I have heard the distibutors vary in 1958, but as i said i only heard this in a topic, my personal belief as i'll bet, that they are the same distributors all the way from 1954 up to 1964 on trucks, just my guess as i never swapped one out.

But i cannot see Ford changing the height of the shaft as all Yblocks are physically the same, and if the pre 57 ran a different direction, let me think this out, would they have to reverse the slant of the teeth at the cam in 57 on up, and what value would there be??? As number one can be anywhere on a V8 engine.

Ford for sure did not want to spend any money after they made the Yblock in 54, just look at their history. But again i do not know for a fact on the Distrib issue. But i sure would love to own a 1954 F100, as i can remember and have told many people i remember the 239 as being a more reliable engine than any other Yblock, and believe the 54 to 56 Fordf100 was the prettiest truck, it's the only one i can recall that didn't sling oil, i believe they had a better crank saddle bore, and got more careless as they tried more CI with the same block for just competition measures with Chevy.

Janet

 

Unfortunately, it looks like a thread with some great information (from others than myself), is being cluttered.
If anyone makes you the bet that 1954-1964 Y distributors were the same, take the bet for as much as you can get!
I have read threads regarding the 1954 to 1957 distributor conversion. It looks like you will have to change oil pump to a hex drive, get an intermediate oil pump drive shaft, put in a 1957 or later distributor, and then upgrade the carb. Dont get me wrong here, I am not an expert, but think the teapot carbs are not compatible with the post 57 distributor, so a carb update, and intake update would be indicated.
This may be one of those occaisions where stock is better.

 

First, a comment on 46yblock's post, and then I'd like to take a swing at your question.

I've been posting here for a number of years, since the past century at least (altho under a different login) and it would be my opinion that 46yblock knows which way the wind blows. I have never seen him BS anyone, but he always has given sound advice to my knowledge.

I would aspire to the level of having someone say that about me.

But, one thing you must know about your rig is that in the end, it's your responsibility. Everyone would like to see you spend your money as they think you should, but you are the one who will be left with the result. So, you have to be the one to sort out whether the advice someone gives you is any good or not.

Doing this is a learning experience, one that all of us are still engaged in if we are learning anything. Only those who "know it all" have no need to learn. Personally, I find that knowing it all is too great a responsibility and prefer to leave that mentality to others.

In our learning experiences, we all make correct choices, and we all make some bad ones. Hopefully, we minimize the bad ones and learn from them when we make them. It's all part of the game.

The point to all this is, in line with 46yblock's post, my advice that you weigh carefully what people say, and do your best to judge whether they know what they are talking about.

Now, moving on to your questions, capped by this one:

The distributors on all US Y Blocks will all interchange, sort of.

From 54 to 56, Ford used the Load O Matic distributor made by Holley. This unit was a hold over from the flathead days, where it was used on the last 49 to 53 flatheads. It is not a very good unit. From 1957 and up, Ford used a conventional centrifugal and vacuum advance distributor on Y Blocks. You can use this on your 1954 F 100 239 -- that's what I use on the very same vehicle. I use a 1960 truck distributor, to be precise.

Understand that Ford actually made two Y Blocks: a Dearborn version and a Cleveland version. The Dearborn version was phased out by 55 at the latest. It used a different block, heads, and cam. You can interchange the rotating assembly and valvetrain except for the cam, but not the block or heads, which have a different head gasket and water passage arrangement, and the cam which has larger cam bearings.

The Dearborn cam uses a 13 tooth distributor gear. The Cleveland uses a 14 tooth. Any 1957 distributor you use will be, of course, a Cleveland unit.

So, you can use a later unit in your 239. If you have a Dearborn motor, you will need to use the 13 tooth gear on your Load O Matic and put it on the 1957 or later distributor. If your motor is the Cleveland version, you can just swap it in, EXCEPT:

54 and 55 Y Blocks used a tang and blade drive on the end of the distributor to drive the oil pump. 1956 and up, including all the newer version 1957 and up distributors, use the familiar Ford hex drive. If you have a tang and blade setup, you will need to get a new oil pump and oil pump driveshaft from a later Y Block (or buy them new) to use the 1957 and up distributor in your 239 -- this is true, whether your motor is a Cleveland or a Dearborn.

