Projects I found a power unit with a 59AB flathead in it, let's see some other power units!

I found this at an old farm nearby. The guy said it was used to run a sawmill. years ago. It looks factory and cobbled all at once. I think it has an Allis tank on it. The engine turns and is complete top to bottom. Has anyone else seen a flathead power unit Did they exist from Henry?

Let's see others. I know they made Hemi ones.

 

the farm the next town over from me has a 8ba water pump. and he still uses it. hasn't been rebuilt and has been running since the 50s

 

they had companies that built the parts to do these conversions. i grew up with uncles that had orchards and many of the irigation pumps used flatheads as powerplants. the cool ones were the engines that ran the wind machines because they were oldsmobile,buick motors with damm near zero hours on them.

 

I saw this old Onan generator recently in a small town sewer pump station. It has a flathead four cylinder Ford; I'm don't know enough about them to tell if it's a tractor engine or what, but I thought it was pretty cool. It's still in regular use.

 

No picture's of it in it's original habitat, but one of my Hemi's came out of an irrigation pump in a junkyard in Texas...

 

I have the remains of an old log puller it was powered by a merc engine. It was in use till a few years ago. It had a leak and was filled with water in the summer. which froze and cracked the block in the winter. I have the heads and the governed carb and intake.

 

I went thru western Kansas a couple years ago, was surprised how many old engines were still in use, but didn't see any flatheads. Seems like they use whatever's at hand. New favorite seems to be Chev 4.3 V6.

I've heard old forklifts used flatties too, because their weight was not a disadvantage -- any pics?

 

45 years ago I worked at pratt & whitney aircraft in the x test lab,they had at least 2 or 3 8ba flattys running assorted fluid pumps. One of the engines needed a valve job and I voluntered to do it as I was driving a '48 3/4 race Ford coupe at the time,so guess my boss figured I could handle it.

 

I've gat a late Merc industrial flathead that was used on an irrigation engine locally. Hand clutch, magneto, motor mounted on a factory built frame with radiator mount, gauges, etc. Painted yellow

 

20 years ago I pulled the old generator out of the old Sears building in Baltimore, MD. It was a low hours Y block Ford industrial engine! Sold it to a guy who was building a shoebox Ford.

 

59AB powered welder.

 

I have a 354 Hemi and a 331 Hemi,both still in the stands with guages,throttle,propane carbs which by the way cut way down on wear and tear, with power takeoffs from irrigation equipment.

 

My buddy Gary has a factory flathead Ford powered generator that he bought from a local radio station that was their emergency back up power unit.

 

I got mine from a power unit (generator) also, it was in an engine machining shop, I got some SW gauges from it also. It was covered in about 1/2" of soot also Still ran fine though.

 

I saw a real cool Model T powered ice saw in skids in WI a couple years ago. Very cool. Not something we would see around here.

 

Why? You don't like things cold?

 

My old neighbor ran a funeral/memorial service. He had an old Schramm flathead powered compressor to sandblast headstones. It was getting little tired after almost 40 years of service and I rebuilt it for him. I was interesting to see how the heads were configured to run on 4 cylinders and compress on 4. After 7-8 years since the rebuild it's still carving out the birth and death dates and names of the deceased.

Frank

 

At the county fair a number of years ago, the Scrambler was powered by a Ford 300 I6. Sounded pretty good too! Wish I would have taken a picture, (this was before every one had cell phone cameras)

 

Don,t have any photos of these,but in my town-Smithton Tasmania-back in the 50s and 60s,one of the local timber companies used Ford flathead v8,s for almost every job in their sawmills.Back in the 80s I went to one of their derelict sawmill sites and found flatties installed in an old crane and also in a shunting locomotive. I guess they also used em to run the sawbenches or at least power the generators to do the same job.Apparently there was always a fresh engine on the stand ready to go as well.I counted 8-10 motors sitting around in derelict machinery.
Unfortunately,all the NOS spare parts left in their spare parts store were long picked over by the 80s
Only the stories remain today...........

 

German fire department flathead powered pump mounted on a trailer

 

Back in the 70's there was a hemi engine at New England Dragway that powered a set of rollers for starting the old fuel and funny cars, it was located in the pit area.

It was gone when I made my way back up there about 10 years ago.

Cliff Ramsdell

 

i got a 354 industrial from an airport gpu. also this 59ab from a retired USAF radar base ran the water pump. all the parts on it were K.R. wilson.

 

Hemi Air Raid Siren

 

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That would be a neat find.

 

Not exactly a power unit, but one of the damndest things I've seen in a while. Evidently the old Ford flattie wore out on this A-frame tow truck, and it was easier/cheaper/quicker (chose any combo you want) to just strip down the Ford flatmotor and mount a Cadillac flathead, complete with HydraMatic, in front and spin the Ford crank. I can't imagine it lasted too long, given that there was no oil pan or pump on the Ford, so not sure how they kept the mains lubed. The Cadillac still looked like it would start right up and run. And I'll bet she was a bitch to steer!

 

saw a tow behind air compressor on an online auction last year that was made from a flathead ford. 4 cylinders ran the engine, the other 4 compressed the air. no pics, but the outer two cylinders on one side and the inner two on the other side were used to run the engine.
y'all have a good day, Keith

 

20's Buick







Model A air compressor

 

There was a story running around this County (Ventura Co. CA) years ago about a barn full of flathead V-8s that were used in wind machines for the citrus orchards. I'm still finding an old geezer from time to time who remembers these things but I never saw any proof.

 

I'll never forget driving through Giddings TX on Hwy290 and seeing a lot about 2 acres big filled with Industrial Hemis row on row from the farms and ranches and oil fields around.

 

Bring up an old thread....
Ford flathead air compressor......
And yes there were many many flaties used for orchard fans in the Napa wine country....