8BA or 8RT

Bill in Al

Bill in Al

Senior Member
I have a '48 F1 and it should have an 8RT engine. The heads are marked 8BA and I don't know if the RT engines were marked as such or not.The dipstick is marked RT. Does anyone know if RT engines were marked 8RT on the heads or not? The truck was restored in the mid-eighties and parked in '98 till I got it a month ago. Having a lot of fun with it!-Bill
 
I THINK the heads will have "8BA" on them. I KNOW the intake manifold has "8RT" cast on it. The last block I bought had EAB heads but the manifold had 8RT cast on it and the pan had the large clean out so I'm pretty sure it really was a truck engine. Hope this helps. Good luck.
 
Thanks,Henry. It does have the large clean-out and tomorrow I'll look at the intake-Could you tell me where to look as it is a bit dirty!-Bill
 
All of the 8BA intake manifolds also say 8RT, passenger car and truck. I have seen some trucks with 8BA heads and some with 8RT heads. don't know why? someone will say more.
 
Truck heads should say 8RT if you want to be a purist. That said, the 8BA (late flathead) showed up in the 1948 Ford trucks, and 1949 in Ford cars. I would have to look in my book to see if the 1948 truck heads were 8RT or not. The water pumps, if original will have 8RT, as well as the pump pulleys. The carb should read 7RT on the bowl.
 
1952henry said:
Truck heads should say 8RT if you want to be a purist. That said, the 8BA (late flathead) showed up in the 1948 Ford trucks, and 1949 in Ford cars. I would have to look in my book to see if the 1948 truck heads were 8RT or not. The water pumps, if original will have 8RT, as well as the pump pulleys. The carb should read 7RT on the bowl.
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I like your signature Owen, it makes me smile...
 
I have a truck with the 8RT heads. But I have often wondered if some of the trucks came with 8BA heads cuz I've seen so many of them. Hard to tell unless someone has a book because so many of the engines were swapped around...slim
 
truck should have 8rt on the heads, most of the 8RT heads were replaced as the years went by with the 8BA heads because the 8RT heads were lower compression, every body wanted higher compression heads
 
denverslim said:
I have a truck with the 8RT heads. But I have often wondered if some of the trucks came with 8BA heads cuz I've seen so many of them. Hard to tell unless someone has a book because so many of the engines were swapped around...slim
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As happens from time to time, I st@2b corrected! My 48-52 Ford truck chassis book, printed January 1952 states the 48-51 8 cylinder engines had head part number 8BA 6049 and 52 8 cylinder engines had head part number 8RT 6050.

I know the correct carbs had the 7RT on the fuel bowls for the F1-F6 trucks and had the rod choke linkage. The 51-52 carbs had 7RT on the bowl but were called the 8RT if equipped with the hand throttle; both hand throttle and choke lever were cable operated.
 
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