flathead ford

picked up a motor for my 46 sat. i think its a 41,i want to change the dist my is a crab and the one on the 41 is the one with two caps,can the covers be change and do you have to loosen the base to change covers? also the 41 has one belt pulley on crank and my has two,my crank is longer,to change the pullys do you just use a longer bolt ?

 

How many studs are on each individual head? We need to start somewhere...

 

there both 24

 

The first thing you may want to do is check out this link:

http://www.vanpeltsales.com/FH_web/flathead_home.htm

There is a ton of usefull information there that may answer alot of your questions.

 

thanks

 

I just did this and could post a picture if wanted. I have a '37 motor that used the "helmet" style dist. For several reasons, radiator clearance for one I switched to a crab. I already had a 2 bolt cover and swapped that, vacum plumb's to that instead of the distributor. The newer style is deeper and there is a gap of about 5/16 that will need a spacer. I was going to make one but found one in some of my junk, so I got out of that. It was closer to 1/4" thick so I made a thick gasket on one side. I think some play dough will have to be tried in the cam slot to insure there is some clearance before I torque it.
Before you take the cover off there is an outfit in California that make's a 3 to 2 bolt adapter, with vacum line attachment. It is in V8 Times magazine, $39 + $5 postage, and that is about the same price as the goofy looking coil conversion for the helmet style. If you ain't got it apart yet tha's the way i'd go.

 

i got my crab cover that i'm using i measure it and it looks like it will fit,i'm wondering about the crank did the early 24 bolt heads use a single pulley on them

 

If I am not mistaken the early flatheads had the fan mounted to the generater, hence the single pulley on the crank. The later model 59A's had a seperate bracket and fan not mounted to the generator.

 

Sorry I musunderstood I thought it was about adapting to the motor, had to look at mac's site to refresh. I use a 2 bolt dist I aquired that had the "bale" wire retainer that snaps over everything (45-8). I had a couple of junkers that had the more conventional snap on from the side clips (42-44). I swapped them and my crab cap fit. I had them all apart and could find no difference. I can say the only new part, a made in Mexico echlin rotor I got from NAPA fit like crap.

 

what i have is a crab with two snaps like a real dist. my fan mounts above the gen but it sticks out and has its own belt