An interesting journey...

F

FLSTF

Junior Member
My dad bought a '39 Deluxe with a stock flathead. We were told the car had a Columbia 2 speed overdrive. Not having any overdrive experience, I started googling how the columbia overdrive works and any information i could find. While under the car, I looked at the overdrive and it looked nothing like i found on the web. I continued googling and taking pictures of what he had under the car. I determined that he actually has a Borg-Warner R10 overdrive. But it looked odd to what I was finding on the internet. Most R10's are attached to the tail shaft of the transmission. My dads overdrive is sitting in front of the rear-end. Back to googling, I found there was a guy in Ohio called "Mr Overdrive" who made this overdrive system. Mr Overdrive name wad actually Lloyd Young. While explaining all this to my father today and he knowing our journey, I found this magnet in his glove box today. Notice the name on the magnet? You gotta love these old Fords.
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Your car looks very good. I, for one, would not mind hearing more about this, as well as seeing some more pictures.
 
Nice looking car!!...You’ve come to the right place to find that answer.....I’d like to see pics of the unit as well......Mark
 
those were good overdrives, but they had a "big jump" into overdrive. i dont recall the ratio, but its quite a change
 
cas3 said:
those were good overdrives, but they had a "big jump" into overdrive. i dont recall the ratio, but its quite a change
Click to expand...


All those numbers work-out to roughly the .69 or .70 neighborhood, quite a nice ratio, actually! DD
 
For the color, we are not sure. We need to repaint a hubcap that popped off while driving down the road. When we find out the color, I'll let you guys know. It is a champagne color. We do get a lot of nice comments on the color :)


I only have a short history on the car based on information of the previous owner and a title from PA. The car was in Texas, moved up to Utah, over to South Dakota, then onto Pennsylvania (owners name was Ford) and a guy in Georgia traded his GTX and cash for the car. We found it in Georgia. The guy that owned it in Georgia passed from cancer while converting it to 12 volts and replacing the flathead. We completed the 12 volt conversion and swapped out the old flathead after we saw a lot of bubbles coming out of the top of the head. The block had 4 cracks. Now we have a strong flathead with an Isky Max1 cam. We baked the block, new cam, crank, piston, rods, lifters, valves....you name it, we replaced it. The rebuild cost around $5000. The key here is that my dad wanted an old ford with a flathead. I think we hit his goals...


Thanks,
Dave
 
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