Hrm. That 400hp seamaster motor sounds like there are some possibilities for it.

Thanks for the specs Loan Ranger. Someday it will prove helpful. I thought the valves were smaller than that, but it sounds like they're ok. I have to get tired of my new 390 first, and that will take a while.

 

I have only heard a little about this engine just the other day. Never knew it existed. Then I remembered something I read on a bit of interesting history with Henry Ford's WWII product development efforts. Apparently Henry was already making radial engines for air craft (per some one else's design) and thought he could do something better. He then developed a very big V-12 gas engine intended for some boats and land vehicles and was trying to sell it to the defense department. It was very innovative for the time but the Army said make us an V-8 out of it and we will put it in our light tank and other transport vehicles. So he did.

I wonder if the 534 engine family is a derivative of this big V-8 that Henry Ford developed for the Army?

 

Hey, Does anybody have a picture of one of these monsters? just in case i happen upon one i'll know what i'm lookin at thanks

 

Check another posting on this thread, some had links to photos. You'll know it when you see it.

 

The aircraft radial engines--such as used in the Ford Tri-Motor aircraft were typical of the radial engines of the day. The Ford planes used engine designs similar to the Pratt & Whitney Cyclone Radials. The Ford engines, while similar, used a slightly similar design and used lighter--and cheaper--metallurgical compounds. They were really great for flying per se--however, the Army Air Corps deemed them not tough enough for combat and/or bombing situations. Boeing and Pratt & Whitney got together on the B17 Flying Fortress and B29 Superfortress projects and the rest, as they say, is history.

For heavy Army trucks and some Sherman tank chassis, Ford produced the 572 engine. It was a rather "splayed" engine, so as to be able to fit the compact Sherman design--incidentally, it was the fastest tank (although NOT the toughest) used in World War II--with a long stroke. It was a torque engine for the transport trucks in high-cylinder pressure, high torque, low to moderate speed situations. Several of the 572's were left up into the late 70's. They were a very popular engine for tractor and truck pullers until the aluminum engines became all the rage (e.g. Merlin, Black, World, etc.). I knew a man in Williamson County, TN who had two super pulling tractors, each with five engines. One of them had FIVE 427 Cammers; the other one had FIVE 572's.

Ford did install V12's in Lincolns years ago.

 

I've heard the Ford Tank V8 story also....wasn't it 1000 cubic inches? Not related to the 534 except for the blue oval..... and wasn't it 60 degrees and a real shaker?


I'll google it.

OK, main designation is GAA, 60 degree, liquid cooled, a few other bits. The truck pull boys seem to be interested in these, as they had something like 1000 lb-ft of torque.

 

Does anybody know the size of the rod bearing journals on a 477? I just dropped the pan on a 1978 dump truck that I bought recently. One of the rod bearings was completely gone. The journal is egg shaped almost .040. Can the crank be turned down enough to correct this?

 

For the record, the B-17 had R-1820 Wright Cyclones, and the B-29 had R-3350 Wright Duplex Cyclones. The only Boeing piston engined bomber that I am aware of that had Pratt's was the post-war B-50 ( a 'souped up' version of the B-29), which used 28 cylinder Pratt and Whitney Wasp Majors, pumping out about 3,000 h.p.. The Ford GAA tank V-8 was a development of a stillborn V-12 aircraft engine that Ford was working on to power fighter planes (similar but a bit larger than the G.M. Allison V-12). The Army Air Force figured they had enough liquid-cooled V-12's with the Allison and the Packard built Rolls-Royce Merlins, so Ford went ahead and turned the engine into a V-8 for tanks. It worked very well, and powered both the Sherman and the M-26 Pershing.

 

hello, they used the 534 up into the 80's when they replaced it with the 460. it came out in 58, same time as the 430 linc. they are of the same design but i believe the 534 has a larger bore center. on the later motors they went to an indivigual runner intake manifold which helps.

 

I know Ford sometimes ran their marine engines in reverse direction w/reverse ground camshafts

 

As far as I can recall, the tank engines were 60 degree v-8's, not like the 90 degree v-8 around today, so the width was about the same as a 460. It was an OHC design, with shafts to run the cams, not a 10-foot roller chain. Hemi heads, too, and maybe 2 distributors.

 

Loan Ranger,
I have a cherry 63 Ford c1000 fire engine with the 534 gas motor and it is a big fuel hog (only have a 30 gallon tank). I think I can switch over to the ford duraspark ignition. Can you tell me the distributor specs for this and if they match any other ford motors so i can get one that will fit?. I have a hard time figuring out parts for this thing as they do not seem to be too common. Hey I am looking at getting a Thottle body injection system for it too and would like to get a manifold that has individual runners. Any specs on this? anyone else have this information?
thanks. P.S. I'm new to this forumbut I'll try posting photo of the engine/truck if anyone is interested.

 

Pull the distributor, and get a 460 electronic distributor off ebay. I got one a few months ago and it only ran me $15. Compare the two, and if the dimensions are the same, then I can walk you thru the whole conversion process. First step, tho, is to check and make sure that the two share the same dizzy. Reall, the same dizzy works for all the following: 260, 289, 302, 351W/M/C, 400, 429, 460. Not sure about the FE series, but those might be the same too. The only difference between them is the size of the gear. I think the jump from little gear to big gear is 351. The W is a small gear, and the M is a big gear I believe.

 

It might be a little tough to find, but many 534's in the later 70's had Duraspark as I remember. Maybe NAPA has rebuilt distributors for them.

 

I checked and you can get the rebuilt duraspark for the 534 from napa. The part number from napa 4822890. It's special order but it's only $68.00 plus $33.00 core charge. It comes from a 78' 534 I believe.

I just completed a mod though on my 1963 534 dizzy. The bushing was shot and the shaft was badly worn. So,believe it or not, I machined out the distributor for top and bottom sealed ball bearings and intsalled a couple. This effectively eliminated the slop that would affect the timing/dwell. I then installed a ford TFI module and TFI coil. The points are used to trigger the module as they put out a digital type signal that the TFI module accepts. The points, when used like this, dont carry higher voltages and thus do not arc or wear so you dont have to adjust them except maybe once every couple years. The points are hooked into pin 2 of the module; pins 1 and 4 go to the positive of the coil and 5 goes to negative on the coil. Pin 6 is ground to the body. Then the juice from the ignition switch goes to the positive of the coil as well for aq totalof three wires to the positive of the coil.



I started it up last night and it runs great once I nailed the timing. idles like a purring kitten at 490 RPM.