Irish temper would rise up and promptly dispatch his critic. He was retired from Ford when I met him in the Sixties, but he was still consulted regularly for many engine projects, which he poured his soul into for little compensation other than his Ford pension. What a Guy !
OK this one I know I got right the Allstate was are badged Henry J and the Allstate scooter was a Vespa rebadged I had both an Allstate and a Vespa scooter at the same time and the parts interchanged readily.Benny's Stores also sold speed and dress up stuff under their own line but I'm pretty6 sure they were just repackaged Cal Custom stuff
I have a friend here that was raised in California and many years ago while Sears was still selling rebuilt parts he told me he worked at a Sears authorized rebuilder ,He says that the normal practice was to just clean up bad bores so that you might have some stock bores some .010 over and some .040 over in the same engine or even just 1 hole over bored in an engine!
Not mine to sell. I asked one of my buddies if he'd like to see an attempt made to weld them up and mill them back to a usable state (for my '32 3w), he politely said "Nope". And on two separate shop walls they shall hang. Thank you one and all for the history lesson. Cool information. I should post a pic of my 21 stud "Made in Canada" aluminum heads and see what discussion that sparks.
Any more info on the heads? does anyone running them? I was thinking about putting my set on the coupe and see how they go. I just hope they go as good as they look
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