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As someone who stepped up to the plate 10 yrs ago and bought a finned Head for the 230 i was building from Earl and after freight it cost over $1200.00 Australian I would suggest that one reason for the cost of these is purely an economic one based on the market size.........I sincerely hope that they HAVE to make hundreds if not thousands to satisfy the demand but unfortunately that may not be the case so the smaller number that are made result in a higher cost............just hope it remains a viable proposition for all concerned..........andyd.

I am a fan of removing the inner fender, removing the tappet covers, get in there and get a good look at things just funning around seriously, do what Merle says first but if it doesn't run, I would remove the plugs and rotate the crank by hand to see if ALL the valves move... sometimes you can gently pop stuck valves down with the valve spring. if not pull the head, lets get this party started!

You probably have a valve or 2 sticking in those cylinders with 0. The others could be sticking rings. It may not be easy to start, but I've been able to get my truck started with sticky valves. It'll start on a few cylinders and the others will come online once things start to warm up and the sticky valves begin to move freely again. I'd forge ahead and see if it'll start... Or you can remove the valve covers and see if you can get the valves to close. Or you can pull the head and start your way down the rabbit hole. (I'm this far, I might as well fix this...)

Believe me I understand you. I literally worked on mine every day just so I could keep the momentum going. It is the best thing ever when you get it going down the road. Hardly a day goes by when I don't get at least a big thumbs up from someone. These trucks simply put are the just the best option out there for a rewarding project. They got it all going on.

A little update on parts suppliers. Made a purchase order from Egge about 3 weeks ago. They were still waiting on valves and guides. Apperently they get them from Kanter and it would be another week. Frustrated, I called Terrill Machine. He has everything for our flatheads in stock and shipped that day... and it’s cheaper.

...And that means a proper hitch, wiring harness, chains, and brakes to go with it!

those unit are in my opinion too heavy and bulky for any truck..new or old.......you would probably do better with a nice locking bed box and put your tent and bedroll in there for safe keeping....

Here's one I had on hand. Its a "special", no side trim or horn ring, but it did come with heater, defroster and radio. A Pennsylvania hot rod, the heater works and so do the wipers, both needed with the weather we have been having. Running a 67 330 horse 440, stock except for an old holley 750. 727 torqueflite and an 8 3/4 posi rear out of a 68 charger. I've owned it since the early 80's, it was an old hotrod when I bought it. Stock suspension, Master Power Brake discs on the front, 11 inch drums on the back. Much original 39 stuff, especially the interior. The little bit of yellow between the door and front fender is the remains of a flame paint job it once wore. The car is my psychiatrists couch; all I need is to take a ride and my troubles go away. best regards, brian b

Mine was asleep for a long time too. I had old primer no cool paint like you have. So I ended up doing a frame off and had a pro spray all the body in pieces after I took it down to bare metal. Went through most everything but did not rebuild the engine. I did pull the head...the oil pan and the valve covers though because I did not want any nasty surprises. The engine had been rebuilt and when a friend and I inspected it it seemed like there was not too many miles on the rebuild. But the cooling system itself was a real mess with one of the worst water distribution tubes anyone here has ever seen and tons of rust particles in the water jackets. Cleaning it up was a very long and drawn out process in itself. To make a long story short it ended up taking me about 3 1/2 years to get it back on the road. There is often a lot more work to getting one of these back on the road than we think when we start. I and many others here could go on and on with our own experiences. Instead I will just tell you that whatever you end up doing you will be happy with it when it is all done. They are fine trucks and very unique in the best way. And you will know that you have a bunch of "buddies" here that enjoy the journey and can answer just about any question you can think of. Jeff

Welcome. That truck is going to be very cool when it is back on the road. 10-40w is fine for now. If she runs decently just do frequent changes to begin with. I have a truck that I revived after a long nap. 10K trouble free miles and it is still running fine. Dropping the pan, etc...is not a bad idea either. I found quite a mess in my oil pan before I ran it even though the oil looked clean. You can easily go down the rabbit hole if you are not careful....but a clean oil pan is never bad. Jeff

Saltrock, The type of oil I would choose would be dependent on what I find in the pan. When you drain the oil try to fish around through the drain hole and see what you find. If there's a bunch of sludge I'd probably go with a straight grade non-detergent for now. If it seems fairly clean I'd use a normal multi-grade oil. Again, if it were mine I'd do as little as possible first. New oil, with investigation as stated above... check/add coolant as needed... Check points and wiring to them... Check compression (if needed)... Try to get running. Once you have it running, and warmed up, you can then evaluate what will be needed. 1. Does it run nice and smooth with minimal smoke? (It may smoke like a freight train at first due to your dose of ATF and dust/condensation in the exhaust system) 2. Are there any major leaks? (oil / coolant) 3. Was there sludge in the oil pan? (May want to address this in the future, along with the valve tappet compartment) 4. Any strange noises? The answers to these questions would determine my next steps. If you can answer YES to #1 and NO to the rest, then get the brakes in proper shape and drive it. (as long as it has decent rubber)

Really? Paul I have been unfortunate enough to witness stuff that looks like what you are building come apart on the freeway.

