HotRodTractor

I agree its not worth 2K. I didn't ask for anything near 2K for it either.... I did ask enough to make it worth my time to pull a head off of a perfectly good running engine and be able to replace it. Its not something that I need to put any labor into to make run unless I sell you the head. Its not something I need to sell. And most importantly I'm not the guy attempting to be picky about the specifics of the head casting without being able to give anyone the specifics of what your looking for.

Silly is stating how you can't find the exact head your looking for - then when someone posts pictures of one on a running engine only offering $100 for the head. Silly is saying that you can't find the head your looking for - and yet completely avoiding the question of which coolant bypass is needed (internal or external). Silly is looking for the head with the "correct date code" but still can not tell anyone what that is.

What date code?

Here are two motors with "P" heads that are installed in trucks that are in storage. Are either one of these correct for you?

I have everything measured up to swap a Pilothouse onto a '98 Dakota frame - but have decided to cut the front clip of the Dakota off and build everything behind it from scratch using the Dakota rear axle. But I plan on using a flathead Chrysler motor and that is driving some of my insanity. I'm think going to have custom steel rims made with the correct bolt pattern and backspacing to take car of the wheel issue - but I need to get a little further down the fabrication path to take some solid measurements - I might just reuse the Pilothouse rims and correct the bolt pattern issue if the backspacing will work.

Again - how do I identify the heads that I have to know its the one your looking for?

One of the cylinders should have a plug in the head right over the bore. Remove the plug and stick a long piece of stiff wire down the hole - turn the motor until the wire stops going down, mark the wire, turn the motor until the wire stops coming out of the hole, mark the wire, remove the wire and measure the distance between the marks. That is the stroke of the motor you have. If its a long block it should have the "standard" long block bore (escapes me at the moment - but its on here if you search). Using the standard bore and the stroke that you determined you will know the displacement. Unless its a real oddball motor.....

And that was my point...... there are so many variations to the heads that I have seen - and that is only a handful compared to many on this board that as long as it matches the block length, and the coolant system (internal versus external) it is the correct head - you could make the argument that you don't want one with a "D" cast into the top - but that is where it ends.

Heat dissipation is the main reason for going to an aluminum head.

The ebay auction is for an aftermarket Edgy 23" head - post number 3 is for a factory 25" head.

The factory head he is talking about is for the big block engines - not sure if they ever had one for the small block engines.

So.... forgive me for asking... what specific features do you require this head to have? Does it have to have a "P"? Any specific casting number? Internal or external bypass? Just what exactly are you looking for so I know if I have this "rare" numbers matching head you need? I know I have at least on "P" head on a Plymouth motor in a parts truck that I have and a I would be more than willing to go pull it for the right price, but I need to know what your looking for in this "correct" head.

A driveline shop can easily replace the tube and it won't cost an arm and a leg - a quick internet search around Vienna (assumption on my part) says that there isn't any closer than Cleveland or Canton - but my gut says if you look in the phone book you'll find someone. I use a place on the south side of Columbus called Driveline One - great group of guys that will tell you how it is and get you hooked up with what you need - they have dropped everything they were doing to get me a driveshaft for my pulling truck so I could make it to a pull on time. I don't know the condition of it - but I think I have a driveshaft for a 126" wheelbase truck with a 4 speed - but I think its a fluid drive tranny. I can look when I get home - but if your buddy wanted to come and get it I would give it to him. Its still installed in what is left of the truck - but that could be "fixed" quickly.

LOL.... I was at a motorsports event with a bunch of friends and teamates when I was in college in a town with a huge strawberry festival going on. I sent two of them out on the town to bring back strawberry cheesecake for the team - easy task right? Apparently they couldn't find the festival..... ended up buying frozen cheesecake at Krogers and heated it up on the top of the engine in a Honda (I think...) on the way back to the hotel to deliver it to the team. What a mess.... I wasn't sure if I was pissed because they could't find strawberry cheesecake in a town with a strawberry festival going on, or entertained by them cleaning the engine compartment of thier car with melted cheesecake all over the place. I've often thought that some hotdogs wrapped in aluminum foil on an exhaust manifold of a tractor would make a good lunch, but never tried it.

