38 Flattie Valve stuck

[Frank L.]

Hi. I'm a bit new here so I hope I am posting in the correct forum.

I am currently restoring a Universal Carrier and ran into a little problem.

A few of the valves are stuck open in the Ford Flat Head V8. Is there a quick fix for this or do I require to dis-assemble the entire valve? If so how do I do this. I have a manual but it does not go into great detail....it shows a screwdriver pushing down on the valve spring...nothing else. I believe I have to remove the keeper at the top of the spring to remove the valve and it comes out as a comlete unit...leaving the tappet (lifter) behind in the crankcase.

Am I correct?

The last thing I want to do is damage anything. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

[chris vickery]

Frank, you do not say whether the flathead is a runner or not. If the engine turns over and starts to run somewhat, the old transmission fluid down the carb trick might work. On older engines that have been sitting for awhile, it is not uncommon for things to gunk up. I have successfully got engines to loosen up by getting them on a high idle then slowly pouring transmission fluid down the carb. This tends to have a detergent effect. The sam ething works just before an oil change, especially if the motor is down on oil, add one quart of trans fluid to help degunk it. I do not suggest driving for a long period, although a few miles certainly doesn't hurt it.
Having said this, if you've got an old stuck engine without hope, the only direction is to disassemble the valves and clean them up. Flatheads can be notorious for sticking by their design, sitting long periods tends to allow the oil to flow away down into the bottom instead of staying at the top. Take your valves apart carefully, and in order one atr a time as they are worn to fit the guide and seat they ride in. You will need to make or obtain the special tool for pressing down the spring to be able to remove the retainers.

[charlie fitton]

The last thing I want to do is damage anything. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Frank:

I'll assume that you're working on the same project as Mr Zink...

Is the engine still in the carrier?

You may see the offending member through the spark plug hole and a gentle - repeat GENTLE- tap may be most revealing. The stems are very skinny, so if it doesn't click and jump back into proper working order, stop.

Soaking with t fluid, kerosene, or diesel may be helpful, but if things don't line up fast - bite the bullet and tear off the heads and intake manifold. for the sake of a gasket set you'll answer a lot of questions.

The removal tool looks a lot lke a cross between a tie-rod tool and a tire iron. If you have a legion (just outside the base main gate on the left) stop by and see if one of the old 2 svc boys has a proper tool hanging in his garage. Ya never know what you'll find, and as a bonus - I hear that they sell beer in those places.

There was an adapter in the older NEWAY valve seat ctter sets that fit in the tappet guide and let you re-cut the valve seats. The valve stems will fit in some modern grinders so you can re-do the face, and the lifters will need to be re-ground to set the tappet clearence.

People have been doing this for decades so the talent is out there.

Another option is to look at "hot rod "stuff...

More if you want it...


fitton

[Keith Webb]

The valve stems will fit in some modern grinders so you can re-do the face, and the lifters will need to be re-ground to set the tappet clearence.

From memory it's the valve stems which need to be ground, not the lifters. Some of the later (8BA) engines had adjusters in the lifters which were always sought after as they saved a lot of fiddly work. Not sure whether they fit the 21 stud though.

When removing the valves the guides should come out as a complete unit. There's a special tool to disassemble this unit too.

[Tony Smith]

The pic below shows the older original "Mushroom valves" and split guides on the right and newer 8BA one piece guides with Chev small block valves on the left. Completely interchangable in 21 and 24 stud V8's. The older valves had a 5/8" stem and the mushroomed head required split valves. There was no provision for adjustment, this being provided by grinding down, or building up with braze, the head. Time consuming! The later 8BA engines ('49-'53) used valves with 11/32 stems with a straight sided head which allowed the use of one piece guides and conventional retainers. The valve dimensions are also the same (very close, anyway) as Chev small block 1.5" exhaust valves. This means you can find a wider range of valve suppliers than if you were just looking for original Ford valves, and have the option of using stainless valves (as pictured) to overcome the problems with unleaded fuel.
The adjustable lifter pictured with the new valves is highly recommended and made by Mike's Sidevalve Supply in Adelaide, South Australia and also available through his US distributors, http://www.flatattackracing.com/

[Tony Smith]

The stem heads on the original mushroom valves were quite large and spread the pressure on the face of the lifter over a large area. However, the 8BA/Chev stem head is much smaller and concentrates the pressure. The original lifters were hollow and could bear the weight of the mushroom head, but the Chev stem could deform or even punch through the original lifter.
Therefore, original valves can use either the original non-adjustable lifter or the new adjustable type, but the new 8BA/Chev style can ONLY BE USED WITH an adjustable lifter to avoid the risk of punching through a hollow lifter. Ford had a solid lifter to use originally with the 8BA engine, but even if you could find one of these now, there's no adjustment and you have to go through the tedious process of grinding/brazing each valve for clearance. Go adjustable!

