My Ford Tractors

FOUND — FLATHEAD V8 ENGINE

This trailer full of engine parts followed me home from Waverly, VA. for the bargain price of $150. This is a complete 1949 Ford Flathead V8 engine. Everything from the pulleys to the bellhousing is there, with generator, starter, water pumps, 2 fans, a new (looking) carb, and fuel pump. The bell housing won't be needed for my project, but some of these extra parts might offset some of the cost.

The engine is only in fair condition. It has a crack in the No.1 cylinder wall. Based on the numbers stamped on the piston domes, the engine has been bored 0.040" over. Some of these engines had problems where the mold shifted slightly, making the cast cylinder walls thinner on one side. Boring the cylinders for oversize pistons reduces cylinder wall thickness, and increases the chance there will be a problem like this. An overbore of 0.040" is moderate and should not have caused a problem. It will take something a bit more professional than JB Weld to fix this.

The crack is about midway down the No.1 cylinder wall, right next to where the exhaust passage goes through the water jacket. I believe this cylinder can be repaired with a sleeve.

UPDATE August 2014–It was too late to do a compression check on this engine before disassembly. The heads were already off when I bought it. With a cracked cylinder, a compression check is fairly pointless anyway. The engine has to be completely rebuilt. Anything a compression check would show will soon be exposed to view and direct measurement. The valve assemblies look nasty. The engine needs new valves, and a valve job. Careful measurement of the cylinders has revealed another cylinder (No.6) that will need a sleeve. The piston from No.1 and no.6 are partly melted. This makes me wonder just how hot and hard the engine was running when it started to come apart.
The good news is that the other cylinders are all straight and true with little or no wear. Some have a bit of surface rust from the heads being off. It's a good idea to keep an oily rag handy to put a film of oil on parts. I've never put sleeves in an engine that didn't already have them, and wouldn't consider doing it myself on a high-compression, high RPM race engine. For a de-tuned low RPM tractor engine, sleeving the two damaged cylinders shouldn't be too hard. The big trick would be using a hand-held hone to bring two pear-shaped cylinders back to square.
Like many of my great ideas, that plan is getting mixed reviews. Some say it'll be fine for a low-RPM tractor engine, others say it's crazy not to have a machine shop sleeve all 8 cylinders. Finding parts in other than complete sets is proving to be a challenge. There are plenty of sources for flathead parts, but few sell things like pistons and rods as individual parts. I'm trying to do this rebuild without spending a boat-load of cash. If I wanted to spend lots of money, I'd buy a boat.

MORE ENGINE DISASSEMBLY AND MACHINE WORK

After pulling the pistons, measuring and weighing parts, it has become obvious that the last rebuild was not done very well. The rotating assembly should have been balanced. There is one mis-matched rod that is not even close to the same weight as the others. Pistons do not appear to have been properly fitted.
This is double-the-fun, I'm also continuing to tear down the flathead 4-cylinder engine. They are side-by-side on stands.

The second photo above is the bottom-end of the 4 cylinder that came out of the 51. Everything is coated with a chocolate sludge, Yuck!

There are a few differences. The front pulley almost fell off the 4 cylinder engine when I removed the bolt. Not so easy on the V8. The V8 pulley does not appear to have any provisions for removal, and it will not come off, grrr. Crank pulleys usually have tapped holes in the face or slots a puller can hook to. If a puller is supposed to be hooked around the pulley, it needs to made out of something other than thin tin. After trying every puller in my tool box, in every possible way, the effort only managed to put some bends in the stamped-steel pulley. My usual method is "be patient, and use the correct tool for the job". In this case, searching on-line for advice and special tools provided no magic trick to get the balancer pulley off. This one is completely stuck to the crank. It shouldn't be this hard to remove.
When non-destructive methods fail, the fun begins. At this point I was almost ready to try exposives, but took a deep breath and reached for a reciprocating saw. A metal-cutting blade carved through the pulleys and they hit the floor in about a minute. Then used the same tool to cut part-way through the hub on opposite sides. A cold chisel then split the hub. I'm not particularly proud of this method, but very happy to finally get the darn thing off. Judging from the corrosion between the hub and crankshaft, it wasn't going to come off any other way. Add one pulley assembly to my growing list of parts needed for this rebuild.

