I need a little help. I have a Ford 9N tractor that I am going to put an 8BA flathead in. I have a kit for the tractor and I have a '50 F1 truck engine. The engine is rebuilt and ready to go except for the front. The instructions for the tractor kit are to machine off the front pulley on the crank pulley and use an electric fan due to space issues. I don’t have a good crank pulley anyway. I have looked and there are a variety of pulleys available for a flathead V8. Not worried about the alternator one. I see the early crank pulleys are really inexpensive. They are single groove. Can I use that with car water pumps or is the crank snout diameter different? The ones advertised for an 8BA are a lot more expensive and are dual groove. I am waiting to buy water pumps until I get a suitable pulley. If you had truck (wide belt) water pumps and used a car(narrow) crank pulley wouldn’t the narrow belt just ride low? Or what will happen? So my big question sums up as this, I need a single groove crank pulley that will fit an 8BA, what is the easiest/least expensive way to get there? Thanks!
The groove closest to block on all 8BA types is farther out than the close in groove on all earlies because it has to clear the casting for the drive on the sideways distributor. A simple swap is out, and the common hotrod improvement of swapping to all early type pumps and such is only really viable when rebuilding, as you need to swap cam. Now, all crank noses '39-48 (NOT '38) are the same, and when you rework any of the pulleys to single sheave you still have the tubular extension an inch or so long that goes out to crank front to allow it to be bolted together, so you cannot realistically shorten the TOTAL length there, but on any of these you can just take the stock pulley and cut away the actual front sheave. Just use what you have, no need for anything aftermarket.
OK, Thanks! I just today realized that the car pump and the truck pump do not share a casting/body. I had thought it was just a pulley difference but it's not. I have to use truck pumps for the mounting. Guess I will have to pony up for a truck crank pulley. Anybody out there have a cheap one that is damaged on the front sheave?
You just need a big-sheave wide belt pulley. Trucks used them '48-52, but Ford p***enger and Merc used them in 1949 so there are lots around. (note that pulleys though '49 of all sorts had the slinger area that slides into motor integral, later ones have the slinger made as a separate part. Wrong stuff here is easy to deal with, so get what you can.)
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