Brosky said:
That brings back memories......I had an uncle who had a 49 Buick (remember the song Shlock Rod??) and it was painted the same color and the same way. .......
We also painted a neighbor's welding truck with zinc chromate using the mop method. And another neighbor's 5-window Chevy pickup the same way using left-over paint from the Fort Dix motor pool. The welding truck was a really quick job. We just spread grease on all the glass and lights and went to town. Then we probably wiped the grease off with MEK afterwards.
TOC said:
Not wanting to argue, but the last year for the V8-60 was 1940, That 47 F-1 was probably an 100HP.....
I'm sure you're correct. We always called <span style="text-decoration: underline">all</span> the Ford flathead V8s, "Sixty Series", even if they had the water pumps in the block. It's probably a South Jersey thing.
There was a number of French Fords built with the 60 horse engine later on, but not in the US. Our's was probably a 100 horse engine.
By the way, one of our flathead Fords (I think this '47) wouldn't start well when it was hot, so Dad figured it needed a valve job. We pulled the heads and pulled the valves. He bought a valve spring compressor for flatheads that I still have. Once we got the valves out, we wire brushed them and didn't actually grind them.....just lapped them like crazy. Then carefully ground the ends of the valves (handheld against a grinding wheel) so they'd be more loose. It probably tapped like an MG after that, but I think it started better.
Although I believe this truck had the correct engine, swapping in a "wrong" engine was almost a specialty for my Dad.
We had a '56 Ford pickup truck with a busted six cylinder engine. And Dad came into possesion of a ratty 144 cu in six cylinder Falcon with a good engine. So that tiny 144 engine went into the truck. It had the torque of three hamsters. I towed a Sprite to Bridghampton for my first race with that thing. Good job Long Island doesn't have any big hills.
Dad also put a 36 horse VW sedan engine in a VW bus when the normal 60 horse engine died. I'm not sure it could go more than 40 mph after that.
I'm sure we didn't have any Ardun parts back then, but about 10 years ago, I was at a race in New Hampshire when I saw one of Zora's original race cars (that's me with it below). Very primitive design and the welding on it was terrible. But apparently it ran good and did well at the '49 Watkins Glen Grand Prix. Another good friend of mine owns the actual car that won that '49 race (another flathead Ford "special" called the Ardent Alligator).
I met Zora one time (at Watkins Glen in '69). He was driving a Corvette show car (Mako Shark, I think) .