It looks sharp! I've read some of the threads you have about your truck - and one of the reasons I picked up the Dakota chassis (that and it was cheep). DOH! I had an epiphany while driving into work this morning. I now know exactly what my problem is. It is how I am approaching the problem. I want to lower the ride height and the quickest way to do that is to lower the body mounting on the frame - but when I do that and want to put the flatty in at near stock location relative to the body - BAM interference problem. If I mount the body on the Dakota frame so the truck sits at stock ride height there would be almost no issue. Then I could spend the money on drop parts for the Dakota and get my 4" drop...... not so sure I like that plan as I think I just defeated most of the purpose of buying the Dakota chassis to do the swap. On the bright side I think i found a 1982 Diplomat with a 318 in it that runs for $400 - that would be my volare style front end, probably a rear end as well, plus a bunch of junk that I can sell and recoup some of my investment. I think I'm going to go look at this car and bring it home - if I don't use the parts for this project there will always be another project that can use them.

OK - I'm home now and have ran around to measure and double check my notes just to see how bad this thing really is. Granted this is some off the cuff stuff so its not perfect, but it will serve its purpose. To install the cab on the dakota frame so the truck has a 4" dropped stance the cab mounts need to be 2 1/2" above the "straight" portion of the frame (back of the cab/front of the bed area). If I install the cab at that height, drop the steering rack 3 1/2", massage the crossmember the steering rack bolts to (major surgery required), massage the 265 oil pan (minor surgery), the engine will be sitting about 3" higher than if you too the truck and just dropped it 4" using suspension. So in effect it would mimic a 1" drop and a 3" channel job all on a stock height Dakota chassis. I pressume some minor firewall surgery would be in order, but I am guessing that almost nothing will have to be done to the floor because of the size and shape of the T5 transmission compared to the factory transmission. The only hicup to this is I need to get everything in its final resting place before I take on the custom intake I wanted to build for the motor as I think it might get a bit close to the hood the way I have envisioned it at the moment - but I can work through that. Now that I have a rough idea of what this process will take - I'll look into the volare route and see how bad that is going to be to basically achieve the same thing. Once I have an idea of what it will take then I can compare the two concepts and decide which route is the best for me to take.

Thanks for the link. I've done a little reading on the Volare frontend but that made it much more clear for me why its a good choice - I now need to go find one and take some measurements and see if I will still have some clearnace issues.

I've got a rear sump pan on the 265 right now and thats the best situation that I can hope for. I need to go back to my stash of parts and take some more measurements, but it seams to me based off my rough estimation that I needed to shift things around 6" (from memory- my notes are at home at the moment) to get the motor into a somewhat "stock" location.

I might be good to go if I can get some material out of the oil pan of the engine. I did some research on lowering kits for Dakotas and it seems as if they are getting three inches lower with just a-arm swaps and an additional inch using lowering springs. All of this is with the steering rack in the stock location, with the factory uprights. This tells me I can relocate the steering rack 3 to 4 inches lower if I have to and be OK with steering geometry - of course I need to confirm this. Doesn't anyone have any opinions on this? Is there a better solution to get some modern ride, better brakes, lower stance, etc on this old girl?

I'm a long time lurker - with only a couple of posts, mostly because I didn't have a good direction with what I wanted to do. I think I have a better concept now than ever and am almost ready to pull the trigger to begin, but have a few questions - let me give you guys some background: Back when I was 15 (1997) I attended an auction and purchased three ROUGH Pilothouse trucks - but they all had just enough good parts that I couldn't resist the tempation to get some decent parts for a hot rod project - shortly after I had purchased a pilothouse with a super solid body and a functioning driveline - it functioned well enough that I fixed a few little things and cruised back and forth to high school in it on the nice days - it looked ugly with its old paint job and rainbow pinstripping, but I was proud of that thing. Right after I started college I found an additional parts truck that the price was right and had some of the earlier grill components that I like the looks and style of better than the later grill style. Along the line from then till now I picked up a 265 Chrysler Industrial motor out of an Oliver Combine (best $100 combine ever!), a 1998 Dakota chassis, and a T5 tranny out of a Camaro - fast forward to today..... I finally have enough parts, and perhaps enough money to begin mixing and matching parts to do what I want. I would really love to have the modern suspension and braking of the Dakota with the looks and style of the Pilothouse truck, with perhaps some creative sheet metal work here and there. I would love to open the hood and have a hopped up 265 sitting in the frame rails just to be different. I have some pretty good fab skills and access to some serious tools. Now that I am at this point I have started taking some preliminary measurements and have a potentially serious issue that I need to research a little bit before moving forward. That flathead doesn't like my crossmember in my Dakota. Big suprise right? I have had that concern for a while, but wasn't sure how bad it was going to be until over the weekend. So my questions are: Has anyone converted thier pilothouse truck to an IFS setup and kept that flathead under the hood? How clearance does the motor need for the crank throw below the pan rails (the pan is still on my motor and still mounted in the framework that I pulled out fo the combine)? I have no issue doing some modifications to the Dakota frame, engine oil pain, transmission tunnel in the cab, etc to pull this off, but if it turns out I can only get 2" or so out of the crossmember (rack and pinion would need to be dropped some and I can only correct the steering so much) Maybe and 1" or so out of the oil pan, then I think the trans tunnel will need to be larger than I want and I will have to approach the project differently. Perhaps with a vintage hemi and a different transmission. Is there a better way to improve the stance, ride, handling, stopping power on the original frame? I'm not a huge fan of solid front axle trucks unless they have a driveshaft attached to them. Thanks! Jason

