Tomorrow I am taking my one head ,the one that leaked, to a very reputable machine shop to have it checked for flatness. He told me to bring along the old gasket so maybe he can figure out why it leaked.

I was looking at the label on the wrapper of my new gasket. It said, "Ford Truck V8: 239 Engine 1954-55 (1954 used w/cyl. Blocks and Heads marked EBV) (1955 used w/cyl. heads marked EBU).

The label on the first head set gaskets said Ford Car with a long list of different sized engines from 1954 256 to 1960 312. there was no mention of truck engines.

Both the old gasket set and new gasket are Felpro.

So my questions:
1. Did I have and do I now have the correct head gaskets?

2. Is it a problem if I put an EBU head on my 54 truck 239 when my old head was an EBV? The new head is marked EBU 6090. The old head (original to my truck) is marked EBV 6090-A and marked 'F' inside a big 'C' indicating the Cleveland Foundry. Does it match up OK. I think it does. My right side head did not leak.

 

These may be of interest to you https://sandiego.craigslist.org/esd/pts/6064347411.html

 

Those won't work on an early 239, the water passages won't line up. Dennis

 

I have a machine shop working on my 239 Abe but am always researching this odd ball engine. I found a couple of sites you might want to check out.

The first one is a cylinder head chart. From what I read late 54' and 55' had the EBV. The most interesting thing is what it says in blue a few lines above. "C" PREFIX before casting # EXPORT CYLINDER HEAD CAST IN CANADA for use in CANADA, AUSTRALIA, SOUTH AFRICA. Not sure if this is the "C" you are talking about or not. This might throw a wrench into the situation. I hope not. There is also a comment about the 6090 number. Says it does't mean anything?????

The second link is the gasket set for an EBV from Egge Pistons. Here again it says for late 54' and 55' EBV Heads. Maybe you could compare your gasket to the one in the picture.

I sure hope you get it figured out Buddy. I feel like I can feel your frustration!

LINK 1 - Y

LINK 2 - https://egge.com/part/bst-1500-rs572g-4/

 

Thanks guys. I think I am worrying too much. I bought these heads from Dennis. And as he said above these heads won't work on an early 54 and my engine is a later 54. So I might be getting paranoid, looking for the next bad thing to happen.

Update: I got home about an hour ago from a trip to a very reputable machinist. Why so late? My wife went along and we had to go out to eat and then Sam's Club and some other store....

He said the head surface looked a little rough at the back end which is where I thought it leaked. He said when do you need this? I said no big hurry but as soon as possible. He said he could do it right now. It would take an hour. He lives way out on a mountain road, so we went back into town and had dinner . We went back to pick it up around 4:30. He said it was a bit low at that end. He milled off .004" and charged me $40.

 

That's great. I'm crossing my fingers!

 

Thanks. I feel better now since I now have a reason for the leak and hopefully a solution. Before I was guessing and speculating and thinking the worst.

 

Here's a thread on the differences between an early 239 and later 239 water passages. I put G heads on my 239, but you have to drill some holes in the block. Dennis

239 early block

 

Wow, nice work Dennis. Were you a bit nervous drilling into your block?

What are the G heads from and what year?

 

I'm still always confused about early 239 vs. later 239.
Since I have a 55, I defiantly have the later 239. For those, heads do exchange.
How do I know? My engine was rebuilt by a major re builder in the late 60's and here are my heads:
Driver side: EBV-B
Passenger side: ECG-C (Note this is a head for 272 so they do interchange)

Sounds like you got a great deal Abe. Spring is here so get Betsy up and going.

 

The early 1954 Yblocks were built at Dearborn. Midway through the year they were cast at the Cleveland Foundry and hence the 'F' inside a big 'C' to denote where they were made. I have never found what date "Midway through the year" was. The one way to tell for sure is to look at the distributor. Hopefully, I'll get this right, the later dizzys had a 13 tooth gear, the earlier ones had.... 14, I think. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

The early ones were 13 tooth, all the rest are14 tooth. I changed to the '57 and up style distributor for centrifugal advance. Had to remove the 14 tooth gear and replace it with my 13 tooth gear. Also had to replace the oil pump and drive rod so everything matched up.

My G heads are 1956 before they posted them for extra strength. Dennis

 

I had it backwards. Thanks Dennis. I knew you would know.

 

Hey Abe!

Dennis, My OE EBU 239 (Dearborn) for my truck seems to have a crack in the block somewhere as water slowly mixes with the oil. I purchased a EBV 239 that had already been rebuilt and that is mounted in my truck now. I was hoping to start it up but found water filling up the crankcase. This is not a result of the head gasket as they were new and are mounted correctly front to front and one face down and torqued to 55, 65 and 75 lbs (FelPro gasket 1955 239 through 312). I want to see if one my heads has an issue that allows water into the oil passages. Here is the question: Will other Yblock heads fit the 1955 EBV 239? I do have my EBU 239 heads and they are obviously different than the EBV so not attempting to use those. It is difficult to find EBV 239 heads (or 256 for that matter) but 272, 292 and 312 heads are somewhat easy to locate.

While I'm at it... is the fuel pump for the EBV 239 different than the EBU 239? Before I noticed water in my crank case while I was attempting to start it, I noted that no fuel was visible in the glass bulb of the fuel pump - I was messing with that when the dam broke lose on the water and water flowed out of the crankcase breather. Still need to solve the fuel pump issue too.

 

If you have a’55 EBV, any of the newer heads will work. The water passages will line up. The early 239 EBU fuel pump has a straight arm, the fuel pump arm on the later y blocks have a bent arm.