Next, one of the V8 water pump bolts snapped-off flush with the engine block. If you are familiar with these engines, you already know which bolt. Why did Ford put mounting bolts inside the water pumps? Rusty bolts that snap off before they move are not going to come out using one of those "easy-out" devices. The easy-out will just snap off leaving a chunk of hardened tool steel wedged in the stuck bolt, making the removal process even more difficult. The Easy-Out tools work ok for broken hardware that isn't rusted solid. Anything rusted in place or bottomed out in the threads has to be drilled out. The correct procedure is to center-punch the broken bolt. Get as close as possible to the exact center. Drill most of it out with larger bits. Then pick the threads out of the threads in the block. Finally, chase the threads with an old tap to clean them out like new. An old tap works best because it is more likely to just follow the old threads.

The valves and camshaft are the last parts that need to come out of this engine before machine work on the bad cylinders can start.

It may be a while before these piston assemblies go back in the engine. This is my way of keeping them sorted and out of the way. The individual parts should be engraved or stamped with the cylinder number they came out of. Mark parts in a way that will survive cleaning. All parts should be wrapped in plastic after they have been cleaned. It is usually best to put everything back in the same hole it came out of. That is the reason for finding some way to store them that preserves the order.

This is a photo of the two crankshafts V8 and I4. Both are in great shape. No scoring on the journals, but a few V8 bearings look like some trash has been through them. The good thing about soft bearing material, sometimes trash can get imbedded in the bearings and not tear up the crank. The front pulley, timing cover, and camshaft were removed from the I4 without difficulty.

The pistons in the 4 cylinder were a big surprise. When I removed a bearing cap to check the rod bearings, the piston and rod assembly literally fell out of the engine! I've never had an engine with pistons so loose they just fell out. The sleeves originally seemed good, but now that the pistons are out, my cylinder bore gauge is showing a lot of wear at the bottom of each cylinder. The sleeve puller is set up and ready, but it's been over 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity in the shop for two days now. I've had all the fun I can stand.

September 2014–The V8 plan has come together. There is a good machine shop reasonably close to my office.

Laurel Machine
www.laurel-auto.com
9512 Woodman Road
Richmond, VA 23228
804-266-4816.

I spoke with two great guys there, both named Greg. Greg Ferguson is the Owner. Installing two sleeves does appear to be a good way to fix the V8 engine block. They would prefer to go all the way and sleeve all 8 cylinders, but for a stock rebuild on a budget, they saw no reason sleeving two bad cylinders wouldn't work well. Trying to straighten two egg-shaped cylinders (with a hand-held cylinder hone) was probably not going to work. Their estimate to do the job right was very reasonable. All I need to do is finish disassembly, and take the bare block to them early next week.

Jacked a sleeve out of the I4 tractor engine today. This very simple puller works ok for thick-wall sleeves.

Keep cranking the bolt and the sleeve just walks right out. Anybody notice this sleeve does not have a shoulder at the top? When I was checking the cylinder bores for wear, maybe should have noticed they were larger than normal for these engines. Once the sleeve is out, obviously this block was overbored for larger than original sleeves. The overbore exposed part of the water jacket about 1/2" from the bottom of the sleeve. Stupid move ruined an engine block that might have been rebuildable several more times with original bore and just replacing sleeves. Any 8N engine block that has to be machined for custom sleeves is going to cost too much.

Back to the V8 tear down. Pull the valves, lifters, and remove the camshaft. Easy, right? Wrong! Cleverly concealed beneath the valves was a nightmare. The mouse nest under one valve was just the beginning. All the valve guides were completely rusted to the block. Each valve spring had to be pried up, so the keeper could be removed. That sort-of releases the valve. It still took some work to get the completely glazed and rotten valve stems pulled through each lifter. Once the valves are out, soak guides in PB Blaster a few times, then knock them down enough to remove the retainers. The guides can then be tapped down into the lifter valley, or they may come out the top, whichever is easiest with the tools available.