I pulled my 265 out of an oliver combine. The hole motor is mounted on a skid in the engine bay. 6 bolts or so, pair of hydraulic lines, fuel line, a couple wires and a BIG drive belt. I lifted mine out using a set of pallet forks on a skid loader. I pulled that engine out back in 2004 and left it on the skid. In fact I JUST fired the engine up for the first time since I owned it over Christmas. One thing to watch for is an oil drain line coming off the oil pan. I ripped mine when removing the engine because I didn't see it, thankfully I only lost about a quart of oil. Good thing there was lots of dirt on the combine to soak it up! Jason

Yep steel housing and external oil lines... Block ID is a IND265.....

Eh I already mess with turbo charged diesels, I want this guy to be NA - just because I can. A little background on me - I'm a farmboy through and through, grew up on a dairy and restored some old two banger Deeres over the last few years. I have an engineering degree. I have a tool and die degree and some machining skills. I built a 600Hp Powerstroke diesel pulling truck with a 3" turbo, makes 50+ pounds of boost, turns about 4200 RPMs down the track( will be 6,000 when the fueling issue gets resolved... LONG story but every 7.3 Powerstroke has this issue.), Has billet rods, custom made aluminum roller rockers (stockers are stamped steel - pretty sad....) etc..... There is no reason an old flatty like this can't sing a tune at 6,000 RPMs. I probably won't run it up over 4500 very often, but I want the option. Thats not a bad price for odd ball pistons.

I have a copy of several posts from several years back that Hudson had made over at inliners regaurding some oil modifications (probably 2000-2001 area???). This isn't the first time I looked at doing this build, but I plan on following through with it this time, before it was just information that I wanted to aquire. Thanks for giving me a heads up on where Hudson hangs out these days I do agree that the mean piston speed is going to be a bit high... but I think its doable at 25.4 m/s with some carfull planning, mathing piston and rod weights, shot peening and cyro treating the rods, and making sure the pistons are top quality - this probably means finding a new piston to fit into the engine. Now I have to go home and look..... I could of sworn it was a steel canister with lines coming in and going out of the block, but I have been tinkering with 4 different engines in the last few days and my memory is fuzzy at the moment. Thanks for your help so far guys! Jason

Hey Guys! I'm working on building a 1951 Dodge 1/2 ton with a bit of a hot rod engine ( I can't leave ANYTHING stock... its my weakness...) I have a 265 industrial engine I scavanged out of an Oliver combine. Well I actually bought the combine just for the engine. Best $100 bucks I have ever spent. I have a good chunk of the engine rebuild well under control, but I have a couple of questions. Valve springs.... I want the option to open this engine up when i feel like it (And I do mean OPEN it up and let er eat!). I would like to be able to NOT float the valves when doing so. I would like to make sure that I am good to 6000 RPMs. That will give me a little bit of a safety factor for what i really want to run as well as give me the option to use the engine in a different application down the road if I decide I don't care for it in the truck. Carbs. What do the stock single barrel Ball and Ball (Carter) flow CFM wise? What about the single barrel Strombergs like the BXVD-3 that was found on some of the Dodge trucks? I have my heart set on a progressive linkage triple carb setup and plan on making it very responsive even if I need to spend some dough to get the carbs that will make it work the best. Spending less money is always a good thing though and i have some Ball and Balls and Strombergs BXVD-3s kicking around the shop. Holding myself to a vintage looking triple setup though I am sure that triple 81s will flow exactly what I want..... Camshaft - Where can I get ahold of a regrinder that knows these engines and can give me a great grind for my app? HEI system - Where can I got to get a good conversion, or better yet is the a DIY guide for building one out of commonly available parts? Oil System - know that some if not all of these motors had a bypass oil filtration system. How is this system set up and how can I make it either a full flow system, or ensure that the bypass system actually is set up and works correctly? That should do it for now Thanks guys! Jason