Sleeved blocks

Ed Pitts

Ed Pitts

Well-known member
What year/years did Ford put thin walled sleeves in the flathead blocks and what was the reason for doing so? Thanks, Ed
 
1940-41-42 had the thin wall .040 steel sleeves. I don't believe the 39 had them. I think they were put in for a quick rebuild. Just pull out the sleeves and slide in new ones and you got a new engine. Ford use to make a .083 piston, you could remove the sleeves and hone a few .000 and have bigger engine. I remove the sleeves and bore another .045 and use Std. 100hp pistons, now you have a 239ci engine and with the 221 heads it had good compression and you can feel the differance. Walt
 
Ed,
I just tore down a 59 ab, 46 -48, which had non adjustable lifters, and ford valves, so I think it had never been apart before. It had 4 sleeves on the left side and none on the right, they look very thin. To me it looked like maybe they had a core shift, or some porous iron on that side of the casting. It doesn't seem right to sleeve an engine and sell it as new.... but I think thats what they did.
Flatheads for ever, Chuck.
 
Chuck, just found the same thing, 59A driver's side sleeved, passenger not sleeved. Don't know if it is pertinent, but when I used my new Neway valve seat cutters, the passenger, non-sleeved side seemed to go easier with the valve seat cutting more concentrically than the other side. But, that may be attributed to my learning curve as I did the sleeved side first.
 
My '46, 69A is sleeved in all 8 holes with thin wall sleeves. Bore is 3-3/16" and I'm unsure if this is a factory sleeve job or was done later as it has a Ford rebuild tag. I had wanted to do a 3-5/16" bore but since it has the sleeves and very minimal taper I had them cleaned up at 020.
 
Jason, did you have the sleeves bored or honed. It's about impossable to bore those steel sleeves. The meat comes out in a long string. I know a guy that brought one of those engines to machine shop near me, They didn't realize that it had steel sleeves. They tried to bore it and soon learned, they wound up honeing it .030 in a Sunnen CK10 automatic cyl. hone. Those sleeves are only .040 wall thick to start with. Walt
 
My 59L has sleeves in all 8 and was that way it was when I tore it down. I don't know the truth about the 59L blocks but I've read that they were either military or truck blocks so it may have been made that way. Anyway, I had it bored to 3 5/16 and the local race engine shop that did the work didn't say anything was unusual or difficult about doing it.
 
Ford tractors had the same sleeves.My dad was a rancher at Italy,TX and I had no interest in cattle whatever,growing up.I spent my time in his shop and replaced the sleeves in a 9N tractor by running a screwdriver behind each sleeve to "crush" the sleeve, to get it out.Then,I emptied Mom's ice trays and put ice cream salt with the ice to make a brine.I let the sleeves get cold and slipped them in,well, all but one.I bought another sleeve for perhaps $2.50 and slipped it in.Dad used the tractor for years after that with no problems. James:)
 
I am so glad to see the last note here. A lot of years back a couple of guys who worked at the local Ford dealer built stock cars to play with and I was watching them bore a block one evening. Well, they got to frisky and broke through the cyl. wall. there was a Ford tractor dealer operating in the lower section of the building and they just bored bigger and installed tractor sleeves, Perfect ! As I recall that engine would spin the tires on asphalt in high gear. Pretty peppy I thought. Bob
 
Ford used thinwall steel sleeves about 40-41 in Ford, Mercury & Ford tractors. You just peel out the old ones & drive in the new ones and you've got new cylinder walls. We had a special driver for them. One set of 8 would do one V8 or 2 tractor blocks.
It probably had to do with war production/shortage of new blocks.
Later sleeves are made of cast iron.
Bill
 
39 STD, there is nothing wrong with the steel sleeves if you want a stock engine. Most of us want a litle more power so we leave the sleeves out. Speaking of the Ford tractor, I've replaced many sleeves in those engines. Most of them had the .040 thick steel sleeves but they also had .090 wall steel sleeves. I had one that the .090 sleeves were loose so I bored it .100 over and used ,100 over V8 pistons. That tractor would mow some hay. Walt
 
Walt, They didn't remove the sleeves, just bored it to 3 5/16. It runs a little warmer than before but doesn't over heat with an unpressurized system. It'll go down the road at 185-190 and idle at 160. I did use Moroso ceramic seal on the stud threads and then treated the cooling system with it also.
 
Hi Rch, I'm just wondering what they used for sleeves to be able to bore .125 out of them. Do you know what the bore was before they started boring? Std. bore is 3.1875 Most repair sleeves are are either 3-3/32 or 1/8 wall. I guess if they used a 3-3/16 sleeve 1/8 wall and then bored it out to 3-5/16 that would leave you a 1/8 wall thiickness, plus whats ever behind the wall. I've got to have a cup of coffee. Walt
 
Well, I don't know at this point what the sleeve thickness was before we started but the bore size was std to begin with. Truth is, this was my first flathead build and despite reading and talking to people (a lot) I still didn't know enough and there are some things I would do differently the next time around. You're probably right about the sleeve thickness and frankly, I wouldn't bore to that size again because of the increase in running temp. The summer temps here make it tough to cool a motor like that and I spent too much time and money solving the problem that I created. It does run good though and I plan to drive it to Tampa next week so I'll let you know how it went. Rich
 

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This maybe a myth, but it makes for a good story. I was told that the Ford V8 had oil burning problems diring the 30's and tried many things to improve this condidtion. This was at a time when the life of an engine was probably 50,000 miles or maybe 10 years. AS roads got better an auto sales improved this oil burning became asales problem and the tin can sleeves were design to cure this problem. Even today the life of a Flathead is limited compaired to modern castings and design. Some of the new Ross pistons haven a thin ring that may be the answer, also chrome rings properly installed work well.
 
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