How do you tell a Cleveland from a Dearborn?

Well, for one thing, when you pull the distributor, if it has 13 teeth, its a Dearborn, and if it has 14, its a Cleveland. Also, on a Cleveland block, on the passenger side of the water jacket on the front of the block, there is usually a "C" with an "F" cast inside of it. The Dearborn foundry used a "DIF" marking.

If you want to know why a Load O Matic stinks, why it has poor performance and bad gas mileage, and if you want to know why an engine needs advance and what kind of advance it needs, I have written this so many times, I grew tired of it. So, I posted it on my web site at M571.com/yblock. Look at the articles on Load O Matics and advance, and in layman's terms that should answer some of your questions.

AS for using a dual quad with teapots, I would give it a try, except that you should pay close attention to how your manifold ports match with those in the heads. The 239 had the smallest port size, and even tho I did use a 57 big port intake on my 239, I was very lucky that it did work. I would not try it again, because there was very little gasket surface to do any sealing. I advise checking your parts carefully, first.

Consider that a teapot is about 400 cfm, so two of them are 800. My 239 ran fine with the 1957 Holley that came with the 312, which is also abotu 390 cfm. But, you are talking about two of them. Consider that the 500 cfm Hiolley 2v carb is actually the front half of a 780 cfm 4v, and you can see that running a 500 cfm 2v will be about what running the dual quad teapots on the primaries would be like. I am guessing that your low speed performance would not be nearly as crisp with the dual quad as with a single.

Yes, you can get parts for teapots.

If you are dead set on running the dual quad for looks, but don't like the way they work, I'd consider blocking one off and just having it for looks. No one will be the wiser.

Good luck.

 

Thanks Wild.bunch (and you others)! I have considered using just one, but I wondered in my small mind if the rear (or front depending on which is blocked) would get too much fuel and the other end starve.

As far as learning, I have been down this road with a 57 F100. I did way too many things that I couldn't finish and finally gave it away. I do wish I still had to 5.0 and AOD that was in it!

 

One possibility is to use only the primary side of the teapots & disable the secondaries. This is not as effective as Tim's suggestion from a "throttle response" point of view; however, it does have the advantage of providing somewhat more even mixture distribution.

Another factor is the manifold you have. I would guess that the Ford dual setups are reasonably even in terms of mixture distribution (considering the age of them & the technology of those times). I might very well be mistaken. I can say without a doubt that some of the early aftermarket intakes, whether multi-carb or otherwise, are just awful.

Tim, one thing you mentioned that caught my eye: "54 and 55 Y Blocks used a tang and blade drive on the end of the distributor to drive the oil pump." I know that is true of the 239s; does that pertain definitely to the 256 & 272 for '55 as well? Not disputing you; I've not yet torn down anything from '55 except a 239 (tang/slot) and am just curious. I looked in my parts book & shop manual. The parts book shows only the hex; the shop manual implies that the hex is '55 up, for the 239/256. Of course it does not list the 272 for '55 trucks at all, one of the interesting confusions of the Effies. Splitting hairs, I know; just curious for future investigation, something to stick in the back of the head when junkyard crawling.

Fifty4, I wonder if the reverse rotation you were thinking about was something from the r-r marine Y engines.

 

just love the sound of my stock y it still has a oil bath air clean

 

I saw something in Hot Rod about a 290 horse 312. Couldn't find it on line, but I did find this:

http://www.rodandcustommagazine.com/...739/index.html

We had a 292 in the '58 F600. Very distinctive sound, especially when starting.

Good luck, y'all.

 

Homespun91:

You are exactly right. I cannot explain why I thought that the slot and tang system was also used in '55, but I did, and I was wrong. I did have to change it out on my '54, but that's not '55. Now that I'm home for the weekend, I checked out my parts book and you are 100% right on. I stand corrected. Thanx!

