So i just got my flathead back from the machine shop...It was a stock rebuild for my 1940 Ford Tudor...Its getting a frame off restoration to compete for the Dearborn Award...Here is the engine: Here is the car just getting ready to pull the body off the frame:
Sweet ride and nice job on the engine. Dig the truck in the background also. Good luck with the build.
Ford really got it right with the 40 in all of it's forms. I really dig the genuine ageing of your car, it's something only time can produce.
There is some damage to the front p***. side fender...and there is some rust in the area where water drains down over the wheel well in the rear...plus there are tons of little dings and scratches...i want to fix it...I know there are a ton of people that well get on me about that...
Wow youve got some amazing projects. Sweet flatheads. You deffiently have a solid 40 to start with if the pics arent playing tricks on me. Keep up the nice work and the pics. -Jon
Hey kevin, that motor in your coupe looks awful familiar. like it was pulled out of some rust bucket 46 tudor in a storage unit, after it was drug outa some bone yard behind a ridiculously striped cheby truck..........mini truckin fo life!
Beautiful stuff in this post!! Show car '40...I think it actually has wrong generator. I think it should have early one with no ground terminal, ground path left to mountings.
Really Nice looking flathead! I too am running a 40 engine in my 34 pickup. Wonder what they'd say about that at Dearborn?
Heads...did a '40 use the dual senders or just one?? Can't remember. There were actually a BUNCH of different versions of the 81A "A" type heads, and for 1940 you need not only the ones with proper seat for the electric senders (as distinguished from the '39 back bulb) but a set with an extra small outlet for the optional hot water heater...gotta look up details in one of the books on that. 81A heads history is complex enough to hurt my head...you can have stacks of them with no two identical and none quite right for your car, and Ford never changed designations or number in book or on heads. Forensic science is required to figgerout right ones.
I actually quit using the Ford pressure cap (4 or 7, can't remember) on my '48 because it made me nervous; running the engine, I could here a FWOOMP and see the upper tank pop to a slightly bulged position, then FWOOMP back to relaxed, apparently flexing along the seam where it soldered to header plate, as engine cooled down. This is at the normal thermostat temp of 180, not overheating. Big, unbraced tanks hate pressure...inner braces would be easy to add in a rebuild. Car has original radiator, bearing a soldered on badge from a rodding out by British Army garage in Hamburg about 1952... Ford made the pressure cap standard around '46, quickly dropped it (reason unknown) but kept it as service part. Benefits: higher boiling point is not a benefit unless you like a scary normal operating range. If your flathead is heating up, pressurizing only means you'll be 100 yards farther down the road when Old Faithful blows and you coast to the shoulder. Iy you are running too hot, you need to fi**it. Real benefit, as explained by Smokey, is that pressure apparently helps suppress the minor pockets of cavitation from flow and also minor steam pockets of very local overheating that all engines have. Hence, slightly better cooling and better resisatance to overheating at normal temps.
Nothing sounds like a Flathead! In the early '60 when they were being pulled out of the "Hard Tops" in favor of SBCs there were built Flatties setting in rows at many wrecking yards around the Bay Area and probably the same all over the country(world). I am so glad that some guys had the brains and money to save a lot of them. I was in high school and got a couple as needed for my '38. Wish I had it too!
Nice car and flathead! It even has the right color distributor caps. I always thought that the oil pressure sender mounted in the top spot, and the side one was for a hose for an add on oil filter. Wish the floors of any of my '40s looked like that when I got them.
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