Starter plate question

glennsanders

glennsanders

Senior Member
Can a Ford car 8ba starter plate be used with ECM, truck bell housing ecm oil pan .They look the same except for the rib across the middle of the Ford one
 
glennsanders said:
Can a Ford car 8ba starter plate be used with ECM, truck bell housing ecm oil pan .They look the same except for the rib across the middle of the Ford one
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Not sure exactly what you are asking but if you want to use the starter plate from a car with a full bell housing on a cast iron 8rt truck 1/2 bell housing or a Merc stamped steel 1/2 bell housing then the answer is no.
 
there are two variables. the half circle cut out for the crank comes in two sizes. i believe the large cut out requires an extra bracket underneath also, some starter mounts are flat/parallel to the plate. those work on full bell housings that are flat. the other style, the starter mount is at an angle to the plate. those plates work with the bells that come down then angle back toward the engine. search for ford flathead starter plates, good info out there. there are more than you would guess.
 
I believe you are referring to EAC since that's was the later prefix for the 1952/53 Mercury set up. Truck oil pans and bell housings (with corresponding indented starter plate) have to be used as a unit due to the rear dust seal mounting plate. Ford car bell housings and oil pans are different (center sump and angled starter plate). The Mercury cars used a cast iron bell housing beginning in later 1951 so they have to have to rectangular starter plate and the bottom access cover plate for them to work. They use the same center sump pan as the Ford cars in 1952 & 53 model years. The 1949 thru early 51 Mercury (8CM) has a flat starter plate with a reinforcement bracket that bolts to the oil pan with three studs & nuts.
 
Let me start again.The man has a Mercury 49-53 using Ford truck bell housing with 39 3 sp trans Mercury rear sump oil pan.So witch starter plate would he use?
 
glennsanders said:
Let me start again.The man has a Mercury 49-53 using Ford truck bell housing with 39 3 sp trans Mercury rear sump oil pan.So witch starter plate would he use?
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First photo shows the truck plate and Merc plate. As I understand it either should work as long as the starter mounts parallel to the plate. Second picture, shinny plate on left is a car plate that mounts the starter on an angle and the black plate on the right is the one he needs. The truck plate needs the aluminum dust shield. Third picture.
 

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Not necessarily so. You can use the 49 thu early 51 Mercury starter plate with the mercury oil pan. The truck oil pan is the one that has to have the aluminum dust shield plate and the truck indented starter plate. Mixing and matching parts is limited with the different setups. Mac VP's site will give you illustrations but mixing and matching isn't covered. The old flathead techno site used to have working photos of all this stuff but it is no longer accessible for linking to this site.
 
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I am running an 8BA with Merc oil pan (with the 3 studs), truck BH and truck starter plate. No problems. I had to make a brace to go from the 3 studs on the oil pan to the truck BH.
 
The truck and Mercury starter plates should be usable with either the pressed steel half bell or the cast iron one as long as your not using the truck oil pan. It's a good thing to remember the relationship between the oil pans and the bell housings. That old techno site pdf file illustrates the relationship pretty well.
 
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