while.....Well not much on TV and I found myself out in the garage with a wrench in my hand taking the heads off the flatty.... WOW what a mess inside!!!! Are they all this funky inside or did mine have a issue......cylinder walls where mirror smooth and everything looked to be in order (hell this is the first time I’ve seen the inside of a flatty so who knows) pics and the carnage well I guess ill look for a builder
Don't touch the build-up in the lifter valley-nasty lead deposits. Take a rotary wire brush to the deck between the valves and cylinders. Get down to shiny metal and check for cracks running from the valve seats to the cylinder walls. May cause problems. Cracks between bolt holes and water holes on the deck are no big issue. RB
Great I scooped out a huge finger full to show the wife.....well Ill get a wire wheel and check it out
That's the time honored Flathead sludge. Old type dino oils, no PCV and not running the engine till hot enough along with prolonged oil change intervals does this. STD stuff for an old Flatty. RB is right, wear rubber gloves as this shit is old toxic stuff - handle with care if youre gonna clean it out. Are you going to rebuilt this engine? If so, dont bother cleaning out the sludge. Just strip it well, remove all the oil gallery plugs front and rear of the block, get it hot tanked then magged for cracks. Rat
It still looks a lot better than one of mine. That sludge is what gave a lot of what you young farts call "old timers' that fine gray tinge to the back of their hands. That still doesn't mean that a guy shouldn't take what precautions he can and wear the rubber gloves when cleaning it out.
Thanks Ill just tear it downs and pressure wash the hell out of it....I need it for mock up still.....Engine is the last thing on my list Live you learn
Not trying to knock gloves, but lead has low dermal toxicity. If you don't eat it or inhale it, you should be okay. Bill
Gasolene-kerosene -diesel mixed with Gunk GP and a good stiff parts cleaning brush. Then pressure wash it repeat as needed .
From the pics it looks like an 8BA, 8RT or 9CM engine. With the relieving done it should make a great breathing motor when finished. Just have it hot tanked and magged before you start spending much money on rebuild parts to assure it is crack free. Oh yeah the sludge is a piece of flathead history. Jim
That motor is a classic "only driven to church on sunday" . They probably drove it at 30 miles an hour for 2 blocks then back home (for 30 years).
Yes, Go ahead and remove the valves and contribute the mandatory pint of blood to the flathead gods......... Read books and search the HAMB tech and you will know just about enough. That shit won't hurt ya. I wouldn't feed it to my dog tho.......
Don't eat that stuff! I picked up another flattie off ebay right here in the area. Kinda lookin for a builder. This little jewel came outa a '52 COE. The owner wanted the cab only so I picked up the engine and 4speed truck tranny. Also had a swell ebrake lever which I put to use in our roadster project - rigged it up with some Ace Hardware items! My son & I tore into the engine and it was sludged up too. Destroyed a couple pistons to get them out. Didn't want to fight the crap so we drug it down to the local machine shop for a bath and mag test. The hardest part was pulling out the valves - classic! The thing tests OK so we may start a new build as $$$ permits.
i second what others have said about gloves! had a 38 flathead i tore down, tons of goop in the valley. threw it into my girlfriends truck and pressure washed everthing when i moved the block over to clean out the valley all the sludge had dumped into the bed. lets just say 6 cans of engine cleaner and 4 pressure washes later and a very pissed off girlfriend, 10% off the goop was still there and what ever was splattered off the bed and in the wall of the bed was alot of scrubbing to get it out.
That is classic flathead casserole! I have come to the conclusion that the $75 dip, blast and shot peening is well worth it. Cleaning them by hand can be tedious and somewhat costly on top of the impervious to anything grease splatter.
PCV and 180 thermostats will do a lot to prevent that. Cleaning it up can only be done with blood, sweat, and tears...
Ha, I was 8 years old, helping my father. I was pulling on the "bar", it slipped, rammed my hand into the hood flange. The scar with a dark line from the dirt and rust is still there on my thumb 52 years later. I still like flatheads, tho.
Engine is an 8BA type, so he can remove valvage the easy, blood-free way...not a proper initiation at all!
The Jalopy Journal