[Frank L.]

Sorry about leaving out a few details.....

The engine ran a bit when we recieved it....on a couple of cylinders, due to ignition problems and stuck valves.

We now have the ignition problem sorted out.

Back to the engine.... I'm planning on just spraying the valves down with WD 40 and rolling the engine over by hand until the valves are working properly with no sticking at all.

From there close it up and run it up with tranny fluid/ oil mix to de-gunk it, flush with fresh 10W30 and see how it goes from there.

.....or would it be advisable to just take 'em out and do it right and lap the valves while I got on the bench?

I'll probably clean up the heads while I'm at it...they're a bit grungy.

Comments please!

Regards

BTW...We'll post picks as soon as we get a digital camera

[Alex Blair (RIP)]

Originally posted by Frank L.
A few of the valves are stuck open in the Ford Flat Head V8. Is there a quick fix for this or do I require to dis-assemble the entire valve? If so how do I do this.

Frank I can't remember it being that bad a job..
I remember we had a tool that was like a long wide open vice grip that we wounld reah in and it would hold the top of the valve and compress the spring and the retainers would drop out.
Don't forget to lap ,(with a lap stick,i.e a piece of round dowling and a rubber suction cup on one end)your valves before you grind your clearances on your valve stems..
Here is a picture from the MB-F1,The bible when it comes to our craft..
I have all the manuals available and am just down the street..

[Alex Blair (RIP)]

Here is another shot..

Originally posted by Tony Smith
there's no adjustment and you have to go through the tedious process of grinding/brazing each valve for clearance. Go adjustable!

Tony,
I'm mightily intrigued where the brazing reference comes from, I would not imagine brazing is anywhere near hard enough for the valve stem/tappet duty. All the Ford manuals I've seen call for further lapping or seat cutting/grinding to close the clearance.

R.

[Richard Farrant]

Originally posted by FV623
Tony,
I'm mightily intrigued where the brazing reference comes from,

Probably an old Bush Mechanics remedy, when he does'nt have any seat cutters

Richard

[Alex Blair (RIP)]

Originally posted by FV623
Tony,
I'm mightily intrigued where the brazing reference comes from, I would not imagine brazing is anywhere near hard enough for the valve stem/tappet duty. All the Ford manuals I've seen call for further lapping or seat cutting/grinding to close the clearance.

R.

And ol' Tony better have friggin' long arms if he trys that on some old sodium filled valve stems...
Read about valves here...
http://www.tpub.com/content/construc...s/14264_92.htm

Originally posted by Richard Farrant
Probably an old Bush Mechanics remedy, when he does'nt have any seat cutters

Richard

Ah. . . . I see. Well, when needs, must I suppose but I can't see it lasting very long. Of course Ford probably assumed, correctly, that any servicing after manufacture would have the gap close up with valve lapping work and only foot grinding would usually be necessary.

Alex has a point too, although Ford is unlikely to have such stuff as sodium filled valves, but the thought of taking a torch to these is exciting indeed.

That said Richard, I have necessarily recovered tracta joint drive claws by welding the unacceptable pits using a dissimilar metal rod and then having the faces ground back to dimension. The nature of these, according to Oerlikon, is to leach some carbon from the underlying material and make a weld of similar hardness to the surrounding material. Certainly the weld, like the claw, is virtually un-fileable.

The downside is that they are 1 GBP per rod and you have to buy 5kg or so which is a 100 rod/100 pound package. Plus VAT of course.

R.

[Tony Smith]

It sometimes occurs when installing new valves in conjunction with hardened valve seats. The new seats have a seating surface higher than the old one and the new valve has a thicker head, resulting in the lifter to stem clearance being larger than spec, particularly if the lifters and cam lobes are worn. Naturally, good practice is to cut the seats deep enough first time round, but with cutting seats, measuring stem clearance, grinding stem, remeasuring clearance, lapping seat, remeasuring clearance and possibly grinding once again and doing this 16 times, well, some machinists will take short cuts. Your local corner mechanic who's not familiar with the intricacies of Sidevalves will possibly take too much material off the stem and need to build it up again. It's much simpler to get adjustable tappets, cut the seats, lap seats and adjust ONCE ONLY.

