Rusty O'Toole

In a similar situation I made a shop floor out of wood, it was very effective. First level the gravel with sand, or rake the dirt smooth. Cover with builder's plastic as a vapor barrier. Put down sheets of styrofoam. Cover the styrofoam with sheets of tongue and groove Aspenite flooring. Paint with floor paint. I made a floor this way in an old chicken house my brother used as an upholstery shop. It lasted for 10 or 15 years then he moved to a new house. If you were not worried about warmth and insulation you could dispense with the styrofoam. As long as the Aspenite does not get wet it will be ok. We didn't nail anything down or fasten the floor in any way. It just sat there.

You do not say but it seems your floor must be dirt or gravel. In similar situations I have used pieces of plywood to make a solid surface. A sheet of plywood under the car allows use of a floor jack. Pieces of plywood 3 feet square under the jack stands. I don't like the ramp idea unless you give them a wide enough base that they can't tip over sideways. Also as has been pointed out, makes it difficult to get under the car. Whatever you do don't take any chances when working under a car. When you put it up on stands try to push it over before you go under it. If you think, he's crazy I'm not knocking my car off the stands then it is not solid enough. You must have confidence that you can't knock it over no matter what happens. If you do not have this confidence fix it so you do, then try to knock it over. I don't want my car to fall off the stands but if it has to happen, better when I am not underneath. Remember you may be pulling, prying and hammering on parts under there.

If you are not familiar with the old fashioned grease cups, you take the cap off and fill it with grease. When you put it back on tighten it snug and this pressurizes the grease. Every 500 miles tighten it up, it will take about 1/4 turn. When the cap bottoms out take it off and fill up again (after 5000 or 10000 miles). You don't have to tighten very much just till it is snug. In the old days all kinds of industrial machines used this style of greaser.

Tim this is a good point. I ran into the same exact problem years ago on VW engines. Every once in a while you would go to take the spark plugs out and they would rip the threads right out of the head. It turned out, Champion spark plugs are a hair longer than the OEM Bosch. They stuck into the combustion chamber just a bit. If you left them in too long they would get a buildup of hard carbon on the end that would take the threads right out of the head as you unscrewed them. I put it down to a metric length vs inch length. You used to get much worse deposits years ago with leaded gas.

To continue Dave's thoughts- the valve spring compressor pushes up the spring, a magnet helps remove the keepers. Once you release the compressor you can remove the valve and spring. Put each assembly in a ziplock bag and mark its location. With all the valves out you can lift the lifters up. Clothes pins can be used to hold them up. With the lifters out of the way you can remove the camshaft from the front of the engine. Be careful not to scratch the cam bearings with the cams. Sometimes you have to turn the camshaft to get it to clear. When you take out the lifters mark them or keep them in order, they should go back on the same cams. They are broken in to each other, if you mix them up it can cause them to wear out in a short time.

I have a suggestion for cheap upholstery, I hope you do not think this is too crude. I did this in the early 80s on a 59 Ford pickup and it came out great. The original seat had been replaced by ill fitting buckets (*bleah*). The only correct seat I could find was out of an old dump truck and was completely beat, it had been sitting with the windows open and the upholstery was beat right off it. Not having any money or time, I went junkyard shopping. I found a back seat out of a mid 70s Ford sedan was the closest in size and shape. Back seats are easy to take out, and have a lot less wear than front seats. It looked brand new. I bought the seat for $20 bucks and took it home. Took it apart, put the foam rubber on the truck seat springs, and fitted the cloth cover. I had to stick a little extra padding in here and there to get it to fit, but once I hog ringed the cover to the frame it was fine. PS cover the springs with a couple of layers of burlap so the springs don't wear thru the foam rubber. In the truck it looked surprisingly good and was very comfortable. The truck was black and the seat was red. You would never have known the upholstery was not made for it. I'm not saying this is for everybody, but if you are worn slick with expenses and want to get your truck on the road, this is a way to do it. It takes no special tools but a pair of hog ring pliers. You have to go through the pick a part with a tape measure till you get a rear seat as close as possible to yours in size and shape. Don't be in a hurry and don't be afraid to remove hog rings and readjust the cover until it fits as neatly as possible and you will be impressed by the results.

Is it?

A flathead six in top shape will start in 1 or 2 seconds. By that I mean, good compression on all cylinders, clean spark plugs, carburetor and choke working correctly. Watch some old movies from the forties and fifties, they start right up like a fuel injection car. This was normal then and should be now. I have had old motors that would start like that, after a thorough tuneup and putting everything back to factory specs. Not all of them, unfortunately.

