Flathead Help.
 

I know a guy here where I live that has a bunch of old cars and trucks. Well 90% to 95% is cars. But! These ford cars have have flathead V8's in them. I have found 3 so far. One is in a 52 Merc, and 2 is in 52 ford cars. These cars has been setting since the 70's he told me. The Merc and One ford car is complete. The ford has NO interior though. All I'm interested in is the flathead motors. He is the type of guy who likes to be offered money. The Merc ran when it was put in there in the 70's b/c he drove it in there his self he said. The 2 fords his sons put in there. So he is not sure about them. I know flatheads are bad to crack and I would be taking a chance on one if I bought it. The Merc he will not part out, he wants to sell it as a whole car and I don't need a whole car. So I need some advice from you all who know alot about flatheads. And keep in mind if I buy one of the motors I will have to take it out.

1. What should I offer him for a motor?
2. Should I ask to pull the heads off the motor I want or pull the heads off
both the flatheads to see if they are cracked or not. And then make a
offer if one of them are crack free.
3. Or just take a chance and buy one and hope for the best.

The only thing I am affraid of is both of the ford cars has no out side damage on them. So something has to be wrong with them some where. Either the motor or trans or rear end is no good. B/c I don't see why someone would junk 3 cars like this in the 70's. Or maybe he bought them cheap and was going to part them out back then and no one bought much off either car. I have a picture of the Merc if anyone would want to see it. I have not figured out how to post pics on this site yet. But if you would want to see them I can email them to you. Just send me your email address and I'll send you some pics of the Merc and some other pics of interesting cars. Anyway if anyone can give me some advice on how to go about offering some money to this guy to where it would sound good to him and be a good deal to me to I am all Ears!! Thanks Scott

Buying a Flathead motor is like buying a "Pig-in-a-Polk", unless you look inside the bag you don't know if it's a Pig or Skunk.
Unless I can look under the heads and at the pan rails, there ain't no cash leaving my pocket.

Your right about that 4tl8ford. I found 2 more flatheads that are apart. One is just a block and has already been acid dipped and checked out for cracks. The other has the heads off of it and no visible cracks that I can see. I'm going to deal with this guy first and see what I can do with him as far as buying the motors. The other motors I would have to pull out of the car and check them out.

do you know what he wants for the 52 mercury??

He's asking $2000 for the Merc. It is a whole car but I think he is going to have to come down some to sale it. It has been setting out since the mid-70's. It even has the sun visor still on it. He won't sale parts off of it. He said if someone wants it they have to buy the whole car. I would say in both of his fields he has 150 -200 hundred cars. He has a 64 or 65 ford falcon in there that all it needs is a front clip and you would have a nice little car. I found a 4-door yesterday for sale. I thought about buy it and the 2 door falcon sprint from him and putting it together and having a nice car to play around with.