Hanging flatheads?

Ross F-1

Ross F-1

Well-known member
I'd swear I saw this pic here, but can't find it. Ford actually posted it on their Facebook page for some reason. My question is, what are those funky bellhousings for? Irrigation pumps? I can't figure why some are truck engines and some are car engines, some with a sheet metal cover on the lower BH, some with big holes in the upper half of the BH's. Anyone know the history on this? (If this was on here already, can you point me to the thread?)
 

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A friend of mine with a 49 or 50 F8 truck with the "big" flathead 8 that also was in the Lincoln Cosmo showed me and extra engine he had with a big funny looking transmission on it that was made by GM of all things, not a conversion, factory. Could be something like that. In 1942 Ford made a "Liquimatic" auto trans that is extremely rare, not sure what they looked like.
 
Is it possible those were rebuilt engines / The line up had different ones in line / different Oil Pans /& different paint colors / also the paint covered water pump pulleys as well as the carb mounting surface was painted ~ is it possible those Bell's were to be able to connect to some type of Dyno ~?~?~
 
My guess would also be rebuild/paint/test facility. They are probably being hanged after going through a painting facility/oven and the bellhousings allow hookup to a dyno or maybe some sort of electrical hookup for bedding in.

Neat pic.
 
I thought the BH's might be for the running-in that I saw in the Rouge Factory films, but those were spun up with the trans attached. If these are rebuilts, it would make sense that they wouldn't have a trans to attach to them. But these are complete with starters and exhaust manifolds? They sure have plenty of paint on them.
 
Anyone else notice that one of the bronze engines has a green bellhousing with bronze overspray on the front? This indicates to me that these odd bellhousings were re-used at this facility, which lends credence to the dyno/run-in theory. (Run-in makes more sense to me; I doubt the mass rebuilders bothered to dyno their engines.)
 
........Bigger and easier to look at! I'm thinking "rebuilder" also (because of the two different colors), and that those housings must be for some form of run-in. DD

204315
 
Looking at the size of the chains, the cleanliness and the number of engines I would have to say in house at Ford. The picture was posted by Ford themselves, so it would have been one of their own facilities. (You'd think).

Mart.
 
That oil pan dead center is unusual, I can't say I've ever seen one with that channel pressed into it. As far as the run-in theory, why have the sheet metal pan on the bottom of the BH?

The BH setup reminds me of a stern drive, could these be for marine use?
 
These engines also have brackets attached to the front , my guess is that both front brkts. & bellhousings are attachment parts for rotating engine stands they were built or rebuilt on .
 
The picture appears to be from '50 to '52, (but probably late'51 to '52 based on VanPelt's color data) because of the narrow-belt staggered water pumps (starting in '50) on the bronze car engines, and the cast 1/2 bells and rear sump oil pans on the green truck engines, last used in '52. The center channel on the car engine oil pans was on all '49-'53 Ford/'52-53 Merc center sump pans, both smooth sided and ribbed.
It looks like the trucks were tested with their cast bells attached, and used a shorter adapter, while the car engines had a longer adapter bolted to the block with a lower inspection cover, similar to the production '52-'53 Ford/'51-'53 Merc covers.
 
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Lawrie said:
I,m impressed on how much weight the chain conveyor is carrying
Lawrie
Click to expand...

It took me a minute to figure-out that the horizontal drive-chain is not carrying the weight. Each engine is hanging by a short, link chain attached to it's own wheeled trolley,which rides on that horizontal beam. Each of the wheeled trollies is attached to the horizontal drive chain. DD
 
This is actually a disturbing picture. After Ford introduced the Y block they took flatheads and sent them down a chute where they were shocked between the water pumps to put them out of their misery. They were then hung on this line and disassembled into their component parts which were sent for re-cycling, steel one place, cast iron another, etc. As many things Ford did this process was copied by the meat packing industry and is used today to produce boxed beef that we find at our local mega mart.
 
That photo is actually in the book Ford at Fifty. It was taken at the Atlanta assembly plant. I posted this same photo on FTE wondering about the engine colors. The orange engines are for the '53 passenger car, the green ones are '53 for trucks. I wondered too what the piece was bolted to the half bell.
Mark
 
Same dog and rail system used in packing plants. When I worked maintenance in one several years ago our chain pushed 225 head of cattle at a time on the kill floor. Amazing the weight they will handle. There were actually 3 chains driven by one jackshaft and four 75 hp frequency drive motors. Rod
 
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