I have a 53 Flathead that has the wide groove Truck WP’s on it and a generator with the wide groove. The car fan though has a small groove. Did they ever make a Flathead dual groove crank pulley with one wide (closest to the block) and one narrow groove?
Your describing a crank pulley thats basically opposite of any truck pulley ive seen which has the narrower generator and water pump pulley in the rear and wider fan pulley in front. And when I say narrower I mean not as big as the front fan belt but still bigger than the car belt
Thats the fan I run on the 8ba in my coupe. Theyre pretty common just make sure you keep it full of oil. Its kind of a neat setup
Check this out... also search "flathead oil filled fan" 8 am also running it on my AV8 and I am adapting that whole 8ba setup to a 59ab I am working on. http://www.vanpeltsales.com/FH_web/flathead_oilfilledfan-servicetips.htm
The truck flatheads had the wide belt pulleys on the water pumps. generator and the fan. I'm guessing that someone changed out the fan. Or because the water pumps are interchangeable from the narrow belt to wide belt, maybe they changed them out and left the fan in place, Maybe it's not a truck flathead. What markings are on the heads?
My Flathead is a 8ba 53’ out of a car. I put the truck WP’s on it so I could use the mounts. I’m putting it in my 30’ model a coupe. I’m trying to make as compact as possible. I’m hoping not to have to do a lot of firewall work to make it fit. Looks like I’ll have to do some. Thanks for all the info! Lots of good advice!
I have a chrome fan 4 blade looks heavy compared to smaller 8 ba. The fan hub is the type you fill with oil and is the wide pulley. I also have a 2 sheave pulley that has 2 different depths but both are wide pulley. The fan has the two bolt mount complete that slides up and down like the smaller 8ba fan.Sell you everything for $100 shipped to Indiana. Even if you can’t or don’t use the crank pulley(trade it or sell it) the oil filled hub and chromed( looks pretty good—-not flaky or rusty) fan should be worth $100 and I pay shipping to Indiana.If interested, let me know and I can send some pics Monday——shop is cold tonite and it’s almost 10 p.m. John in s.Texas. I have 55 years experience with flats and my Henry 1932 cabriolet runs 80 mph in 1/8 mile running 2-3 gear only(1gear change) and a track only3:89 Detroit Locker 9 in. Normal street gear is 2:75 and daily driven.
I put 8ba fan and pulley next to the chromed oil filled pulley for comparison. They appear to share the same spacing, but did not measure. The chrome fan is held to the hub with 8 evenly spaced bolts—-the 8ba only has 4. I bought a hot rod Merc engine(late model49-53) and chrome fan apparatus was attached to it. Having bought,sold,traded 30-40 engines over a 55 year run, have no idea where the pulley came from; nicely made with balancing work(via 2 small holes drilled in front) $100 delivered to your door in Indiana—-no PayPal postal m.o. is best. Have over 850 posts over 8 years HAMB member. John in s.Texas
On my 8BA I used 8RT wide belt pumps, a wide belt alternator pulley, and a wide belt49-50 Merc crank pulley or early Ford pick up crank pulley. I had to use different length belts than stock. I made the pulley shown below but, BOB DRAKE sells one also that is wide belt. Plus, this has been discussed at length on Fordbarn. Zip over there and do a search for more ideas. Here's a start: https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/showthread.php?t=289197&highlight=wide+fan+pulley
Any fan ***embly from '42 -'49 should work just fine. Cars and trucks in these years are usually the same wide belt setup. The fan that Flathead John shows in his photo comparison (8 bolt cover) is the one you need.
Fan blade / top radiator hose clearance can present problems so be aware of that issue. Plus, I would not recommend running a 50 year old used fan blade due to work hardening and microscopic stress cracks after years of flexing. I had one fly apart.
What do you guys think about the fans that are directly mounted to the generator with a short hub? I have a new PowerGen that I’m using but wondering if this would put to much centrifugal load on the generator bearings? I’ve seen some Av8’s set up this way too?
The Jalopy Journal