I looked at the Edgy head way back when, but didn't buy one because I didn't like the fact that there was no water outlet at the firewall, so there was no way to run water through my Edmunds manifold. I ultimately found an Edmunds head, which cost me as much as the Edgy would have after I cleaned it up, installed Timeserts for the damaged sparkplug holes, took a skim cut on the surface and had the head polished. Marty

I think they are a hell of a buy. I told the Dodge Boys when they first announced these heads and the target price to put me down for 1 230 head and 1 251 head,and followed up by buying both on the same day. I also found and bought a NOS Edmunds head for the flat 6 Ford engine in my 51 coupe a couple of months ago. Only took about 5 years to find one,and don't ask me what I had to pay for it. It's too painful to talk about. The good news is that since it was NOS it had never been milled or mounted and warped,and you can bet your bippy I will be getting the top of the block surfaced before it is mounted,and that I mount and torque it VERY carefully when it does go on the engine. This stuff in good or even repairable condition is not getting any easier to find,and it's going to get harder to find with every day that passes. On top of that,if you wait 3 or 4 years to buy one,chances are a used one is going to cost you more then than a new one does today.

These are 5.2/318 manifolds off of a durango, they hug the block pretty tight.....just in case you need to look for different ones. Unfortunately I do not know what years, sorry.

If the latch is cable operated make sure to push the cable all the way back in. Cable could be seized and open need of lubricant

not good for you overall health......if you liked riding a bit in the past, get yourself an older vintage bike well heeled and rebuild it. that will get you puttering about enough to work into short rides when the bike is finished. Get you off the couch and moving if nothing else. Spring is upon us....no time like the present to get active

Hood latch on my 1950 Coronet has a little spring to pull the latch to the closed position.. Maybe that spring is broken on yours..

Focus on getting it running first. It's possible that some piston rings are sticking too. If you get it running, sometimes a good heat cycle or two will help free things up. It's not uncommon for an engine like this to have around 50-60 psi compression, but they'll start and run at that. A good engine should be in the 100-120 range. You might even want to drain the oil and feel around through the drain plug to see what's in the pan before dropping it. If you don't find a lot of gunk maybe just refill with good oil and get it running. Then just change the oil frequently to help flush out the old crud. My thought process is to minimize the labor before a test fire attempt. If you hear it run you can better determine your course of action from there. Merle

Since you are not restoring for show points,pretty much any single barrel carb used on inline 6's between 200 and 250 cubic inches would work fine for you as long as it has the dashpot and linkage for use with a auto trans.Holley 1904's are good carbs used on everything BUT Mopars for a couple of decades,so they are fairly easy to find with dashpots. Getting kinda pricey these days,though. If it were me,I would look for one with a part number that indicates it came from 215 or 223 OHV Ford 6 because as-is it would be a pretty good match for your 230. Stay away from the ones used on 170 cubic inch Falcons or similar displacement engines unless you plan on running dual or triple carbs. In that case,they would be close to ideal. I am no expert on the port sizes of various Mopar engines,but I suspect you could find a little more power and maybe even fuel mileage by going with more modern intake and exhaust manifolds. The 50's 230's made a LOT more power than the 34 201-whatevers,and being able to inhale and exhale is a large part of that.

Let's face it; there are too many variations of piston volume, piston depth, valve cutouts sizes and gasket thickness/volume to make any conclusions about what compression you will get with any combination of blocks and heads. If you want to know, you measure everything; if you don't want to know, you bolt everything together as is and it will probably work just fine anyway. Marty, who did measure everything and had a 9 to 1 motor with an Edmunds aluminum head.

remind me to give you a noogie when I see you

welcome indeed! nice truck. a trick I like to use on those rusted bolts when I can, is use a wire brush or steel wool or a scotch brite pad etc. on the exposed part of the bolt and then hit it with PB blaster. lots of times the PB will break them loose but then your fighting crud all the way off.

