Howdy Y'all,


I have a 55 F-600 and it's got an EBV 238 OHV V-8.

My crankshaft pully has a big chunk broken out of it where the radiator fan belt rides AND the fan pully is for a narrow belt. The crankshaft pully (for the fan belt) requires a much wider belt.

It appears that someone replaced the fan/bearing/pully and it came from a car or something?

1. Does anyone have a front cast pully in good enough shape to use (Ya wanna sell it?) and,

2. Does anyone have a fan pully that matches?


My other choice is to use a Flex-a-lite electric fan. (they're pretty expensive for the fan that will completely replace an engine driven fan)

I just finished adjusting the valves (0.020" cold)

I'm just about ready to drive it away. My next fix is to replace the rear main rope seal and pan gasket and install a Pertronix electronic ign kit.

It appears that my distributor is pretty much worn out. The vacuum advance actuator has a hole in the diaphram. Does anyone have a suggestion on a replacement?




Regards,

Rick

 

Rick, if you are interested, I think I still have a complete 1956 and earlier body, with new points, condensor and vacuum advance, you could have VERY reasonable.
May include new gear, would have to look. You would need to put it all on your shaft.
Mike

 

If I understand your problem correctly, you have several avenues to take. Here is my interpretation of what you have said:

1. On your crankhshaft pulley, there is a big chunk that has cracked off of the fan belt sheve.

2. Because this happened, someone took the stock fan from off of the water pump bracked and you now have a fan that has been mounted to the water pump shaft.

3. You don't want this setup anymore.

Now, there are two kinds of front setups (that is, timing chain cover + water pump) and they are TRUCK & CAR and each of these have two versions, EARLY & LATE.

TRUCK stuff has a timing chain cover that has front motor mounts (actually, T Birds use it, too) with a water pump that has a bracket cast on it to mount a separate fan. The fan is driven by a wide V Belt. (Note that this did change later in time: On pickups, the fan was moved off of the bracket and put on the water pump shaft, like a car's.) On this water pump, the heater hose barb will stick out of the passenger side of the pump at a horizontal angle.

CAR stuff uses a timing chain cover without the long bosses to accept a frount mount, and the water pump has no bracket. The fan is mounted to the water pump shaft.

All of the 239 stuff is EARLY. EARLY stuff uses a smaller water pump that is not interchangeable with LATER stuff. LATER stuff uses a big water pump.

The EARLY timing chain cover will only accept an early pump, and the LATER timing chain cover will only take a late pump.

The EARLY timing chain cover uses a fuel pump that is mounted upside down and has a straight arm. The LATER timing chain cover uses a fuel pump that hangs and uses a bent arm.


So, for water pumps, think of a table:

___________TRUCK___________CAR
EARLY_____|small-bracket_____|small-no bracket
LATER_____|big-bracket_______|big-no bracket

For timing chain covers, think:

____________________________TRUCK_______________CA R
EARLY(straight pump arm)_____|small-front mount_____|small-no front mount
LATER(bent pump arm)________|big-front mount_______|big-no front mount

Now, are you working this big truck? I think that if you are working it, you may find that your electric fans may not last very long. In a pickup, for instance, you would pretty much only need the fan when you poke along in city traffic. On the road, you are usually fine. But if you are working the truck, you will need a fan running a lot more. The electric ones are good when you don't run them so much. Otherwise, use a mechanical fan. If you live in a hot area, slant your requirments to need a fan that runs more, naturally.

The small water pumps are not easy to find. And, if you are working the truck, a bigger water pump may be nice. In this case, if you can find the later front cover for a truck, you can use the more common bigger water pump. NAPA, last time I checked, could order rebuilt bigger pumps with or without a fan bracket -- you can see the advantage to a bigger pump. But, you have to get the matching truck timing chain cover, and you need the matching fuel pump, too.

If you are working the truck and you don't want to change the timing chain cover, I think you will have to find another solid hub pulley.

Otherwise, an electric fan might work for you.

On the distributor, get a 57 and up unit. For your big truck, you will be better off with a truck dstributor with a "CTOE" number, that is, one that has a "T" in the second place of the part number. Trucks that are working need less advance than cars, and that's what the "T" means.