A brief period of dry weather Monday morning was just in time to match-up with my trip to the machine shop. Greg Ferguson called after they had a chance to check the engine out. Sleeving the two bad cylinders will be no problem, and there is no sign of any other problems with this block.
Again, if they were doing a performance rebuild of this V8, they would recommend sleeving all eight cylinders, and fit a new set of pistons. For my stock engine rebuild they will just sleeve the two bad cylinders and hone all eight to the same 0.040 oversize. I can re-use most of the pistons that were in it as long as I can put together a complete, properly-balanced rotating assembly. It was a very good decision to have a shop with proper tools do the major machine work.

THE ENGINE IS BACK !

LIKE NEW! Decks are flat, Valve seats have been ground, and all bores are honed to receive new rings.

ENGINE BALANCING

The entire rotating assembly must be properly balanced. What that means is that every piston, pin, and rod assembly should weigh the same. This requires a scale that measures in grams (1/10th of a gram is better). One reason we keep the old piston and rod assemblies together is so we don't mix up the original balance. In this case, two pistons need to be replaced and one rod is different. Finding two pistons and another rod that match my set is going to be difficult.
After carefully weighing and comparing rods, the mis-matched rod is at least 10 grams less than any of the others! No way this engine was properly balanced by the previous rebuilder. A little more checking reveals that the big end of each rod has only been partially re-sized. The big end bearing diameter is correct measuring across at the flange, but is several thousandths short measuring the other way. The rod cap mating suirfaces were machined, but the resulting hole was not honed to the proper diameter! If the rebuilder was just as lazy fitting pistons and rings, it's easy to see why this engine failed.

I'd rather find a better starting point before grinding on good parts to try and match-up the weights. Friends are great, and making new ones is one of the best parts of restoring old equipment. Swapping stories and parts is fun. Red Hamilton at Red's Vintage Parts in sunny California has a bunch of "experienced" original Flathead Ford parts. For a small fee, rather than just selling me a rod, Red went through his basket of original Ford 8BA rods, and found one that is a near perfect match for my set. I certainly don't mind paying for the time it took to weigh both ends of who knows how many rods.

Shopping individual pistons was not working nearly as well. Finally, the smart thing to do was buy a brand new matched set of the correct Ford 8BA pistons. It took a few days to get the parts. After matching up the lightest rod to the heaviest piston, the entire rotating assembly (minus rings) came out within 3 grams total. The large end of each rod needs to be honed to the proper diameter. Each rod has a weighted pad area that can be ground to reduce weight. Getting the sets within 3 grams before doing any grinding makes it a lot easier. By the time everything is ready to go back in the engine, the rotating assembly will be balanced as close to perfect as I can make it. The engine will run much smoother than it would have after the previous sloppy rebuild.

VALVE JOB

The V8 engines I rebuilt in my youth were mid-sixties to mid seventies small block Fords and Chevys. I was about to start fitting pistons and rings, then realized I need to stop and lap the valves. Valve lapping compound is a highly abrasive paste. This is not something we want circulating around inside the engine, so every bit used to lap the valves needs to be thoroughly cleaned from the engine when done.
Use just enough lapping compound to spread it all the way around the valve sealing area. The sealing area is a band about 1/16" wide on the face of the valve. The machine shop did a great 3-angle grind job on the valve seats while they had the engine block. I'm using a brand new set of 16 valves, so lapping them should only take a few seconds per valve.
Another difference with this flathead engine is the valve guide is part of the valve assembly. The easiest way to keep the valve centered in the seat was to leave the valve assemblies together and set each one in the block. The lifters have not been installed yet, so there is plenty of room for all valves to sit down on the seats. Label the valves so they will always go back in the same hole. The purpose of this step is to make sure the valve sealing areas are a perfect match.
Put a small dab of grinding compound in four spots evenly spaced around the valve. Let the valve drop against the seat, attach the suction cup valve lapping stick to the valve. Rotate the valve back and forth in both directions about 1/2 turn, using very little pressure. After 4 or 5 turns, lift valve up off the seat turn 90 degrees and set back down. You should feel a difference as new lapping compound is moved onto the sealing surface. This shouldn't take more than a minute or two for each valve. Remove the valve, wipe the valve and seat clean, and inspect the surfaces. There should now be a completely uniform grey band about 1/16" wide all the way around the face of the valve.
The intent is to verify and mate each valve to it's seat, not grind new seats. Lapping is the final step to fitting the valves. If lapping reveals problems (like shiny low spots) start over and re-do the 3-angle grind on the seats. My valve seats were ground by the machine shop. There were no problems.