Welcome to the “family”. What you see going up and down below the spark plug holes are actually the valves, not the pistons. But that’s a good thing too. Sometimes the valves get stuck open after sitting for long periods. On the oil filter, give the cover some taps around the edge with a small hammer, or rubber mallet. The gasket is probably gluing the cover to the canister. On the air filter, spray down the wing nut with some PB Blaster, or similar, and let it soak a bit. It’ll probably come off OK. Paper filter conversions aren’t too difficult. I did mine many years ago, but mostly because it had been sitting in the weather when I got it and parts of it were rusted away. Otherwise the oil bath, when cleaned and serviced properly, is a very good air filter. It looks like it’s had a few different layers of paint, and someone has been stripping some of it off already.

And....,let's face the ugly reality that a thousand bucks ain't what it used to be 10 years ago,either. Inflation. I used to carry 20 bucks in cash around on me years ago so I would have a little spending money if something came up. Now I carry 100 bucks.

You seem to have a screw loose/missing...:)

So we agree that if the manufacturer gives you the CCs of the chambers then its OK - and those numbers should be easily provided to you for a new head no matter what the material it is cast in. The way your post read it was like aluminum it was a great unknown, but making it of iron would solve that. Making new heads out of iron wouldn't be difficult, but it would be spendy because of the new molds required.

What's stopping y'all from just driving "it"? down here? Haha

LOL, that look was not from driving the truck....... she is not a fan of having her photo taken, let alone being recorded. side note, our hopes of bringing the truck are diminishing fast..... last year I borrow my neighbors trailer, for this year, I asked him back in November if I could use it again. He recently loaned it out (in January) and he doesn't know when it will be back. sigh, well, that won't happen again.... time to get my own (have a bigger trip in mind for next year)

Took me 62 years of hard work to get 52 weeks vacation.

After purchasing a '47 Chrysler Windsor 4dr that had been sitting in a garage for over 8 years, I have finally got it to a point that I feel the car deserves. The previous owner past away a few months ago and had the vehicle stored away untouched as he was getting too old to maintain or drive it. The widow sold it to me for a great price since she knew I would restore the car back to its original glory and keep it in my family, and most importantly, DRIVE IT. It took me several weeks to accomplish but now the engine runs beautifully with a cleaned up engine compartment and the paint has been properly hand buffed and waxed. The interior was already in great shape but I am meticulously going through and replacing any dash wiring that needs attention due to dry rot. All fluids have been replaced except for the fluid drive since I haven't been able to source the fluid; finding the tranny fluid (SAE 10W) was hard enough to finally locate at TSC. I'm very proud on how she turned out and was able to give the original owner's widow a ride in it today. She was amazed on how it turned out which made me very happy.

Nice you need to video this...

Seems some like to piss in other Wheaties! Stock steering clearance? Trans mount? Can he weld or have others do it? Here is a motor mount kit, trans mount kit to fit with 1" passenger offset for $300. http://www.butchscoolstuff.com/eng-trans-mounting-kits-4/ DJ

Who cares! Building a car is supposed to be fun. Take your time and enjoy the build and all of its challenges. Don't let them get you down A lot of doom and gloom here lately.

Bringing this back so I can add to it. I finally got to road test it and I hadn’t made any other changes besides the intake and headers. The exhaust is y-piped into a single 2.25 pipe going through a stock 2010 Mustang GT muffler exiting before the rear tire. It sounds pretty good and works well. Engine is a fairly stock fresh 230 with a .030 overbore and .050 off the head, cam is stock. It has a modified slant 6 distributor, 1.5 ohm canister coil, HEI module and plugs set at .040. Using 7mm resistor wires. Went from the stock intake and exhaust and Carter carb. The ignition system was already done so it is not new. Other than taking a screwdriver to the Weber’s, I haven’t made any changes, they are Langdons out of the box First impressions: BOTTOM END improvement! Big difference down low! It idles really well and better throttle response all around. Even works ok with the Fluid Drive despite not having a dashpot but I may add one. 2000 rpm and punch it: good improvement. Slight bog when the secondaries open but it pulls through and if you roll into it, no bog at all. 3500-4500: I’m almost never there but I backed out at 4500 and it was still pulling so I’m definitely not running out of carb. Overall I’m very happy with the results. Hope this helps someone who is considering similar mods. Adam

maybe not, it could make the 11 o'clock news....

this one makes it look like a steal..... https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/csw/cto/d/1948-dodge-truck-for-sale-in/6500295123.html