Suggest you use anti seize on the plug threads to prevent sticking. Likewise on the head studs, use milk of magnesia it is a common problem on aluminum heads on old cars, the head and studs grow together over the years making the head almost impossible to get off.

Good idea on the length. If I was in doubt about head bolts I would measure them and if they were not all the same would assume some were stretched and all needed to be replaced.

They increased the compression ratio every few years. 1945 - 48, 6.6:1. 49-52, 7:1. All the way up to 8:1 in 1959. There may have been different heads for 218 Plymouth and 230 Dodge giving the same compression ratio but bigger chamber for Dodge. If there is a casting date or part number on the head you may be able to figure out what heads you have. But it would be easier just to use the one with the smallest combustion chamber and highest compression.

I read post ten. Have also taken apart engines with stuck valves. They usually don't stop the engine from turning and, there is no saying that is the only thing wrong.

I read all of them. You are doing fine. I already gave some suggestions as to why an engine can freeze up. Here are 2 more. One, the engine was freshly rebuilt with tight clearances. A small amount of rust stuck one or 2 pistons to the cylinders. This is a very minor thing to fix if you can get the pistons out, hone the cylinders and if necessary, put in a set of new rings. The second suggestion is the seller was mistaken for whatever reason, and the engine is OK. If the engine is as good as you say, you should be able to inspect and clean the parts and put it back together and have a good engine.

Could be a lot of things. Piston seized in bore, main bearing frozen, even a foreign object on top of a piston. One of us is going to have to take the engine apart and inspect and measure the pieces. You are closer than we are.

Caswell sells straight epoxy as a gas tank sealer. Works great but rather expensive.

I sandblasted my tank through the filler hole and gauge sender hole. This was for a 66 Dodge. You could cut a hole in the top, sandblast, and weld the hole up before applying sealer. Has anyone tried epoxy floor paint for sealer? It is supposed to be gas proof. I have used straight epoxy resin (Caswell brand sealer) and it worked great but kind of expensive.

It is a code date for quality control. There should be a date, shift, and time marked. If they get a batch of defective parts they can quickly take them off the assembly line as long as they can identify them.

I reuse everything without a qualm provided it is not broke, bent, stretched or corroded beyond being usable. Including head bolts. The old hardware is better quality than what you will find in a hardware store today. Unless you spring for grade 8 or stainless. In the old days head bolts were supposed to last the life of the car. Some time in the 80s GM began the practice of using cheap head bolts that stretched and became useless after one use. Back in the forties and fifties head bolts were the strongest bolts on the car.

In the days before seat belts and roll bars stunt drivers would "dive for the cellar" in other words, at the last second drop to the floor, get under the dashboard as far as possible and brace their back against the dashboard. This was an old racing driver's trick. Wait for the smashing and crashing to stop then when everything was quiet, wait a minute and crawl out of the wreck. That last bit was the tricky bit, sometimes everything gets quiet because you are flying thru the air so it pays to wait and be sure the wreck is over.

They are made to be tight when in the straight ahead position but a little loose when turned left or right. There are 2 reasons for this. One is, the steering does not wander when driving straight and it reduces friction effort when turning. The other is, when the steering wears, it wears in the straight ahead position which is where it gets the most use. So you can tighten up the adjustment and it will not be too tight when turned away from straight. Even though there is less wear there. To get the best results and prevent excess wear you should follow the factory method for adjusting the free play. I don't have a manual from 1939 but can give you the procedure from 1950 if you like.

Evidently and Australian made transmission for Australian vehicles. There must be someone in Australia familiar with these.

You can use 6V cables with 12V but you can't use 12V cable with 6V.

But thanks for the kind thoughts.

Have you considered fuel injection? It gets over a lot of problems associated with carbs/superchargers and not difficult or expensive these days. Look up Megasquirt home made EFI $140 for the kit last time I looked. A flathead should go well with a turbo because they tend to pull strong at low to mid RPMs but run out of breath at higher speeds. So the turbo is ideal to make up the deficiency. And, they naturally have low compression. Exhaust valve and seat cooling is a concern. Wonder if water injection would bring down the exhaust temp without killing boost? I would be looking at turbos of similar HP not displacement, or a diesel model as being closer to the flathead power characteristics.

Rather shitty weather so far. O well in like a lion out like a lamb.