I used a black marker to label each valve by cylinder and 1 or 2 from the front of the engine. The valves are still just setting in the holes without tappets or keepers. Looks like fitting pistons and rings won't start untill next weekend at the earliest.

PARTS MIX-UP

The new rings and rod bearings were supposed to arrive together. The parts ordered were "in stock" and "shipped". What arrived was a very small box with one rod bearing pair, and no piston rings! The packing slip shows $100 for a "set" of rod bearings. Individual sets of bearings normally sell for $15 to $20. There is no indication of the status of the piston rings, but at least no charge was shown for those. This is an obvious warehouse and inventory problem. One phone call seems to have fixed the problem with the rod bearings. New piston rings will have to be ordered from some other supplier.

It took another week to get the rings and it's hard to believe I'm still short one half of one rod bearing! Dennis Carpenter sent the rest of the rod bearings "set" packed in individual boxes. When I opened the boxes, one box was missing one half of the bearing, Unbelievable!

Then another challenge. The new pistons turn out to be exactly 0.040" over, rather than being sized to fit a bore that is 0.040" over. In my youth it was normal for the Chevy pistons to be made to the correct size that fit in a standard oversize bore or oversize. In order to properly fit these pistons each bore needs to be honed another 2-3 thousandths larger than the standard 0.040 over. The good news is that after honing all cylinder bores to fit the new pistons, the rings I bought all fit perfectly. If I had a complete set of rod bearings I could finish the bottom end of the engine.

The Camshaft, rear crank seal, and Crankshaft are in. All new main bearings checked out perfect with Plastigauge. The carrier for the rear main seal was glued in-place with some Permatex Ultra Black. Make sure any excess sealant ends up on the outside of the engine. The last thing we want is loose gobs of gasket sealant circulating around in there!
It's hard to believe we are still messing with rope seals in these engines. There is a one-piece seal upgrade for the front main seal. To my knowledge there isn't a similar upgrade for the rear main seal. The best I could find is a carbon fiber material that still has to be trimmed flush with the face of the block. Thoroughly soak the new rope seals in motor oil. The carbon fiber material is much harder to cut than the old type. The best way to trim them turned out to be a very sharp 1/4" wood chisel. Do not insert the crankshaft and use the seal area as your cutting board. I used a large 3/4" drive socket that happened to almost exactly match the crank diameter. Trim the seal material flush to within 1/32" of the surface.
Do not leave more than 1/32" extra. When the oil pan is installed there is no place for the extra material to go. All the extra material will do is bind the crank, and it may break the side off the seal retainer. Take the time and do this right. Leaving too much or too little will result in a very poor seal.
Later, when we install the oil pan, a dab of Permatex Ultra Black will be used to glue the ends of the rope seals together. The pan gaskets have a notch at the end for this dab of sealant.
Once the rear main seal is in place, apply plenty of assembly lube to the bearings, and carefully set the crankshaft in place. Use more assembly lube and install each bearing cap. Do not put oil or assembly lube between the back side of the bearing shells and the block or bearing caps.

Do remember to align the timing marks.

