This is a two part question..My newly acquired 48 F1's engine had a skip to it when I bought it. I checked the compression and found #1, 6 and 7 had 40-50 pounds and the rest were about 100. I looked in the radiator while it was running and saw lots of bubbles as if there is a head gasket leak. I pulled the heads and found that the left head had been off. The bolts were easily loosened with a 3/8 ratchet. And they used a head gasket for the right head. I didn't set down and line up all of the holes but would the wrong side head gasket cause the leaking into the coolant?

Part two is it appears that this engine is a mongrel. Its an 8BA with A2933 cast behind the right side head. It has narrow groove pulleys on the crank and fan. It has wide groove pulleys on the water pumps and the generator. The generator and pumps are driven with a narrow belt that rides in the bottom of the V. What year is this engine? Can I replace the water pump and generator pulleys with narrow ones?

 

Narrow pulleys were for cars. Wider pulleys were for trucks. Either one will work.

 

What it sounds like you have is a car engine put into a truck. That is what I have, too. The major complication is the water pumps/sheaves. If I had to do it over, I would buy a wide-groove crank pulley and get a truck fan. How many blades does your fan have? Is it the type with sealed bearings?

What I did, not knowing better, was transplant car (narrow) WP sheaves onto truck WP's. You need truck WP's for their mounting ears. I'm running two narrow belts. Now if either of my WP's fails, I need to buy truck WP's and swap sheaves again -- it's not a fun job!

I've heard that '53 truck WP's have the ears and narrow sheaves, but I haven't confirmed it.

As far as the head gasket goes, Yes, I believe using the wrong side gasket will result in a leak.

 

I had a car flathead in my 52 when I first bought it. Had the narrow pulleys.

 

well according to van pelts wonderful snippets of info they say yer'z is a 52 model . all the mix matched parts are not uncommon . a few wise men on here told me when i got my 53 that there is no such thing as an original flatty as when something broke or wore out , peeps would just go find one somewhere and take the parts they need ............. that bit of info should tell you the early ones and the late ones can interchange parts , and the late model ones really can from what i've seen of the stuff i have laying around . 51 panel man is right . i got narrow belts on the 53 effies powerplant and my 52 customline has 'em too .

 

Kevin, do the '53 truck WP's have the ears for earlier style mounts?

Ilya, someone undoubtedly put narrow sheaves on truck WPs on your '52. The '53's were the only trucks to have narrow belts.

 

'53 V-8s did not have waterpumps with "ears". They had the same pump casting as Ford passenger cars of that year but did not use the same mounting system (The mounting provision on those pump castings consisted of two tapped holes on an angled surface low on the outboard side of the pump). '53 V-8 trucks had a unique, one year only mounting system which consisted of a stamped steel yoke that fastened to the front of the block behind the crank pulley (very much like the front mount of a Y-block) combined with a special cast bell housing that had "ears" for mounts.

 

That makes sense. The water pumps look like they haven't been touched in years so I'll rebuild them and convert them to narrow. The generator is a new rebuild. I'll see if i can find a narrow pulley for that too. Thanks guys!

 

Thanks for the clarification, Dale!

 

Personally, I'd convert everything over to wide pulleys, and run the belts in the diamond shape configuration, which is original to the '48 F1. Which is what Ross mentioned in post #3