When you pull your old distributor, immediately count the number of teeth on the gear. If it has 14 teeth, don't worry. If it has 13 teeth, you will need to take that 13 tooth gear off of the old distributor shaft and put it on the new distributor, which will have 14 teeth. (Note: If you have 13 teeth on your old distributor, you have a DEARBORN motor, if you have 14 teeth, you have a CLEVELAND motor. This is important for other parts internal to the engine. Most every truck, especially in 1955, should be CLEVELAND, but I mention this so you will not run into some odd situation.)

There is one other thing that you may have to change: Older cars and trucks often used a tang-and-blade oil pump drive. Later ones used a hex drive shaft that is common to all later Fords. If your engine uses a tang-and-blade oil pump drive, you will have to change this to use the later distributor. You will need a new hex drive shaft and a new hex drive oil pump.

If you use the 1957-up distributor DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT hook up the vacuum advance to the same vacuum connection your old distributor used. Hook up the vacuum advance of the new distributor to manifold vacuum source. Your old distributor looks like that it has a vacuum advance unit, but IT DOES NOT! That is a Holley Load O Matic distributor, and if you care, you can read about how it works on my page M571.com/yblock, where it talks about ignition and the Load O Matic.

If I had your truck and I worked it, I would: Find another pulley, find a big pump timing chain and use a big water pump and fan mounted on a bracket, get the later distributor and convert the oil pump if necessary.

I guess you have some junk yard scrounging ahead of you.

 

Howdy,

You sir, are just what the doctor ordered!!

You answered most of the questions I wanted to ask but didn't know who to ask!


Yes I want to be able to work this truck a little. It originally came with a 223 I-6...Someone installed an (evidently) EARLY EBV 239 in it. It's got the fan bracket (the fan is not mounted to the water pump) , big crank pulley, small fan pulley, upside-down fuel pump, and a very strange looking distributor that breaks apart in the middle.

The heater hose DOES connect out the passenger side of the water pump...and the front eng mount does connect to the front housing..


I am not excited about using an electric fan....Those motors do not produce much HP. ...so they cannot be moving much air... a fair amount of HP is needed to move the air needed so I would rather use a flex fan or an original type fan.

It doesn't appear that the water pump ever had a fan attached to it. The water pump is not even close to aligning with the middle of the radiator.


It appears that someone put this engine in this truck and maybe mixed and matched some parts to get it to work! (all this probably happened when I was in Jr High School (in the 60's!))


You must be Timmy! I took the time to read your excellent info on the Y-block.
Thanks for that info! Evidently I have a Load-a-matic distributor. Yes I'd like to swap it out for a later one and I'll look for one. I'll probably get myself another oil pump so it'll all match up. I presume the shaft lengths are the same.

I am a little confused on the "HEX" drive though....I seem to remember that my 57 FORD 292 had a "blade" type oil pump drive. I just checked my 57 FORD shop manual and there it is.....the dreaded HEX drive! My memory sure isn't what it used to be!

It appears that I'll need a new front pulley, a later model distributor, a new oil pump and the correct fan pulley. No problem.....I donno where I'll find this stuff but I'll start looking!


Thanks for all the good info. Without the internet I'd probably give up!



Thanks again,

Rick

 

Well.....this stuff just gets better and better I guess.

It appears that my best choice in crank pulleys is to get a pulley that has a NARROW front sheave and just use my existing fan/bearing/sheave that mounts above the water pump.

To that end I called Joblot Automotive and to my surprise they have a "narrow" crank pulley and it's winging it's way to me as we speak! (well maybe it's crawling it's way actually).


Now I want to replace my old Load-O-Matic distributor with a later (57 or newer + a pertronix set up) one and it appears that I'll need to replace my oil pump with a newer one too so I can match the "HEX " drive.

Timmy, If you see this, I'll also relocate my vacuum source from the carb to the manifold as you suggested. Am I still OK using that Holly Load-O-Matic carb with it's integral vacuum port plugged?

If I understand correctly all the Y-block oil pumps will fit all the Y-blocks.....the difference being the the "TANG" and/or the "HEX" drive and shaft.

Joblot will also sell me either an oil pump rebuild kit or a new oil pump. Is there any advantage to a new oil pump (I don't know how new it actually is...it's probably "New, Old Stock" etc). I don't know how many miles this thing has on it and it's probably a good idea to rebuild or replace the pump in any case I suppose. I need to be down there to replace the rear main seal anyway so I'll do it all at once.


Anyone have any other thoughts on all this stuff?



Thanks,


Rick

 

I have a distributor from a 64 Ford F100 Y block with the Pertronix kit installed that I would like to sell. Email or PM me to discuss.