1952-59 Ford Finally Giving a Little Love to Ruth

Well, no updates other than I had to use Ruth as a backup this past weekend. We had our SWMO Hot Rod Hundred up in the Springfield, MO area and were planning to drive my sons Edsel as well as my other sons OT vette. Anyway, found some issues on the Edsel late Thursday that made me decide to just drive Ruth up for the event. Ended up putting about 800 miles on her over the weekend and had a great time with friends. Took a few cool pics and a couple other folks caught me driving too... One of my sons took about 300 or so pics of the event, so I may try to start a thread on the main board at some point including the HAMB-friendly stuff.

 

Saw your car. Didn't recognize it belonging to someone on here. Glad you came up for the run. Its a great time. I drove my 39 Ford instead of the 53 Mercury

 

What color was your 39? I am sure I saw it, but can’t remember exactly. The day becomes somewhat of a blur after getting ready Friday night, working registration, talking to lots of folks, etc.

 

Dark green almost black coupe

 

Ah, I remember now! Love your coupe!

 

Thanks My 53 Merc is 302 with c4 and stock rear end. Not really highway friendly gearing. I am working on a 53 with 5.0 out of a 86 grand marquis and aod so hopefully will do better on road. The 39 is zz4 350 with 700r4 so is running 1800 rpm at 70. Gets 26 Mpg to 28 on highway.

 

Love that you coerced coworkers into picking up rad car parts. My coworkers regularly go gl***y eyed and give me **** about talking in other languages when I start rambling about cars at them lol.

Nice lookin setup. I got a 2 spd ford-o-matic with my 292 when I got it but opted to adapt a c4. Love you're car man

 

Saw your car on a Facebook group I belong to.

 

Cool! That was this past weekend at the Stray Kat 500 in Dewey, OK. That’s my youngest sons vette next to it as well. Thanks for sharing the pic @the-stig!

 

I guess to that point...took a few other pics that I could add here. The one in the mirror was taken from my sons Edsel.

 

This group's admin is our own qicvick.

 

Absolutely one of the finest '56 Fairlane's out there, beautiful car. HRP

 

Thanks Danny! I am just honored to be its caretaker for a while.

 

@larryb we seem to have the same taste in cars, here's my '39.
@guthriesmith sorry for the hijack..love your '56

 

Well, for anyone following along on my kids Edsel thread, you might have noticed that I decided to put the '57 312 in it that I was planning for Ruth. This obviously wasn't my plan when I drug it home from St. Louis, but I suppose you never know what the future holds. I will likely go ahead and rebuild the '56 312 that a good friend had given me for this car now at some point in the future. The main thing I need to deal with soon is a transmission that pretty much lost second gear. So, the engine can wait a bit. It did make it to work today since there was a chance of rain and I didn't want to get wet on the Harley I started riding a couple weeks ago now. And if you check the speedometer, it is still no slouch...

 

I remember the day mine became “new” again. I stopped to take each photo.

 

Decided tonight was a good night for a men’s night out for burgers since my wife and daughter weren’t home... Pops on Route 66 was the choice of the night. My oldest son brought his Bluetooth speaker so my car had tunes for the first time since who knows when. I have no idea how to play music on my phone, but seems everyone else knows how.

 

I even know how to play music from my phone. I have a small utv stereo hidden inside the glovebox

 

Interesting last pic, Jeff............especially with the "hot rod 100" info ***le just below it. If I recall correctly, the starting point for the 2020(?) run would have been in the baseball park on your left side right where you took that pic.
And don't feel bad about receiving music..hell, I can't even figure out how to get a radio station on my new school radio with WAAAAY too many butons.

 

Yep, you are correct Rich @Texas57 about where we started the Hot Rod Hundred the year you came and several others. That softball field has proven to be a pretty decent starting point for parking 250 or so cars to start our run. That reminds me that I better get to planning this year as far as where we are going and any stops along the way. So far, the only thing I have planned is the date and start point which is at least tentatively that same spot again near Pops. Maybe you can make it again.

