I just picked up a flathead lincoln 337 in hopes of putting it into my truck. I pulled the heads and the cylinders have quite a bit of a ridge at the top and the pistons are marked standard. There is no scores or marks in the cylinder walls. My thoughts are to take and get the motor bored out to prevent any blow-by. What is the going price for a cylinder boring job now a days? Also if I can aford to get a bore job on it I my as well get hardened valve seats installed too. Any ideas or recommendations on a 337 flathead and things to watch out for if I do take it to get machined?
'Just happens, I'm doing the same thing right now. However, I HAVE to bore mine because some broken rings scored 3 of the cylinders. If you bore it you have to buy new pistons-if the bore isn't tapered too badly you may get away with a deglaze and new rings. How much of a ridge is "quite a bit"? Remember, in the old days, one often did a "ridge ream", a hone job, and put it back together. If you are really set on boring (and I'll let you know as soon as Whetzel gives me the price) contact Bob Selzam at Half Ton Fun in Jackson, N.J. He has N.O.R.S. pistons and rings. Now: if you definitely want to bore it and you want to increase the performance, you can go .080" over and turn it into a 352. Mill the heads slightly (You'd want to do a "clay" check over the valves and new pistons first but it can certainly stand a compression bump). My Edmunds heads have approximately .100" less combustion chamber depth than the stock heads. My personal opinion is that the "no lead/valve seat recession" thing is nonsense unless you're planning on 15000 hard miles a year. The lifters can be a problem since they are unique. I havent addressed that yet but I planning on individual disassembly and cleaning with lacquer thinner. I had one noisy one but I think it was related to the little spring on top of the lifter plunger. Other than that, treat it like any other Ford Flathead:check for cracks and make sure you get the water jackets cleaned out.
I've got a friend who rebuilt a 53 Ford flathead (no hard seats) and he HAS had a problem with valve seat recession. Does drive it quite a bit, but not 15,000 miles a year. Jack
Flat jack,it's a normal flattie issue. I used to use Redex in my flatties to keep the valves alive because they were my only engines and I averaged 20,000 miles per year. . Once they seat a bit because of seat wear ,the lifters keep them off the seats.and they burn. Today I would use ATF ,at 1 liter per 100 liters of fuel .
I'm with you Dale. Back in ancient history, the best gas you could buy was Amoco White Gas, they made a big deal out of promoting NO LEAD. I think a lot of valve problems are from the guy doing the grinding. leaving the seat in the port a radius, instead of a flat margin. and also not lapping the finished job to make sure you got a good seat. One oldtimer once told me that he didn't ever lap cause the valve will beat the seat in I use New-Way cutters since about 1990, and never had any problems. I ain't a proffesional builder, but I do my own stuff and some racing heads for freinds. There's a better "sound" from a machined seat that's sealing good compared to a ground seat. Really Frank
With the cost and time involved in building an engine, why would you cut corners and not put in hard seats if the engine didn't have them? JUst seems to make sense to me. Don't need them in the intakes, but exhaust yes.
I figured if I took the engine to get bored I would go ahead and have the seats put in as well. I've never had an engine bored so I don't know how much money is involved to get the machine work done and I figure that the valve seats were probably not all that expensive compared to the other machine work. If the cost for boring the motor and new pistons is too much I'll just rering the motor as is and run it that way. I was just wondering if there was a standard fee like $100 a cylinder for boring.
For $12-$20 a cylinder bored and honed is cheap enough it makes sence to bore and hone the cylinder out. Lets hope I can find someone around this area that will give me a price like that. I'll start calling around on Monday.
The problem with flathead fords is most modern engine shops have equipment that is not designed to work on blocks that have valves in them. Most young machinists don't know what a flathead is. I made adapters to put a flathead ford on my seat and guide machine and my head and block surfacer.I would definitely bore that block, and put seats in for unleaded fuel. I read in a rebuilder magazine that unleaded fuel burns at a flame temperature that is 1000 degrees hotter than old fuel with lead in it! It is trying to melt your seats! Those blocks are sometimes cracked in the seat area. I would be afraid that you might ruin your block if you don't put seats in it. Just my opinion. Besides if a job is worth doing why not do it right the first time!
I call BS on your rebuilder magazine. At 1000* hotter, it would be melting your aluminum pistons, not your steel valve seats. If it ran hotter, we'd all get better gas mileage... Someone told me a long time ago, don't believe everything you read or hear and only half of what you see!
I have one 337 ford truck motor that is cracked between the intake valve and cylinder on 6 out of the 8 cylinders. There is no hardened seats in this motor either. Did the lack of hardened seats cause the cracks? Who know. This 337 lincoln motor I have now I want to make sure it lasts. These motors are hard to come by and if $500 or so gets me some extra life its worth it....I guess. I've just got to call around and see if anyone is willing to do some machine work on it. Thanks for all the info
There is a NAPA Machine shop in Fremont, Ohio (135 miles West of you) that is owned by a friend of my Father's and they build a lot of race engines. They also redo a lot of vintage engines. They've done, I think, 3 or 4 Lycoming engines for my Father and a 428 FE for my brother. They really know what they are doing.
This is just my opinion, from a machine shop point of view, not an engine machinist point of view. If cracking in the seat area is a problem, and now you go and remove material there, you weaken that area. Now you go and PRESS in a seat, which further stresses that area, then you run the thing and get it hot, if the expansion rate of the insert is greater than the cast block, more stress on an already weak area. Whadda you think? Frank
Y'all make some good points one way or the other on the hardened valve seats. I could go either way and feel confident. I'm going to try and find some inside mikes to check the bore to see what its really worn to. If its not too bad I'll just throw a new set of rings in and let it go at that and just throw some lead substitute in the fuel.
Try motor city flathead in Dundee Mi...Alittle bit North of you in S.E Michigan (North of Toledo about 45mins or so)(Side note: Mark Kirby (owner of MCF) I believe sends his blocks out and just finish builds them but it couldbe a start) Or (My Favorite: Always use them!)) D&S Engine in Troy MI (Near me) They did my Flathead block (harden seats and all) and couple other blocks (not too mention a few weeks back they a pair of Lincoln V12's sitting there. Can't remember the charge (I'll hunt for paper work later) But for all the messing around to work on these blocks they seemed real reasonable. Call D&S ask for Pat 248.583.9240. It might be worth drive North for you, but at any cost it could give you a basis for charges.
I just left my local Flathead guru (Rick Whetsel at Whetsel's Automotive in Greenfield,IN) and he more or less echoed the $12-$20 per hole figure for boring. But remember the cost of the pistons: I just found my receipt from Selzam and it was $250 for a set of N.O.R.S. Badgers in +.040. I have to eat a little crow re valve seat recession after talking to him. He says he's seen a lot of it (and he specializes in older, enthusiast stuff -- tons of Flatheads) and recommends hard seats in everything unless you're not going to drive it. 'Surprised to hear that your old engine is a truck engine and doesen't already have seats in it-I've talked to old mechanics who made their living replacing seats in fleets of F-7s & F8s .
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