I have a Danish model B and was wandering what the "dent" in the firewall meant. There is also no enginedamper between the firewall and the engine. Is this just removed or don't they have them all. Chassisnr. is AB 50594.. maybe an early or late 32 ?
I am not sure I would call it early. The engine/transmission with that serial number was completed April 1932 at the Rouge Ford plant per "The Early Ford V8 As Henry Built It" and then I assume it was shipped to Netherlands for assembly (do you know where it was assembled?). A few early trucks lacked the engine damper but I think all of the rest of the 4 cylinder vehicles had it (I don't know about the foreign production). I can see bolts in the holes where the damper mounted and I would assume if it was not used from the factory the holes would be open. The dent in the firewall was to mount a vacuum assisted clutch that never went into production. Charlie Stephens
The dent on early firewallsand the threaded hole on all of the firewalls held a component of a powered vacuum clutch system that never quite made production. Early B blocks and some clutch levers are also equipped for this...look up deuce patents on here. I posted the patent drawings and other '32 patents on here once.
I don't remember when Ford England started building B engines...they were building A and AF motors by this time, so setting up for B's as well would not have taken much, and they built them for many years. If English built, it would belong to a group of serial numbers alotted from the Rouge I think, and then would have been built whenever the English got to that number. If American built, it would have followed American chronology properly. I think my Danish '32 parts book shows mostly regular Ford USA chassis parts numbers and not the E variants, so I'm guessing most parts were USA or maybe Canadian with the body ordered in from GB?? Im pretty sure firewall and much other stuff would have cone either from Canada or US
Okay here are some more pics. My plans are to leave it like this and get it running. They body and chassis are in good condition and the car has been hand painted in the 60's with plenty of paint so it has plenty 'patina' I'm not sure about the engine, it's the original 4 banger and it's free and i got a nice small blower for it with 2 Ford 8HA carbs, but i also have some V-8 flatheads in my garage. I have some other cars that require much more work so little work is better. Let me know what you guys think of it and what to do with it.
The semi circular indent was for an oil can mount which is really hard to find. I have the FORD script oil can for my early firewall but no mount.
The indent held a component for a vacuum assisted clutch that never actually made production. Several components found on very early '32's have provisions for this thing. Same stuff accounts for the mystery threaded hole on L side of firewall. Patent 2057774 shows a version...I think there is a more detailed one as well. This came very close to production.
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