 

Tim,

Actually, I was thinking that you were right, not the shop manual. The lone verified '55 engine I've torn down was a 239, & it was a tang/slot. At this point I cannot remember whether it was a Dearborn or Cleveland. It was in a F-100 & I have read in a number of places (famous last words!) that the '55 truck 239s are supposedly all Clevelands. If I understand correctly, it shouldn't make any difference for a '54, they are all tang/slot. It'd be nice to be able to say with some certainty that the 239s are the only ones where this might be an issue when swapping distributors. Is there ever any certainties, when discussing Ford engines?

If anybody with a 256, or an original '55 272 knows offhand what they have for the drive, feel free to chime in.

A lot of questions on various boards lately about the 239s. It seems to me that as the Y grows in popularity, many people want it for the nostalgia factor, not necessarily building the highest practical horsepower combination. So, they don't particularly care about 239 vs. 272 vs. 292 vs. stroker, etc. Anyway, it seems like more people are keeping the littlest Y nowadays.

 

Well, I certainly see no reason why one would dump a 239. I am keeping mine because I don't need high horsepower for what I want. I would like to see what kind of mileage I can get in a truck I just want to drive around daily. I like a motor that looks good and runs well, however.

I think that guys who hot rod the Y to its limits are very cool, and I admire their skill and knowhow.

A car or truck, in this game, is meant to be a personal statement and whether one is driving an F600, a restored 57 F Code Bird, or a monster 50 Merc stuffed with about 340 inches of radical Y Iron, all should be saluted for doing their thing well.

If I was doing a horsepower project, I'd likely be running an old Honda CRX with a VTEC Frank motor built on the 2.0 CRV block. Different strokes, for different folks!

I pretty much like anything that's well done, but do especially like an old Ford, from T speedsters (another lust of mine) all the way to bodacious FEs.

 

The main reason I am asking this question (about the 54 Loadomatic distributor) is that I want to get my F100 back on the road. The main reason I parked it (besides not wanting to pay the $100+ for a tag renewal) was that the gas tank is shot. It is full of patch on the outside and rust on the inside. When I was driving my truck (40 mile roundtrip and gas was 1.20/gal and rising) it only got around 10 MPG. I know it needs a carb rebuild and the aforementioned tank, but I was hoping that a quick upgrade to the distributor would improve that. Getting my truck in the 15 MPG or better range today would be a "performance" issue.

 

Gas Mileage is certainly a performance issue, as is engine longevity, in my opinion. I can't say that I ever measured the mileage of my F100 when I had the 239 in it. However, with a badly scored cylinder from broken rings and two flat cam lobes on other cylinders, the mileage was not noteably worse than with the 272 that's in it now.

Conditions of driving for the 239 were back and forth to and from work everyday from Park Country Colorado to Lakewood CO, which was a distance of about 36 miles and an elevation change from 8600 to 5200 feet and back.

The 239 was bone-stock except for the 1960 truck distributor and tuning as you read about on my page, and a 1957 312 Holley 4150 4v and ECZ 9425-B manifold, with the carb mildly reworked and rejetted.

I put in a bone stock 1957 272 and installed the above distributor, carb, and manifold. Driving at 55 mph, I drove between Colorado and Dallas TX, a distance of 800 miles, 5 times, 3 times down and 2 times back. Starting with a full tank of gas, I would fuel at Walsenburg, Dumas, and Vernon each way (that's where the gas was cheapest) and got 20 miles to the gallon, which I was able to verify because of the 5 times I repeated driving the route.

Compared to the Holley 4v, the old 3 bolt 2v Holley did not start as quickly and was not as responsive. The comparison of performance between distributors was like night and day.

I could always amaze people with two things: first, using the right choke and two pumps of the accelerator pedal, the thing would seem to start before I could push the starter button -- I mean, it started INSTANTLY! Secondly, the think idled smooth as oil, a trait even my dyed in the wool chevy friend often commented on (Which was most gratifying!).

I cannot see any reason why you cannot achieve similar results.

BTW, I have 3.92 stock rear gears.

 

I've got a 30 9" rear in my 54 that was originally in the 57 I used to have. I was hoping that would get my MPG's up a little as I thought the original 54 was 4:11. It didn't change much. I am wondering if changing to the 57 or later Y block would be the best bet.

 

subscribing

 

And forum mining. I don't even have my truck anymore!