Thread: I had a Flathead once upon a time...

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This is the first forum that I was directed to when I found the "Club Hot Rod Forums" website, and it was especially interesting to me since I drove a '53 Ford F100 with a flathead for most of my senior year in highschool.

My '53 had the original engine in it (I don't know the displacement) and the previous owner had taken a big piece of heater hose and ran the crankcase breather exhaust into a hole he had cut into the top of the air cleaner. When I first started driving the truck in September of '71, it was hard pressed to to 60 mph flat out, was a serious oil burner, and ran 0 psi of oil pressure on the dash guage when it was at operating temp.

My first real performance modification was to get rid of the "PCV system" and put a set of plugs and points in the truck. Those few changes gave me an honest 85 mph top end, and I was able to get 2nd gear scratch with the column shift. Not to bad for an afternoon's work. A couple of weeks later, my brother found an old glasspack with about 6 feet of exhaust pipe welded to it in a trash barrel. We asked the person who lived closest to the barrel if we could have the pipe and muffer and they said they didn't care, so we took it. In those days, I didn't exactly have enough spending money to buy an exhaust system. so luck was where you found it. Anyway, the glasspack and the pipe (wired to the rear axle with bailing wire) became the performance exhaust system for the '53, and added another 5 mph to the top end.

Over the winter and into the spring of '72 I did a lot of other things just to repair the truck and make it more reliable, but not much more to hotrod it. It had a tray of sorts behind the seat, and I always kept 5 quarts of the cheapest motor oil I could buy back there lying end to end. A good day's worth of driving on the weekend would take all 5 of them. Since the oil pressure guage was useless as far as keeping tabs on the crankcase level, I used to wait until the lifters started clacking before I added another quart. It was a pretty good system, and the flathead was a tough old customer. I don't know of many engines that could go all day with more or less no pressure lubrication. I'm sure it had some pressure, but it must have lubed at least as much from splash as anything.

Anyway, in March of '72, my dad sold the F100 out from under me while I was at school one day. I had ridden my Honda 350 since it was a nice spring day, and came home to find the truck gone. I asked my dad where it was, and he told me he sold it for $250.00. A '53 Ford F100, less than 20 years old at the time, and he thought $250.00 was a good price for it! It still chaps me that he sold it. I had such big plans for it; paint, wheels, maybe a 351 Cleveland (I had been told that flatheads weren't worth overhauling), a toploader 4 speed, and who knows what else. After all I was a hotrodder from the word go, and I had made some real progress with that truck. Well, it was history, and I had a '70 Chevelle SS396 a couple of weeks later, so I kinda forgot about the old flattie for a while.

After all these years between now and then, I still miss that old truck, and I wonder what would've happened if I had persued my plans to build my first real hotrod from it. I still get a little excited when I see one of those old late 40s or early 50s F100s, and really intrigued if it has a running flathead under the hood. The Ford flathead was a good, strong-running engine, and it deserves a special place in hotrodding history.

Randy

I know what you mean Vortek about the flatties. I had a 41 ford truck with a 53 merc flathead and at first it was stock and had alot of fun with it. Then the oil burning started(over 80,000 miles on it) and decided to do some minor engine building. Had it bored .040 added a 3'4 cam with dual 97's and then worked on the body and channeled it about 4" and cut the box back 12" , put open driveshafts along the cab for exhaust and a 55 gallon drum in back for gas(never had enough to put more than a $1:00 worth) back in the early 60's gas was 28-30 cents/gal, primed the whole truck with gray primer from about a dozen cans(would have to touch it up every week incase some rust spots came through, and had a hot little truck back then which really moved out. Gotta love those flatties

The flatheads are something I'm getting into thanks to my dad. We've got 2 projects going right now - '29 model A 2dr Sedan, steel body but no fenders or hood; and a T-bucket "lakester" project that we're pretty much building from scratch except for the fiberglass body.
The Model A is much farther along: it has a built '50 flathead, complete with a polished, dual 2brl, high-rise, Tattersfield intake that just looks awesome. I can't wait to hear that motor run. We've also chopped the top and filled the roof with a steel panel cut from a late 70's wagon, and done a very slight tub to the rear wheelwells, just to smooth them out.

