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engine issues


michael.warshaw

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since my car is getting a engine rebuild, my motor builder me that the numbers on my head dont match the block which lead shim to believe that the head was changed. He said the heads had a tendancy to crack, so bassically i would like to find a head, that matches a august 1946 engine block date. anyone have a head laying around, with numbers like this?

he has to bore it out to 60, since he said its the motors 2 rebuild.

He also said the rods look to be from a different year motor, and he siad i need a harmonic balancer since mine looks bad, i need head bolts, and some other stuff, where is the best place to go for these engine items?

Edited by michael.warshaw
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Michael, you need to be sure about exactly what size engine you have as it sounds like its been fiddled with over the years......get the rod measurements and if they have any cast in numbers to be sure of what you actually have......I've seen a few rod sets on ebay lately......I haven't heard of Mopar 6's having a tendency to crack heads so unless you are a stickler for a numbers matching head or are chasing concors awards then I'd get as late a head as I could find as the increase in compression will help the engine live with todays fuel......the most a stockhead ever saw was about 8:1 which is still way low and will work fine with todays fuel........regards, andyd

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What exactly is your engine number and what exactly is your head number? Without this information it will be impossible to help you.

I have never heard that these heads are prone to cracking unless they freeze. A .060" overbore seems like a lot. Are replacement pistons available in this size? A .030" overbore is much more common.

Has your engine rebuilder ever rebuilt a Mopar flathead? Exactly why does he think the rods are bad? And why does he think the harmonic balancer "looks" bad?

I recommend you call George Asche (814-354-2621) He has rebuilt engines for several forum members including Lou Earle.

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a qualified engine builder would make the the statements less the work "think" besides..this is his job...and whats to say the engine has not been bumped up to a 230? you are nowhere close to any serious approach to researching this nor have you in any manner stated any know part number to the forum at large to entertain an answer as to wether right wrong or original application of parts on hand..I do not see how anyone here could answer your question without having to ask a ton of questions in return. You would do everyone a service if you were to come on here with a few facts prior to asking them for info...

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I went to Vintage Power Wagons for all my engine rebuild parts. A lot of guys on the forum have done the same. VPW has knowledgeable people working for them who really know these engines and will talk about them over the phone. I highly recommend them.

It's your choice, of course, but do you really want to go to the trouble to find a head that was manufactured in August 1946? Can that even be done? I would think it would be next to impossible but I could be wrong. Also, if you have the stock 218, aren't all the rods for that engine the same? Does it matter that they come from a different year engiine? No one can see inside your crankcase.

But to keep your shopping simple, use Vintage Power Wagons. They have all the things you seem to be looking for.

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Who's to say the casting date for the head should even match? To be 100% correct they would be close but they may have let the blocks sit around longer then the head. .060 bore would usually indicate the engine was already rebuilt once with a .030 overbore. I agree as long as all the rods match for size it shouldnt matter if they came out of a different engine. I've got a p15 engine in the garage that probably has a good head on it. Whats it worth to you for me to go pull it?

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Who's to say the casting date for the head should even match? To be 100% correct they would be close but they may have let the blocks sit around longer then the head. .060 bore would usually indicate the engine was already rebuilt once with a .030 overbore. I agree as long as all the rods match for size it shouldnt matter if they came out of a different engine. I've got a p15 engine in the garage that probably has a good head on it. Whats it worth to you for me to go pull it?

i dont know how much they sell for .

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The one thing about the engine rods that is critically important is that they are off set by pairs to contend with the placement of the siamesed cylinder pairs. The secondary item is thet they are reinserted so that the squirt hole faces the right way upon resasembly. If your guy did not make note of this and did not mark the assemblys as he pulled them down, he will have done you a great diservice. As they are or should be matched not only to there oppositly offset pair mate, but also to the crank journal they were on together. A basic question would be to determine if in another life the engine was changed to a 230 configuration by swapping certain internal parts. This could be determined by some basic measurments of components and then checking those measurments against the engine spec sheets.

I do agree that a finding for a .060 overbore would indicate that the engine has had some machine work done to it in the past. Is there significant bore taper wear to support his contention? And if so was there a significant top of bore ridge?

The most prevelant failure related to stock cylinder heads is warping or twisting due to a serious overheating situation. Usually this would be dealt with by milling the head to re establish a true and flat surface hopefully your technician checks this condition.

Been messing with mopar flat heads since 1963, and I have never encountered a cracked factory head. Is he saying your head is cracked? Has he magnafluxed it?

