Value of a Ford Flathead?
 

Hello. Can anyone tell me what a 1954 disassembled flathead might be worth?

whatever you can get out of it . without it running so you can judge if it has any issues , it's a pig in a poke so i wouldn't expect more than a couple hundred at best . if it's a 54 then it's a canadian engine . last year for the flatty here was 53 .:)

Are you selling it as scrap iron or for parts .

Seeing that it is disassembled, have you had it checked for cracks? If the block is cracked, it is worth scrap price, depending where the crack is. By chance a four inch crank, worth more?

yep i'm kinda looking for a 4 inch crank myself .... prolly gonna have to go ta an aftermarket unit as they are hard to find here 'bouts ... my buddy norm bought 2 running 8ba's and a complete 8cm merc for 350 smackers and he won't share the spoils with me !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:-X21 to bad ya weren't a lil closer i might have to visit ya and have a look see ..............:)

I just sold a '53 flattie out of a car to a guy in Australia for $600, I think I got lucky. He bought it on my description via emails and pictures. It had four stuck valves, which I got loosened up, and it ran fine. The engine came with a panel truck and another loose '51 truck flattie I bought for $500.

I sold a stuck flattie about five years ago to a guy who just came to my shop after seeing it sitting on a chassis I had sitting outside. I told him it was stuck but he still bought it. That was 5 years ago, before the economy tanked.

Just to give you an idea. Like Kevin said, you get whatever you can get for it. Being apart lowers the value, IMO. If you find a guy who knows flatties he might appreciate having it apart so he can see the internals. For a flattie guy it probably isn't too much work to bolt it together and get it running.

I paid $500 for a bare block that had been tanked, inspected, and the small cracks that were found fixed, essentially a guaranteed good block. I also paid $500 for an engine that turned over easily, was complete, and had the heads off and the deck scrubbed for visual inspection of the deck (which looked good). It turned out to be a POS, had 6 stuck valves, and a crack on the side of the water jacket. You just never know.

Even seeing one run is no guarantee, because many of them with cracks get sealed up with rust. Soon as you hot tank them and start boring, there ya go...

What they said.

I bought my '49 with what I was told was a Merc Flathead. Supposedly the truck was parked about 40 years prior because it needed a valve job. I decided to sell the engine because I couldn't afford to go through it. I listed it as "condition unknown" and a fella drove 4 hours to buy it because he was restoring his '49 Merc and wanted that particular engine. He paid me $350 for the engine and another $50 for the flathead radiator. Was it a Merc engine? I don't know because you have to measure the stroke. The buyer was willing to take a chance, and we were both happy.:D

So again, whatever someone will pay.

Flatheads are funny animals. I have talked to different people about flatheads. Some will tell you they buy running flatheads all day for around $100, then I walk away and start talking to another person and he'll tell you you'd be lucky if you can find a stuck flattie for less than $500. There seems to be no real consensus to the value of these engines. If you can sit on it and are not in a hurry to sell you could get probably $500+ for if the right person comes along. If it's in the way and is getting knocked around, it's going to start deteriorating and parts will be lost, then the value will only go down.

One thing to consider, unless you have the engine stripped down and thoroughly checked out, do you want the guy you sell it to for big bucks coming back with a report that the machinist found XX cracks in it? Make no comments as to its condition unless you are darn sure, and sell it for a price that reflects "as-is, no warranty" and emphasize "no returns". Just my opinion...

I posted my flattie on a few different web sites including CL with very large pictures and full disclosure of what I knew of the condition. The engine wasn't perfect and had a few minor problems. All of my posts listed it "As Is". The Australian guy wanted me to assure him that the engine would be a good engine worth rebuilding. I replied back that I wasn't an engine expert and could not guarantee anything about the engine only that I had it running. Like with anything else I sell, I give full diclosure on the condition, good and bad. I don't want anyone coming back to me and accusing me of cheating them although I have a couple come back at me.

Basically, I don't like people screwing me and I don't like screwing others.

Many years ago I sold a set of F-1 fenders to a person that I had patched up. When he came to look at the fenders I turned them over every which way showing him where and how I patched them. He snatched them up but later called to give me a hard time because he said his body guy had to rework my patches and there were so many of them it cost him a small fortune to have the fenders made perfect. I reminded him that I showed him every patch in detail and I also didn't put a gun to his head to buy them. I didn't cheat him, I was honest.