My Dad built the engine, but I've been responsible for a lot of the metalwork and fabricating. The frame is boxed and smoothed, and has been painted, and the body is in primer. I'm getting antsy about it . . . .

Our '37 pickup still has the flathead but the previous owner replaced it with one from a '54. Larger displacement, higher horsepower. All of 120 HP or so.

We have a newly built 360 Mopar ready to put in along with the A833 OD four speed and the narrowed Ford 9" rear. Over the last few weeks we've been playing with the idea of retaining the flathead but rebuilding/updating it with a turbo/intercooler/EFI package. Stay with the A833 because of the wide ratio's, designing a trans adapter doesn't seem too daunting a task.

My concerns are with the basic Dodge block, I haven't seen too many (actually ANY) that have been seriously rodded. Don't know how much abuse they're capable of handling. I see quite a few articles for the Fords and Chevys, just no Mopar flatties. The only parts I have seen are the split exhaust and dual one barrel manifolds, no internal parts.

What can anyone tell me about the Mopar flatheads and performance builds? My target would be around 200 BHP to keep it spirited. I'm willing to trade down a hundred horsepower of so for "novelty".

Cheers, Mark

Don't know much about the chyrsler flatties but they did range from 117CID to 264 . Chrysler had one in 1954 that was 264.5CID and Desoto had one that was 250 CI. The biggest I think was a 323 with 270lbs. of torque in 1950, but as you say I never hear of anyone racing them like the ford flatties.

I am the proud owner of a 1950 Packard with a 288CID straight 8 flathead. I wanted something a little different than the run-of-the-mill
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....here come old flat top,he come groovin up slowly......John Lennon said it all didn't he*,
I had more flatties than i knew what to with back in the early seventies when I lived in New Zealand,The fact they were seriously unpopular engines in those days was lost on me.I loved the sound of a flattie running through (leaky) Massy Ferguson Tractor mufflers.Yes MF tractor mufflers,you could buy them for about $10 each and they came with a peice of pipe about 4 feet long.perfect for cash poor young apprentices with a need for speed.I bought a "39 standard coupe from a guy who had painted it a real nice shade of Metallic blue,and done a fantastic job with the bondo.This car had been a dirt track racer and the pic shows it after the bars etc had been removed and the first coat of brush on black had been touched up.No interior of course., those rare '39 Std lights etc came off a tudor he wrecked just get the bits.The rest went to the scrap....
And those who have thrashed a 3 speed will know of the dash hook,Mine had one made from a 1/4 inch rod,to keep the '36 straight cut geared box in second.
Because they were unpopular and still common around Auckland I would bludge the neccesary HOT bits from rodders,boaties and who ever had the goodies i needed.
The engine was 59A block Mercury with the liners removed and bored out ot 3/8 oversize.The crank was a merc steel item with a 3/8 stroke,that gave me a capacity of 296 cubic inch.Topped off with a locally made Hogan triple carb set up ,crab dizzy,truck 11" clutch I was set to burn rubber.
With a car load of freinds one night I was racing a porsche powered beetle from the lights when the tranny decided to go home early,straight out the bottom and all over the road...BANG!!!
I went to another guys place and he gave me all the trannys he had,for free.40 of them !!.
This car was a barrel of fun for some time until i read about '40 converts and decided my coupe was candidate ,,off with her head!,needless to say the car wasn't finished,i sold my grenade motor to a guy who was passing by and had stopped to look at what i was doing.The coupe was passed on to Kevin Perry,who i think lives in Ventura,who passed it on to another guy in Auckland who put the roof back on !!
Youth is wasted on the young LOL

The truck that i have has a flathead under the hood