And I wonder what number he is refering to as the Head number? On my head on my 46 engine which was I am fairly sure was original to the car the only numbers I found were cast into the head 1120803 - 4 and a clock schematic with the pointer hand between 4 and 5. Since MOPAR was all into war production in 44/45, I doubt this is a date casting, more probably a shift casting lable. If the date of assembly can be ascertained from that

I would like to kow how.

Historic articles and photos which have been posted on this site and others show rows upon rows of engine castings, and head casting sitting on a hugh warehouse floor awaiting assembly. Captions on those photos indicated that casting sat for months or even years in anticipation of need, going to Dodge, Plymouth and Dodge trucks, assembled as required from individual castings that may have been in the preassembly que for who knows how long, then assigned an engine number and shipped by flat bed truck to the assembly lines on an as needed basis.

There goes one now

a824866509606a90_landing

Certainly hope you can get the correct information to get the correct parts to have a reliable engine. Have you ever posted the enginn block number or looked for a rebuilders tag, or a rivet on the block that might have held a tag?

That information would help intrying to see what you are dealing with.

Too bad no one kept a naughty or nice list after the engines were installed.

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and to further complicate matters..has the crank been mic'd so to determine if it is stock or ever been undercut...if not undercut what is the amount of wear every 60 degrees?

you only stated he has to bore it out to .060 over...what is it now..there are also pistons available in .040 and if you do not necessary need to clean a bore by going to .060 then you are doing the block a diservice by lessening its overall service life by hopping straight to .060...UNLESS your prime objective is to build a higher CI engine and increase the horse power and if that is the objective what valves do you intend to run, duration and lift on the cam and what exhaust modifications have you considered to allow this deep breather to exhaust..

if none of the above applies in hopping up the engine then I assume you are going for total points at a concurs meet..else..rest is moot...the production date was not always available on the flathead......not sure when the year was incorporated into the date..used to be month/day and clock stamp only..my 47 engine does not have a year stamp....later years like my 54 does have the actual casting date in full...

you are lacking lot of of tech data in your post..it is imperative you know these facts prior to asking a valid question..

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Michael,

I believe I've mentioned this before in another thread you started that had something to do with engine work. But.....I'll repeat it again.

You need to find a good mechanic that actually knows something about the older engines. Evidently your present one doesn't know squat. I was lucky enough to have a friend who is familiar with old engines and is also the owner of an auto service shop. He helped me with my engine rebuild. He also knew exactly where to buy the parts if I didn't already know, because he works on a lot of local old cars. When it came to having the engine bored he knew the best machine shop in the area to do it, so that's where it went. My mechanic friend knew he could buy new pistons, piston pins etc., but he recommended letting the machine shop furnish the pistons, rings and pins. So........that's where mine came from.

Now, don't tell me there's no one out in NY city area that is familiar with old engines. I know better because I read Click and Clack in the news paper. One of those guys runs around in a 1960's car, and they also go to old car shows. AKA: Tom and Ray. They also have a website that you can ask them a question on, AND, a list of NY city area auto service shops. They also live and work in the area. I'm sure if you contacted them by phone or email they could give you a few names of well qualified auto shops, mechanics that work on old cars all the time.

I say dump your present mechanic and find a good one. Especially since he's saying things like these heads were prone to cracking. MOPAR didn't have cracking heads until they came out with the aluminum heads attached to the cast iron blocks, and the great majority of those were on late 70's and 80's 4 cylinder engines.

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Norm the Clackity brothers work and live in Boston (our Fair City) MA. Not in NY.

However with all the airports, all the ware houses, all the docks, and all the construction equipment in and around the city, I would bet there are lots of places familiar with rebuilding MOPAR flat 6's as they were probably number 1 in gasoline industrial engines ever. Welders, compressors, lift trucks, conveyor systems, air port tugs, and baggage train tractors, protable boarding stairs, pumps, marine applications,the list is probably extensive. I would imaging a little field work in the area around those facilities would turn up a host of shops where those engine were serviced and rebuilt. Probably most of the guys have retired and are gone, mght find a few kicking around though. Probably forgot more about them then most of us have learned.

As far as the price of a replacement head, Ed has one and Mike wants one. Looks like the law of supply and demand is on Ed's side. I met Ed and he seems to be a reasonable guy, but may be under economic stress due to the Holidays and his upcoming nuptials. But a sellers market seems to be in play here. Shipping a 50 lb lump of good old American cast iron might be a bit dear also.

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having a new wife may also cause a marked upward trend in pricing of parts in demand..cost should fall between 550-600 dollars..if memory serves me correct, that is only two meals on the town..good head ought to be worth that at least...

Edited by Tim Adams
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I'm with norm on this one, your guy doesn't sound like he knows what he's talking about. There's no such thing as a cracked flathead, and the rod issue doesn't matter. I never heard of matching head and block numbers because Mopar never did that on flatheads.