MORE PARTS and the BUDGET

Looking at my pile of mis-matched lifters, there isn't a full set of 16 that match. The previous rebuilder of this V8 apparently just threw together a bunch of parts. The cam checks out good, with about average wear for a non-roller cam. One lifter was worn in a way that indicates it wasn't spinning. That's another rebuild issue that should have been checked. It's possible the engine didn't last long enough to check the lifters. It's very important that a camshaft and lifters break-in together. A new camshaft and set of adjustable lifters for this engine would cost about $600. If I was doing this rebuild 15 years ago, I might simply reface a lifter, coat it with assembly lube, and put it back in the same hole. This will be a little more complicated. I don't have a set of lifters I want to use in this engine.
A new set of adjustable lifters would be the best choice if this was a new cam. I've decided to put together a good set of "experienced" adjustable lifters for this used camshaft. Many of the used adjustable lifters may be better quality than some of the new ones coming from China. It has been reported that some name-brand lifters have been found that were not correctly hardened. My complete set of used lifters will be refaced with the correct taper. Most of these old school non-roller lifters actually have a slightly convex taper to the face. Hold two lifter faces together against a bright background, and it will be obvious the edges don't quite touch. This slight taper, and the matching taper on each cam lobe is what makes the lifters rotate. By machining a new "face" on each lifter, and doing a proper new camshaft break-in procedure, I'm hoping this used cam and lifters will successfully break-in together.
My parts bill has been edging closer to my maximum original budget for the V8 engine. Cheap knock-off parts are a fairly recent problem, so the work-around is to buy used parts when they can be made like new again with a little cleaning and re-finishing. The hollow type adjustable lifters have been around a long time, so putting together a good set of used lifters only cost about 50 bucks. It will be a great feeling to finally get the engine back together, painted, and ready for accessories like carbs, water pumps, and distributor. The budget looks like it will only run about $100 over my target of $2000 to build the engine. That includes the original $150 the engine cost. The completed engine should still be worth at least twice what I have in it. The budget to build the tractor part of this project was $2500 for a total cost of $4500 to build the V8-8N tractor. That total does not include the original $800 to buy and transport the 1951 tractor. The cash budget is very low for a project like this, and also does not include anything for the time spent. Nobody will ever know how many hours this project takes to build. My time has value, but in this case the fun-factor of the build is priceless.

ASSEMBLY

This is the correct tool for putting rings on pistons without breaking them. There are several other types of piston ring expander tools. This one works well as long as I make absolutely sure the ends of the ring are all the way into the hooks that expand the ring when the grips are squeezed. After doing a couple of rings it becomes almost automatic. Do pay attention to the instructions that came with the rings. There is a definite location for each ring, and some have a top and bottom to the ring itself.

Once the rings are on the pistons, use a ring compressor to squeeze the rings into the grooves so each piston will fit into each cylinder. Coat each cylinder with motor oil or assembly lube (I used STP for the cylinders). Tapping with the end of a wooden hammer handle should be enough to slip each piston into the bore. Don't force anything, and make sure the rod bolts don't crash into the crankshaft lobes. Cover the rod bolts with a rag or something if you feel the need. Test fit each rod bearing using Plastigauge to verify correct clearance. Then coat the entire bearing surface with assembly lube and torque them down in steps. I move the crankshaft a bit after each rod cap is tightened to make sure there isn't a problem.

ADJUSTING VALVES

Once the pistons and rods are installed, the valves can be installed and adjusted. I found one cam lobe that was on the heel, dropped a lifter in that hole, and dropped the valve assembly in place to check the adjustment. If the engine machine work was done right, all lifters can be adjusted to the same height before dropping them in the engine. It's much easier to adjust them in hand, rather than having to make several turns of the adjuster with the lifters already in the engine. I only used the Johnson adjuster tools to "pick" the lifters out of the bores, and did the final adjustment of each before installing the retainer on that valve guide. Installing the retainers "marked" valves that were already done as I turned the engine by hand to the next cylinder in the firing order. Use a 0.014" feeler guage to set each intake when the exhaust valve on the same cylinder is just opening. Then use a 0.018" feeler guage to set each exhaust valve when the intake valve on the same cylinder has just closed.

All the Pistons and valves are finally installed!

HEAD STUDS OR BOLTS

I'm using studs on this engine for cylinder heads and intake manifold. When correctly installed, studs cause less wear to the threads in the block. The fine threaded nuts require less torque to get the same clamping force as bolts. Since the stud does not move when the nuts are tightened, there is no wear on the threads in the block. Studs guarantee proper alignment of gaskets. Wear and tear may only apply to industrial engines that are designed to be rebuilt more than once. For many engines using head bolts is just fine. I've occasionally used a few studs to align things and then replaced the studs with bolts after a few have been started. Use whatever you are comfortable with, or seems appropriate for the engine you are working on.

