Alright guys,... I am guessing this isn't the forum for this, BUT!,.. I have a O/T car hiding in the back of the barn that has a "FE" engine in it,... A Friend of mine put me in touch with a old pattern maker that retired from Ford many years ago,... He had no interest in cars whatsoever,... but kept this in his garage for years,.. this old man was into tropical fish, coin collecting, keeping his yard kept up & watching sports, This was his story "It was the end of 1967 and we were working on a number of new designs for cast aluminum parts for Fords, Cobra / Shelby / and there racing program,... I had worked on the pilot pattern for this oil pan,... It was to be refined later,... 3 initial parts were cast,... This one, one that was destroyed,.. And a third one that was fully polished. After they were looked at, scrutinized, and made there rounds for a few weeks, it was decided not to proceed with this project. This one was going to be discarded, So I took it out of the dumpster. I have no Idea what happened to the polished one,.. But ***umed they used it for the new car show displays for 1968,.. But that is a guess." I have had the opportunity to see a lot of Ford stuff that never made production,.. But I have NEVER seen anything like this before,... There was no reason for the old man to con me,... He offered it to me for a price that was a little low (actually, really low),.. So being the idiot that I am, I kept putting money into his hand until he had this really big smile on his face. So,... I really dig this thing,... and am totally happy with the deal,.. So heres my question, Have any of you ever seen one of these ?,.. If so, where and when? I would like to find out more about it if I can. One more thing,.. the hole for the drain plug was never drilled or tapped, and there are no markings anywhere on this thing.. Thanks guys !
Cool looking piece and neat find, but nothing I have ever seen that came from FoMoCo. Now I have seen a lot of FoMoCo one off, R&D, or engineering pieces over the years and all shared one absolute thing in common. They all had some sort of number stamped or cast into them. Usually a SK or C-FE prefix. Did not matter if it came directly from a Ford plant or a sub contracter. If FoMoCo paid for it, it had to have a engineering number. Good luck in your efforts tracing it's origin.
The mere fact that there is no drain plug, but there is a boss for its location makes it obvious that this is a prototype for sure. Notwithstanding the senior citizen' story on its origins, I'm in agreement with Moneymaker - the majors really didn't have anything done without some paperwork 'from above' and I've never seen anything that didn't have some sort of a corporate order, purchase order, engineering order or any other type of order. Some guys were allowed to 'go rogue' for sketches and stuff, but if development beyond that involved any costs related to casting/machining/etc where they had a regular employee involved, there pretty much had to be a G/L (general ledger) number to account for the expense and a place to charge for it. That being said your oil pan is one of the coolest-looking FE parts I've ever seen. Not sure if I would install it....or drill/tap/install the drain plug until I chased down the facts - modifying it could just turn it into another fancy oil pan, whereas if there were only three made (regardless of who made them), you could have a holy grail of FE 'one-off' parts. dj
Now see what you've gone and done! Caused all your Hamb brothers to covet thy neighbors stuff......er....pan!
Neat. Never saw anything like it either. Only half-finned...where it needed to be. Loved the "kept pushing money into his hands" part. Made me smile as well. You're no idiot. Good one, Harms Way.
My Dad worked for Ford DPG as a Test Driver, and my brother worked there in the "X" garage,.. I worked next door at the Edison Ins***ute,.. And even tho it was rare, I did in fact see other Ford produced items without any markings what so ever on them (especially cast aluminum parts). But your point is well taken,.. and of course I could be mistaken.
I'd hang it on the wall in your ba*****t.... That is a very rare piece... I have a few parts that were thrown out by Batten performance when I worked there that I ended up keeping... Nothing special though...
Send a picture to Rick Kirk in Rippley, Okla. if anyone would know it would be Rick. rkmachine4537@aol.com
Check with Mose Nolan at Ford Racing. He should know about it since he dates back to that era. The part may actually be a reject. May not fit the block or have enough clearance?
VERY cool piece. The only thing wrong with that pan is it doesn't belong to me! Don't repop it though. The wow factor would be gone if it was reproduced.
One of three maybe even one of one now. I'd rather have to say man what a cool part and admit I wish it was mine.....than see a stack of them forsale to every Walmart greaser.
moneymaker is right. Parts, even the one offs, made at Ford were made to a blueprint. This blueprint HAD to have a number and the blue print number was transfered to the part. The prefixes were typically SK or XE followed by 6 numbers. VERY early protptype parts had ASK followed by four numbers. I also have many one off or very limited run parts and they all had to start on the drawing board at one time. Other divisions used XP, XL, XW, XH, and others to designate "special or prototype" Parts. This could have been a project done through Holman Moody. That might be the reason for a lack of part number. Randy PS this is also VERY typical of the high quality work done in that time period so I for one believe it to be genuine but without "some" form of part number. ( could be electric penciled on) "I" have a tough time seeing it as a Ford initiated part. "I" have been wrong though. BEAUTIFUL PART and a lucky find. I'd certainly put it on my R code 68.5 CJ fastback!
After taking a very close look at the pan again I can tell you, there seems to be a area (like a raised pad) of casting on the inside of the left side about 2" from the front that was ground down. it would have been aprox. 1/2" high X 2" long,... I called the old man back to try to get more information, He ***ured me it was a Ford design,.. from the design department, and he worked only on Ford items. I pushed for a little more info (especially about the ground off area), an he got really wiggy, and said, it was supposed to have been s****ped,.. he really shouldn't have taken it out of the dumpster in the first place,.. and he didn't want any trouble. If he knew I was going to make a big deal out of it, he never would have sold it to me in the first place. I finally got him calmed down,... But I can't help but believe, I just screwed up royally. If he worked on this,... just imagine what else he might have worked on, and what information I could have learned...... I told him "I call you back again sometime, if thats OK",... He said "We'll see" and hung up. But his tone of voice didn't give me that warm & fuzzy feeling. I guess this negates the big smile he had when I paid him for it. (I guess I should have known better.)
Years ago I worked for an aluminum casting company. They had contracts with almost every automobile company. Everything that was cast had a number on it. They cast a lot of automotive prototype parts. I saw a complete crate of aluminum brake rotors for the Ford 3/4 ton pickups complete with casting #'s. Diesel accessory mounting brackets for experimental projects. A lot of the parts were cast in quan***ies of 50 or less.
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