Steel Pistons

B

Blowby

Junior Member
I'm freshening up a 1940 V8-60 to replace the tired one in my Bantam pickup. Pardon the paint, that's how I got it. It appears to have been very recently rebuilt and not run much but I'm going through it anyway just to be safe. Anyway the pistons are the steel variety and I am wondering how well they work? The bores are the matching removable sleeves and in perfect shape. Thanks, Paul
 

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I had a set I sold at a swap meet, and the guy was excited to get them. When I asked him what the big deal was, he was of the opinion they run quieter than aluminum pistons. I cant imagine why that would be. I would not hesitate to use them. Ford did.
 
Balance engine. I had a friend that had his 39 Merc engine rebuilt, they installed aluminum piston, the orginal one were cast iron. The engine was smooth until they rebuilt it, it had vibration, they had to strip the engine and have it balanced, the balance man had to take a lot out of the crank on account of the different weight of the pistons. Walt
 
The 60 i built for the 39 i used all NOS, the steel pistons weighed less that the alum ones removed, the NOS rods and pistons in the Ford boxed sets were all within 1 gram out of the box, the alum pistons had a 20 gram spread ---that engine performed to specs,very smooth,quiet, got the 39 to it's 74 mph top speed, and it had no problem doing it for hours on the parkway
the tin coated pistons were made to run against the case hardened sleeves
 
They were used in wartime 221 24 stud motors too. I stripped an original wartime Detroit built unit a few years ago and replaced the steel pistons with NOS Aluminium ones as that was all I could get. I guess with Aluminium going for aircraft steel pistons were a proven alternative for Ford. I kept one in the workshop for posterity.

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