Each stud or bolt that goes into the water jacket, must have some thread sealant on the threads or they will leak. Blue Permatex is my preferred sealant for this purpose. Some of the threaded holes are blind, and don't need to be sealed, I just put sealant on all of them to make sure none of the "wet" ones are missed. If you are using studs, install them finger-tight. Do not "lock" them in with vice grips! That just makes them nearly impossible to remove. Carefully clean any excess gasket glue from the head and intake gasket sealing surfaces.
Always tghten head fasteners in the correct sequence, in three stages. I used the Graphtite composite kevlar head gaskets. According to the experts, this is the choice most likely to seal without problems. The reinforced compression band around each cylinder may be overkill for a stock engine, but head gaskets are not a place to be pinching pennies. Use Copper Coat on both sides, and re-torque the head once the engine has been warmed-up and cooled down. Many people say re-torquing isn't necessary with modern head gaskets, I do it anyway, it only takes a few minutes, and I've never had a problem with a head gasket on any engine I've worked on.
The intake gasket will be installed dry the first time. I'm assuming the intake will need to be removed at least once to check the valve adjustment, and to make sure all lifters are spinning. There is a better chance the gasket can be re-used if I don't use any sealer. The intake gasket won't be reused if there is any question. Leaks just suck and always cost much more than the cost of a new gasket.

FRONT COVER, OIL PUMP, and OIL PAN

I spent at least 20 minutes looking for the front cover. After about a half dozen trips through various parts of the shop, there it was, hanging nose-high on the side of my parts rack. Apparently my brain searches by color then shape. It wasn't gray. It was already painted red. Wow, hope I get this tractor done before someone locks me away for my own good.

The oil pan was rusty and full of goo, so it went straight into the electrolysis tank. It wouldn't quite fit, but the crud/rust line where the end wasn't submerged is a good example of how well a few hours in the tank cleans rust, loose paint, grease, and grime. Flip it over and a few hours later the other end will look as good. Check my page on ELECTROLYSIS if you want to know more about that lazy man's cleaning process.
Like everything else on this engine, the oil pump was very dirty. After a thorough cleaning, it checked out fine. Vaseline petroleum jelly is a good packing that will avoid any problem with the pump not priming.

The engine is mostly complete. Note the plugs in holes that might attract bugs or mice. The last thing I want is to have any critters nesting anywhere inside the engine. There is only a short list of things to do before bolting the major parts of the tractor back together. The flywheel will be resurfaced, replace transmission front seal, install flywheel and clutch. Normally it would also be a good idea to install the starter. The original type starter is much easier to install when the tractor is split. In this case, I'm using a mini, hi-torque, gear-reduction starter that engages from the front side of the flywheel. I can install that anytime.
This is a good time to install the dip stick tube. Unfortunately, the bucket of parts that came with this engine did not have a dipstick or tube. The fitting on the oil pan has a 1/2" extra fine thread. Rummaging in the scrap pile turned up a short piece of 1/2" OD tubing. It only took a few minutes to run a fine thread tap on one end of the tube, degrease it, cover the threads with some hi-temp tape, shoot some Eastwood "almost chrome" powder coat, and stick it in the oven. Powder Coating is the perfect finish for something like this, and the parts are ready to install as soon as they cool enough to safely handle. With a little Permatex Ultra Black on the threads, this should be leak-free.
The water pumps that came with this engine are junk. They may prove to be rebuildable cores. I bought two new upgraded water pumps from Speedway. The new water pumps are supposed to flow better and last longer than the original type. Flatheads are known for having cooling issues. The new water pumps, Champion aluminum radiator, and electric fan should keep this one cool.
The bucket of parts did have two carbs and two fuel pumps. One of each appear to be new or newly rebuilt. There really isn't a need for a fuel pump with the tank mounted just about the engine. Gravity feed would work, but removing the fuel pump requires fabricating something that is a lot more involved than simply plugging the hole in the intake. Rather than create internal oil circulation problems, it's easier to just stick the fuel pump in there.

The walls in the passage between my workshop and garage have become my small parts and gasket inventory. It ain't pretty, but it's convenient.

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