Technical Flathead Ford problems. No go!

Okay, I need some advice from some knowledgeable flathead guys. When was a young teen my dad bought a restored 1950 Ford Tudor coupe (shoebox). It was restored in the mid 80s or early 90s and was well maintained when we bought it. It was restored to basically original condition and all stock parts, including a 239 ford flathead. My mom learn to drive it and would take on short trips in the summer. One time she took on the freeway and overheated it to the point where it shut off. Long story short, we got it back home and it would still run and drive. However, it has no accelation. It rolls along fairly slow and has no mid or high rpm power. It was fairly quick before, but know 1/2 to wide open throttle leaves it starving for fuel or air with a 200 rpm increase at most. What could be the problem?

 

If you're lucky, maybe the coil or condenser got overheated and failed. A quick and easy replacement. Does it start easily and idle OK? How's the oil pressure and temperature when you do get it running? A compression test is probably in order to determine if there are major problems internally with the engine.

Good Luck.

 

It could have burnt the rings , if you check the compression and if all the cylinders have low compression that's likely the cause. That's what we believe happened to the old engine in a car my dad bought. It had basically no power , it would also smoke alot out of the oil vent and when we checked the compression very low compression like the engine was worn out...after taking the heads off to see if it was just old and worn out , nope the bore was just fine and the valves were all properly seated but the rings must have gotten overheated so air could get out into the oil pan.

 

Thank you for the quick responses. Your knowledge is very helpful. I will do a compression test and dig into the engine a little bit over the next few day and report back with what I find.

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You might investigate the Loadamatic distributor. Not enough advance will cause poor performance and overheating. I really hate those things.