Shipping isn't such a problem, I have found a few places that will ship reasonably. The drama is that I need someone over there to find the parts for me and get them to the shipping agent, I just don't have that.

 

PM or email me the details of what you need and I'll see if I can assist you.

 

I have a line on a 69 or 70 F100 that I am sure I can get the rear out of. But I am in Alaska.

 

Ahh, sadly F100 gear doesn't work, needs to be 8 stud from F250. Freight from Alaska might be a killer too!

 

Some progress being made but the taxman isn't letting me spend as much time on it as I'd like to.

New bushes through the suspension, a bigger job than I thought it would be, luckily I was able to borrow a set of reamers. The old bushes took a lot of getting out, they were worn too thin to press effectively, I had to screw a piece of threaded bar into them and beat them out.

Body work is continuing, the cab is much much worse than first thought. Rear cab corners are replaced, everything behind them was rusted away so had to rebuild the lot before the skins went on. The floor is all there but thin so I have decided to lay a good layer of fibreglass over the inside. I'm looking for new front fenders, the old ones are saveable but will chew way too many hours.

I stripped the old flathead, it had huge cracks from 3 valve pockets through to the cylinder walls and going almost halfway down the bore. My machine shop was willing to give it a go but it was going to be about $1500 in machine work and no promises. I had a stroke of luck though and picked up a never started, fully rebuilt engine at a great price. Just needed painting. I decided to go with red as it seems to be the colour for commercials but I'm sure some will disagree. It is actually a chevy colour but was the closest I could find, I think it looks pretty good.

I bought a sandblast booth so lots of little bits have been getting stripped and painted ready for the assembly.

 

Wow!! That's a thing of beauty. Even GM red. Hope ya didn't get any over spray on the Jeep truck. Plan on a video with sound when ya fire that flat motor up M8.

 

Oh yes, there will be sound. I just ordered a set of Reds headers "fat fendered" headers, I'll mate to them to a pair of glass packs and it should sound sweet!

 

I want a flat motor just to put a glass top on and sit in my living room as a coffee table.

I know where there is a flat motor on an army truck mounted yarder that is freaking huge. It's way to big to have ever been in a truck. I wonder what it is. I was told it was a Lincoln of some kind. Maybe Numberdummy knows.

 

Funny you should say that, I am considering making a coffee table from the original motor.

You need to post some photos of the big flatty! I'm searching for a massive flatty at the moment for an America LaFrance style speedster build. So many projects, so little time.

 

Yes The next time I get up on the north end this summer I will see if I can get some pic's of it. The engine is as big as a full size pickup cab. It was on the back of a truck with the yarder drums and dwarfed them. Wish I had found out more about it than But the guy that had it was breaking up with his wife and so was I at the time. Not his wife but mine. Bout all I can remember is he said it was a Lincoln industrial engine.

 

Engine does indeed look good. Tis a pity 'bout the old flathead. Cracks do happen with them, sometimes irrevocably. My '49 8RT motor was cracked in two places betwixt the valves and down the cylinder walls twenty years ago. The machine shop I was using at the time had a couple of old hands that had dealt with such problems repeatedly, and they assured me that they could be repaired.

By drilling the ends of both cracks, then stitch plugging the fault, they were able to seal the block up. The two affected bores were then sleeved to finish the job. As stated, that was around 1990 when I had the work done, and the engine has ran flawlessly since, and have logged around 18K miles on it. Just in case though, I have a spare '51 8RT block complete that needs an overhaul (been sitting in the weeds for a number of years, so is probably pretty crusty by now, but no doubt usable with a bore, etc.).

Thats the thing with these old trucks. You start out with one truck, one engine, one tranny, and the requisite number of parts to make it all go. Then after a few years, you end up with enough generators, heads, water pumps, blocks, etc. to build a fleet of them.

Like throwing a couple of wire coat hangers into the closet and waiting a couple weeks, the things mate and produce a wad of wire hangers such that you have to do battle with the mass every time you get something out to wear.

Dave

 

Re: engine color selection.
Whatever moves you is the correct shade of flathead . Henry wasn't correct all the time .

 

My machine shop was basically going to do the same thing but they said this was about the worst they had come across, and they do a lot of flatheads. Also it had obviously broken some rings at some point which had taken bites from the cylinder walls of two other pistons so all up I was looking at at least 4, probably 5 sleeves plus a lot of crack repairs. I won't scrap the block though, I can see 8BA blocks becoming scarce enough in the future to make it worth repairing. In the meantime, either a coffee table or painted up nice as a shed display.

I like your attitude old merc, I think the deep red will look great with meadow green paintwork. The truck won't be 100% original anyway, dana diff, no widowmakers, 12V etc.

 

I did a bit of looking and Ford first used the Dana 60 rear axle in 1955 or 1956. This means that any 1972 or older F-250 rear axle is an option. I purchased one out from under a 1965 F-250 for possible use in my F-2.

 

I measured a 77 model, it was quite a bit different. I'm getting to the point though that I'll just cut the spring perches off and weld new ones on, as long as the drum face to drum face measurement is the same.