Ford's Flathead V-8

[CaveCreekRay]

An amazingly simple design that brought the V-8 to millions of customers....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixhYVcWwJiY

 

[GeoHorn]

Clyde Barrow's favorite "borrow"...a V8 Ford.

 

[SidecarFlip]

There are other You-Tube vids about the actual engine and it's development. I guess Henry had a hard time casting the block.

 

[skeets]

I recall reading some place where somebody from a hotrod shop got over 250 hp and 300 and some feet pounds of torque from a 284 cuin flat head with a supercharger. Thats a whole lot for that designed motor

 

[SidecarFlip]

Especially with only 3 main bearings.

 

[William1]

The flat head was the first 'big engine' I worked on as a kid. Prior to that it was all lawnmowers and British cars (Morris Minor, Austin Healy's, MG's and a few Jags). That flat head was easy, simple and just like a lawn mower engine. We had tri-power on it!
Simpler days. A wire for the generator. Two to the starter, one to the distributor. Ground? we do not need no stinking ground......

 

[GeoHorn]

Henry didn't like to re-invent the wheel. The N-Ford tractors were powered by HALF a Flat-head V8. Pistons, rods, sleeves, valves... all interchangeable. Durable, dependable and easy to work on if you ever wore it out...and parts plentiful and cheap.

 

[ItBmine]

There is a restored Ford tractor for sale here with a flat head V8 in it. I love those and would love to get it. But what he wants is 4 times what I paid for my Allis Chalmers.

 

[Fordtech86]

Henry didn't like to re-invent the wheel. The N-Ford tractors were powered by HALF a Flat-head V8. Pistons, rods, sleeves, valves... all interchangeable. Durable, dependable and easy to work on if you ever wore it out...and parts plentiful and cheap.

I have a ford 2n that will eventually make it down here, at my parents house now. Great grandfather bought it new, believe is a 42 model. I remember going to get the original iron wheels it came with when the family sold off the farm. From what I was told when the tractor was bought you couldn’t get rubber tires due to all the rubber at that time was going towards the war. Didn’t realize the parts interchanged, but it makes sense.

 

[Tim Horton]

My Dad said when he was a young man, my Grandfather got a Ford V8. Dads younger brother was a late teen at the time with to much of Grandads temper for his own good. That and the Ford were a lot to do with my uncle and an old local judge helping uncle make the decision to enlist in the Marines as opposed to "other alternatives"....

 

[CaveCreekRay]

Did you know most of the German army trucks in WWII had Ford engines, made under license? I think they were the four cylinder, similar to the tractor motors.