Marine engine
- Thread starter Ol'school
- Start date
I would say the extra pulley or pulley's on the extended shaft were to drive a sea water pump to pump water through a heat exchanger and into the marine exhaust manifold. The adaptor looks homemade to me. A heat exchanger has engine water running through it moved by the stock water pumps with sea water around the tubes the engine water runs through. A typical heat exchanger for a small boat would be about 5"s in diameter and 14"s long. On a some harbor type tug boats there are 6" channels welded to the hull for almost the entire length with engine water going through them and the water outside cooling them. Years ago a tug boat company called in freezing weather and asked if I could build a machine to melt the ice in the channels which froze. I made machines for plumbers for homes. To melt the ice on a tug boat the whole hull would have to be warmed. Also had a call from a resort out west that had a 3 or 4" pipe 5 miles long frozen. They would need cables 4"s in diameter hooked up to the Hoover Dam. Just old memories. G.M.
Chris Nelson
Senior Member
I had a 53 Ford flathead with a marine transmission on it in my ski boat. It used the Mercury bell housing and the transmission bolted right up to the flywheel end. The flywheel stayed on and there was a stub shaft that bolted onto the same bolts as the flywheel used to bolt to the crankshaft. Most factory marine engines are mounted in the reverse position, meaning that the flyhweel is on the forward end of the engines. The flathead does not lend itself to mounting this way, so they are mounted with the flywheel on the back end where the reverse gear is mounted. The pan was standard issue. The exhaust manifolds are water cooled by an exterior pump or pumps in the case of the V8. The water is then exited into the the exhaust pipe after a goose neck that prevents backflow of the water into the engine. If you need parts to build one, there is a company in Hemmings "Not Auto Related" section that buys and sells old marine engines and they may carry some of these parts. I have seen flathead marine engines for sale in Hemmings.
Chris Nelson
Senior Member
The pullies that you see on the front end are for the two "sea water" pumps. In my case, I removed and blockded off the original water pumps and used just the pumps driven by those pullies. I drilled and taped the water inlet to the engine in the block off plates. The water outlet came out the thermostat area of the head.