French flathead block

J

john greco

Senior Member
Hi just wanted to get some feedback on the French blocks , this one still has the governer hole I guess that's what it is in the back , the one I see on eBay doesn't have that it all smooth like the opposite side , please any feed back appreciated
 
The one on ebay has had the governor mount machined. You can get them in the original form or for more money, machined.
 

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I bought the cheaper one with the governor provision and did the machine work locally. After I plugged the extra holes I cleaned up the few blemishes with JB Weld, sanded it down and primed it, looked just like the one in the picture from SFFH.
 
The beauty of these blocks is: You can run a distributor from this hole. So I'm told. Wouldn't that confuse a few people. Be great for a dual plug head.
 
I used a 4 inch grinder and ground the mount off. No one has ever identified it as a French block. In fact I spend more time telling people about the French blocks than I care to mention. Hardly anyone knows that the French had anything to do with a flathead.
 
Just picked up a new French block and I was wondering if anyone has any pictures of what you find when you start removing the rear mount for the governor.
 
Go slow with the grinder. I can't remember but I think I plugged 2 holes with pipe plugs and smoothed it off with JB weld. My memory's a little fuzzy on that
 
Had a French block built for my 40 coupe and although it was close, there was no interference with the governor location being left alone. Gas pedal arm is right there but cleared fine. I left it alone and plugged the holes. I will have to look at my other block and see if it's there - that one may end up in my roadster w/4" crank, 080 over and an L100 cam ....
 
Ol' Ron said:
The beauty of these blocks is: You can run a distributor from this hole. So I'm told. Wouldn't that confuse a few people. Be great for a dual plug head.
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I really like this idea. For a competition car, anyway. Seems that there would be firewall clearance problems with anything else.
 
The Ford Cologne G29T engines had a distributor on the back if I remember correctly but I don't know how much similarity the SUMB engines have to it.
 
Some bondo or epoxy is needed to make the rear of the block look more like the Ford once the govener has been cut away. A trained eye will still know its not a Ford casting after the surgery.
 
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