Changing parts is just a way of coveribg yourself when you don't really know what you're doing.

There is an old saying that yoiu shouldn't BS a BSer. I know BS when I hear it because I'm pretty good at it myself. I believe that you have heard it also from a "mechanic".

If I were you, I would gather up my parts and run away fast.

This is all just my opinion, and its free, so take it for what its worth.

I have a dislike for people who take advantage of others ignorance.

To quote King Arthur on his quest for the Holy Grail, "Run away fast". No one wants to get hit by a flying cow.

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I had to take a break from this thread because I was laughing so hard.

Good advice has been given by all responders myself included. However the only response from the poster to date is he does not know the market value of a used head that he does not need.

I guess one way to fix what aint broke is to throw money at it.

I think calling click and clack is very good advice. I would like to hear what they have to say.

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Michael, you have been given lots of good advice here but one piece stands out more than the others. It is really important to find a mechanic who knows these engines and it sounds like your mechanic does not. In a city the size of NYC there have to be several places that know and understand these engines.

Another good piece of advice is contacting, either yourself or the mechanic you choose, Vintage Power Wagons as they know these engines and are helpful on the phone. These are two excellent pieces of advice and I strongly urge you to act on them.

You have been given excellent advice by a lot of people, some of whom have given you a hard time in the past, but I believe they are being helpful this time.

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I believe that two different types of rods were used on the 218 cu in engines. One with a flat boss under the nuts that take a standard lock washer and the other which are undercut or recessed for the special lock washers. The undercut or recessed boss rods require a special lockwasher that fits into the recess, these washers are next to impossible to find used never mind new. Vintage Power Wagon had a few used at $3.00 each. I made my own by reducing the outside diameter of standard lock washers. I had my harmonic balancer rebuilt by the Damper Doctor.

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The first step to determine what year engine is in the car is to find the number

on a flat boss on the driver's side of the engine. If that number begins with

"P15", it it a 1946 thru early 1949 engine. If a number less than (P)15, is an older

engine......if higher number, is a newer engine.

IM003971.jpg

Then, further to determine if the head is indeed a genuine Plymouth item,

a letter "P" should be cast on top of the head, around the pivot for the

accelerator linkage. My head has the letter "D" on it because it's from a

1950 Dodge. A Dodge head will work on a Plymouth engine just fine.

100_5457.jpg

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If your rods have the recess for the lock washers that go under the nuts then you must have the correct lock washers or you will ruin the rods when you torque the nuts on assembly. I pointed out to the machine shop that rebuilt my rods the special lock washers and told them that they must not loose them, well they did even after I told them about the need to keep them. You should get access to the correct manual for P-15 cars which show many special features about these engines that most engine rebuilders have no clue about. When they milled my head they told me they found and fixed a flaw in my head in one of the combustion chambers. I said I hoped that it was not in #6, and he said it was, I told him to turn the head over and look as the nice plug in that cylinder that you remove to find TDC wirh a rod. He did not charge me for fixing something that did not need fixing. This shop was supposed to be a MoPar shop but they did not know anything about flat head MoPars, tried to tell me they also made a 225 cu in flat head that had completely different specs in '60.

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Mike:

AACA does not look at the ngine to determine if the correct engine by serial number is in the car. The judge would have to baiscally get into the engine compartment to do this. They are not permitted to get that close. They are basically looking to verify that the correct engine assembly or that you have not put a small block v8 into a 46 Plymouth or that you a slant 6 in a 40 plymouth.

They look to see that the engine looks to be period correct and that the rest of the engine companents also match in appearance. They do not even look to verify that you have the correct regular. They correct regulars sometime have been supperseeded with a newer number. It needs to look correct an be in perfect shape.

Mike do not worry about the head, Get one that fits the engine correctly. You are making a drive from what you have stated.

Rich Hartung

Desoto1939@aol.com

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Well my poor old Plymouth head must be a mogrel as it is unecommbured by any Big cast Capital letters. But DT could be Detroit, or could be the Casting forman's initials. Maybe they were out of P's in early 46. Must have used them all up making them Sherman Tank powerplants. I do see that the heater outlet is correctly marked.

I saw a pic of an engine in a 36 Dodge that had the heater Tap on the Drivers side. Wonder if that was factory or just some guy drilling and tapping a hole to keep his feet toasty.

There is a guy here who has a 50 Dodge convertible, he swears it an original vehicle with all its parts. But his engine number starts with a T and the head has an I cast into it. Well guess they were all original MOPAR parts at one point. Nice car goes down the road real nice. doesn't sound trucky or nothing.

Edited by greg g
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