And, Mike @okndnx, you need to come this year too.

 

More love being shown to Ruth lately. A good friend over by Tulsa gave me a 312 several years ago and I finally decided to pull it apart for a rebuild. Headed to the machine shop this week with the block and crank. Also planning on swapping the car to a 3 speed manual and looking for parts for that. Other things I will be doing soon are recovering the seats, replacing the headliner and carpet, rebuilding the front suspension, and putting some Posies 3” dropped springs in the rear. 2025 has become the “rebuild” year for Ruth.

 

Looks like a 1956 engine. Does it have ECZ-C heads?

 

It has one… Notice the expansion plug in the right head in the pic where it is hanging on the hoist. I never noticed it until after I got it all apart.

 

Most Y Blocks I have dis***embled over the years have been frankenfords, meaning that most often the parts do not match although the engine is running. Some well-meaning individual had replaced one head, swapped out intakes, fiddled with the carb and/or distributor, what have you. It has been extremely rare to encounter a core or a running Y Block that has been unmolested. I always laugh at social media when someone posts a picture of their Y Block and asks the "experts" what it has. A lot of these guys think they are buying cars that are only 5 years old and act like no one has ever touched the thing. It's crazy.

There's no telling how things played out in that engine's history. Glad to see you are dis***embling it and putting it all back together. There are still cores lying in places all across this country. I have lived in PA, VA, WV, NC, OH, and now California. They are out there.

 

Yep, understood Daniel. This engine has obviously been apart before more than just the mismatched heads. All the rods were numbered and pretty much everything in the engine looked good other than 6 of the 8 top piston rings were broken. My guess is that happened on ***embly or something since it doesn’t have a ridge or anything. Anyway, this engine was running in my buddies 56 and he said it was just tired. After pulling it apart, I understand why it was tired. I have found at least one set of heads and maybe two already. Like you say, parts are still out there thankfully.

 

I have seen a Y Block that stuck, would not turn with a breaker bar on the crank. They put it in second gear and towed it it about 20mph and dumped the clutch, the engine turned. Got it running and it smoked and wasn't happy. Tore it down and found a bunch of broken rings. Everything else looked okay but only ran for about 15 minutes with the broken rings. Just a thought! Mark

 

"Back in the day" valve jobs and overhauls were fairly frequent compared to modern engines so a lot of parts got swapped around on daily driver cars, then you also had us hooligan hot rodders that were swapping "G" heads and blower cams on our y-blocks, or helping our friends put power pack or double hump heads and Dontov cams in their Chevies so a completely original motor is pretty rare indeed now days.

 

Block and crank are at the machine shop. Thinking I may just go with some 113 casting heads. I am pretty sure I tripped across a free set yesterday and also seem to have some on a 59 292 sitting on the floor in the shop. Also, still trying to track down all the parts to make this a 3 on the tree car but have at least a couple leads getting me closer. Picked up the Posies springs in Tulsa last Friday on my way up to Missouri. Progress is at least starting.

 

The 113 heads were slightly larger combustion chamber than the G heads, but do have the same size valves, so that's a good score.

 

I have spent most of my life working on and teaching automotive technology. Back in the day you are right about the lifespan of most engines, a 100K mile engine was an exception rather than the rule. I spent 30 years working for Chrysler corporation in the training department and had a lot of time interacting and talking to the engineers that designed engines used today. The one major change that allowed the lifespan of the modern engines to double or triple (according to everyone I talked to) was electronic fuel injection and modern engine oils. When an old carbureted engine was cold started with the choke on there was a huge amount of fuel dumped into the cylinders to produce enough fuel vapor to get the engine to start and run. This would wash the oil off the cylinder walls and when the piston was cold and hadn't expanded this excess fuel also went past the rings and into the oil. Now, the fuel is sprayed into the intake at 50+psi in a fine mist and in a very controlled manner so most of the wear problems have been drastically reduced. The new oil formulations do a better job clinging to parts and dealing with any contamination that does get into the oil. Fuel injection on an old Y-Block would accomplish much the same result. Mark