I had an old Spalding Flamethrower for a Mopar laying around for years, and when I started the build of my '31 Model A with a Cadillac Flathead I figured I'd ruin a few parts and see if I could come up with a workable FlatCad Flamethrower. First we chuck up the base of the F/T in the lathe to cut off the bottom end. Looks good so far, shortening the base and turning down the diameter to match another piece you'll see in a bit. Now let's do a similar deal with the longgggg flattie distributor base. Chuck the lower part of the stock distributor in the lathe and make the required cuts and turn down the diameter to match the recently m***aged flamethrower base. The two pieces after some lathe work. The base of the flamethrower nestles nicely within the lower section of the stock flattie distributor base. The stock coupling from the flattie distributor has the same ID as the OD of the flamethrower advance weight baseplate shaft. It is drilled and pinned to fit. Also below you see a sleeve made from 0.125 wall DOM tubing which, along with a couple hose clamps, holds the upper and lower pieces together tightly, and in perfect alignment. The end result. The wire towers for the flamethrower are notorious for cracking, and are basically unavailable, so let's fix them. It's a simple task to build a "dam" with masking tape around the outside perimeter of the wire tower plate. Now mix a bunch of epoxy and pour it into the dammed area. The two light "sticks" you see beneath the epoxy are just a couple of pieces of hard plastic that I figured would add some stiffness to the tower base. After the epoxy sets up, remove the tape and do some sculpting with the dremel to carve the areas that need to be removed in order to fit tightly in the body of the flamethrower. I still need to convert it to a vacuum advance, but the bones are in place and ready to make sparks!
Clever project and resourceful. If the worm clamps end up not holding in the long run maybe there are stainless band clamps in that diameter available which could clamp down tighter to prevent unwanted timing adjustments down the line.
Very cool. What about a few threaded holes and set screws instead of the hose clamps? My Pops had a Spaulding flamethrower for a Pontiac in the showcase when I was a kid.
Or a machine up a "tall" split shaft collar to replace the clamps. Remember to update this thread when you convert it to include a vacuum advance. Interesting tech post to say the least; thanks.
Yes thats the plan. The worm clamps are temporary. I can't lock the top and bottom sections together because the bottom section of the unit is bolted to the block and can't be turned to adjust the timing like most distributors. That piece of split DOM is the only way to rotate the flamethrower to adjust timing. The original timing adjustment was done by loosening a clamp between the tall distributor stand and the distributor body. Detail in the red ellipse below:
Rather than that tube clamp wondered if it would be possible to make up two flanges one to each part to make it the same as the original Cadillac distributor timing adjustment
I was wondering pretty much the same thing. Cut the old flanges off of the remaining distributor pieces and weld them to your "new" creation.... ...
The tube clamp is a lot more solid than it might look, and given that it is the same length as the combined machined sections of the base and F/T I really don't think I will have any issues with it. With the hose clamps tightened it is pretty much impossible to twist the two pieces. It doesn't take a lot of torque to spin a distributor. @lostone The Mopar F/T base flange was turned into half a million aluminum chips. I'm not welding that **** together.
My belief is you don’t need to adjust the body like a normal distributor, you loosen off the bolt on top of the rotor slightly, tap the bolt lightly to loosen the rotor from the bobweight plate(held together on a taper)and adjust the rotor to adjust the timing, that’s why flamethrowers are normally sitting 90 degrees to the crank, happy to be corrected.
@lostone The Mopar F/T base flange was turned into a half a million aluminum chips. I'm not welding that **** together.[/QUOTE]
That's true, but its a lot easier to use a timing light if you can just loosen a clamp and twist the body of the F/T a few degrees to dial it in.
was looking at Surplus Center catalog that came in the mail yesterday. They have the T-bolt stainless hose clamps in sizes down to .75" . We use them on boats for 360 deg clamping, tighter than worm clamps, and the bling factor. Love these how-to threads, always learn something.
I would weld a tab on each side of the split sleeve, drill a hole in each & use a bolt to pinch the sleeve to tighten the distributer instead of the hose clamps.
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