Hi all, I came from a world of big block muscle cars and custom harley, so i never had to ask this... but, i have to do a model A with a V8 flatty. Looking at some of these 49-51 flathead blocks that sat out in fields for years rusting away. The head gasket area on the block is heavily pitted, but i see them being purchased!? Can these be milled down that far or is there some special head gasket or something? When is it junk? Thanks
Conventional wisdom says that flatheads have notoriously thin decks and should be decked the minimum if at all. If they're really "heavily pitted", I'd look elsewhere.
If you live where it freezes even infrequently, rust is the least of the problems with an open engine. An engine that has held water through a freeze is almost certainly a dead player and flatheads have areas within thatt cannot be checked even with a magnafluxing.
I don't know anything about Ford flatheads. On my Plymouth that sat out for years I took .035 off the deck and still had lots of pits. But i also had enough clean iron I felt it would seal. And it did. That was the last Plymouth PB that I converted to OHV and it did eventually pull a stud out of the deck and kill itself. But there was a lot of other stuff going on there.
OK, so i'm not losing my mind... as my pop use to say.. "there is an ass for every seat". I'll just hold off til i find a runner. Thanks men! Paul
You mean like this? This engine was so bad, a rod cap rusted itself to a head stud! They had a cover over it too..... Its headed for the dumpster.
If all else passes.....if you got pits and its not in the bore area,,,,,clean the crap outta it....grind it till its clean, and braze it up....it'll be as good as new, then if there some of it into the bore area.....sleeve it.... heavy pitting in the valve area....do the same. then put your new seats in if ya got to..., Make it work! Suck it up guys....we're suppossed to be hotrodders here! Where's your since of adventure!!!!!
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