1951 Mercury Flathead

gmanrides

gmanrides

Senior Member
I recently purchased a 51 Merc Flathead engine to build for a future project. I have a question about the water pumps. It seems these are different from all the rest and harder to come by. My question is will any other Ford pump mount to the block and work? The tabs for the motor mounts are irrelevant to me. It does have the thin belts on it and from what I have read the other pumps use a wider v-belt. It might be easier to change the crank & gen pulley. I also have to find a bellhousing for it. Thanks for any input.
 
Merc car,narrow belts and angled mounts,right? Will accept regular 8ba style truck pumps with wide belt and flat base mounts. Bell housing from 8 ba bolts right on.
 
Mercury cars used the wide and low mount pumps to work with the special engine mounts that they use. Any of the Ford car, truck, or Mercury pumps will fit the block. The truck pumps and 1949 Mercury pumps were wide belt. The others were narrow offset sheave type. Early type pumps from 37 thru 48 can be made to work on the 8BA type block with some modifications but they would rub on the late type distributor housing unless the engine was coverted for the ealy type distributor too.
 
I have a question, what are you going to use this engine in??? That will answers your question. It iz possible to install any ford water pump made from 37 to 53 on the block. The pre 49 nits will have to have sealed bearings in them. So there isn't any problem here.
 
Thanks for the input guys. I do not have the car yet but I am looking to set it in a Model A. I ran across the Flathead and thought here's my start. :)
 
You may want to secure the starter plate that goes with the bellhousing as I under stand there are different ones.
 
+1 on this. In the past, people seem to have been very good at saving the bellhousings, not so much the starter plates. Somewhere on the internet, there is a very good post showing all of the different bellhousing/starter plate combinations for later flathheads. You'd be surprised how many there are.
 
Thanks guy's, I have the starter plate. I looked at Van Pelts site and one from V8Bob and moefuzz from I think msn flathead forum. It's a little confusing but it looks like there could be two depending on early or late 51. I think I will check my plate again and bottom of oil pan.
 
Early 51 is the stamped type used from 1948/50. The late 51 is a completely different character. They are cast iron and have a rectangular starter plate and a bottom access cover.
 
I think you can use almost any standard shift trans with the stamped steel 49/50 bellhousing, but you will probably have to make an adapter plate.
 
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