Vintage Edelbrock heads

Randy1944

Randy1944

Senior Member
I picked up a couple of vintage Edelbrock alum. heads for a 1949-1953 Flathead Ford. Both heads are marked “F 7-5 M8”. Could someone tell me what this information means? Also, some help with information as to how to remove stubborn bolts from the heads. Thanks
 
Randy1944 said:
I picked up a couple of vintage Edelbrock alum. heads for a 1949-1953 Flathead Ford. Both heads are marked “F 7-5 M8”. Could someone tell me what this information means? Also, some help with information as to how to remove stubborn bolts from the heads. Thanks
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It is the compression ratio. F is Ford 7.5 and M is Mercury 8 compression ratio.
 
Charles, Thanks for the information. Now if I can just address the bolt removal, I am in great shape. Incidentally, the heads came from an old drag strip racer.
 
Try a battery powered impact wrench with three power settings. Start on low setting; first tighten for one second, followed by loosen for two seconds. Repeat the cycle as needed, up to maybe five times. Then switch to the middle power setting and again tighten for 1 second, followed by loosen for 2 seconds. A few came loose on the low setting, all the rest came loose on the middle power setting. If you have to go to the high power setting, you will most likely wring off the bolt. How do I know? Because I wrung off 7 bolts by starting on high before I learned to work my way up.
 
Are you taking the edelbrock heads off or are you removing heads to put them on a block?

The reason I asked is because I had a set of vintage edelbrock 7.5 aluminum heads that we put on a friends engine. After they where on, we hand cranked the motor over. There was some interference somewhere and the motor wouldn't budge. Turns out the heads had been over milled. Luckily we didn't fire the motor up. Might not be your case.
 
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Tinker said:
Are you taking the edelbrock heads off or are you removing heads to put them on a block?

The reason I asked is because I had a set of vintage edelbrock 7.5 aluminum heads that we put on a friends engine. After they where on, we hand cranked the motor over. There was some interference somewhere and the motor wouldn't budge. Turns out the heads had been over milled. Luckily we didn't fire the motor up. Might not be your case.
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always check the clearance on heads before you fire it up! with used parts you never know. I have a set of f8 m8.5 edelbrocks on my 239 that i had to mill off about .050 to get the right piston clearance. ended up having to clearance the valve area afterwards but I knew that was a chance going in. I measure the valve pockets and piston height to get a rough idea of clearance and if it's remotely close I will clay the heads with two gaskets on to see how tight things are.
 
Thanks all. Right now I have one bolt that has been twisted off. (holds coil bracket). The water outlet pipe that hooks to heater hose is frozen in place. My situation is that I have parts of an old(1950-60’s) dragstrip motor. It is out of a local car raced here in my County. I have Edelbrock heads and a three carb Edelbrock intake. I also have a four stoker mercury crank and a isky ground cam. The old block (1951 mercury)is on the way to me. My hope is to restore the motor to it’s condition during its drag racing days. We shall see.
 
It should be; it's been sittin' around doing nothin' for all these years. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.):o
 
I’m back. The block has been bored to .60. I dropped the block off at my local machine shop. Now I have to wait to see if the block can be used. My plan is to set the engine up in an engine stand and be able to start it up and run it. I have some doubt about using the drag race cam. I don’t think it is best suited for an engine stand. Tough starting and rough idiling might not be as good as using a calmer cam. Ideas?
 
Well, I don’t want to offend anyone. I had a chance to get this engine and “jumped” at the opportunity. It was in scattered pieces and not totally complete. I decided to gather the pieces and buy the other pieces and complete it,so I would have a handy replacement in case the one currently in my pickup “gave up the ghost”. Maybe it would have been better to leave the engine in scattered pieces,but I choose to believe that the engine will be happier back together and ready to run. A proud engine is better than a scattered one. - in my opinion. I really do love this site and don’t want to offend anyone, but give an old man (me) a little leeway. Thanks
 
Relax man. I was just poking a little fun at "Ol' Ron". I myself am a great fan of run stands, and have a lot invested in mine. I wouldn't be without it. I had a problem once with a fresh build that was a simple repair on the stand, but would have required pulling the engine out of the car had I gone that way. The engine currently on the stand is going to get an oil pump swap which should put some finality into the question of whether Speedway oil pumps are any good. Because this engine is currently on my test stand, this will be a pretty easy exercise, which I would probably not take if the engine had been installed in a car.

Sorry if I roiled anyone's feathers; I was just having a little fun.
 
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Gonna bring back the “bored” comments. I have found the motor has already been bored to .60. The block is at machine shop to find out if it is still able to be used. I’m afraid of finding cracks that can’t be addressed within reason. We shall see.
 
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