[Tony Smith]

I don't know what the situation is like in other parts of the world, but here it's getting harder to find a machinist or engine rebuilder who has had experience rebuilding Ford V8 sidevalve engines. I think I rang over 20 businesses to find someone who was capable/had the equipment to insert hardened valve seats in the block! Most would glibly say "Of course we can do it! just drop the heads over and our CNC machine will do the rest." When told the whole block has to go under the cutters, the "Head Jobs Unlimited" cylinder head places would drop out of the running. The engine rebuilders would battle on by saying that they'll put the block on their cylinder boring machine and cut the holes for the hardened seats that way. When told the valve stems are not parralel to the bore and the seats not flush with the deck surface, they'd dismiss it as all too hard and not worth the job. I eventually found a machinist who has an antique hand-held seat cutting machine who was happy to do the job, and he has continued to find work from me because of the quality of his craftmanship.

Originally posted by Tony Smith
I don't know what the situation is like in other parts of the world, but here it's getting harder to find a machinist or engine rebuilder who has had experience rebuilding Ford V8 sidevalve engines.

The UK experience is much the same or worse even, it is dissapointing that Oz is the same, we see that continent as still a pioneering frontier and all manner of our lost skills and practices available there to keep stuff going in the far reaches.

Trying to find a firm who can still do run-up babbit metal big-ends and mains properly and with the line boring necessary has become a huge problem for us.

I've just seen how many thousands went into a certain Morris-Commercial OH engine for a CDSW in-build; as new it is and would bring tears to your eyes adding up the bills.

Of course you're quite right about replacing seats or indeed valves in a Ford V8, at least several will have huge gaps and here we turn to the old Black & Decker Vibrocentric seat grinder - a virtually extinct tool here and we were lucky to find one in a garage tip-out.

The trend here is that hardened seats tend to be the domain of the 50s - 60s car people, easy job as you illustrate when its an OHV; the MV people tend to use an additive. It is known that VSR only occurs at a nominal 3000rpm and upwards and is a far lesser problem in WWII chuggers than post war OHV revvers.

I did a test with Dave's F15 by lashing-up a block of 6V lantern cells to drive a spare, calibrated, Stalwart rev counter and commanded him to drive me around and thrash it to his cringe-point. Now I know this is coloured with the horrendous fan roar of the CMP V8 but the best I saw was 2750rpm.

I have a handy insight with a contact in Ass. Octel, formerly Ass. Ethyl, the people who sent F R Banks to Woolston and then formulated the horrendous fire-water that put the S.6 on top. They actually make the stuff for badge-engineering and this chemist races old Alvis vehicles.

Perhaps we are fortunate in that the FBHVC http://www.fbhvc.co.uk/ has set up a formal lab test to prove what works and what doesn't for VSR since there are a lot of expensive snake oils out there. Most of us use Castrol Valvemaster (Ass. Octel) which was the first here with FBHVC approval and bench proven to be totally efficatious; now I understand this has been available to you and the Kiwis for the past 10 years or so. (Currently I buy the stuff by the crate for our local club as I have a trade account with the outlet.)

The lab test engine they use is a BLMC A Series, from the original Mini et al. This is still available in quantity together with parts and is known as the worst VSR sufferer we have showing 1 thou per 5 mins at an equivalent 60 mph road speed on standard pump unleaded.

The Ford CMP Manual has some interesting insights into fuel and oil for that matter since it deals with the internal engine presentation of leaded fuels introduced during WWII, inferring unleaded was used previously plus there is a defined date and chassis number when detergent oil (HD 30) was introduced at the factory.

Although my B81 has hardened stuff of a very hard nature indeed; having the time, interest and facilities we did do a fair amount of research into the fuel/oil questions which proved both fascinating and illuminating.

If you can get it done then hard seats are the way but a lot of miles on a F15 and a M-C PU has shown the FBHVC to be right in the additive approvals; this is a very easy and cheap option.

R.

[Tony Smith]

Perhaps not. In many of the Outback Aboriginal communities petrol sniffing has become quite a problem amongst the young, with devastating results. To combat this many communities have outlawed Unleaded and the old Super petrol. This means that you can only buy Diesel or Avgas. Avgas doesn't have many of the aromatics that the sniffers get high on, but it does have an octane rating of 110/130 and double lead content .
This means that modern petrol engined cars and 4wds have all sorts of catalyst and oxygen sensor problems and explains the popularity of diesel 4wds for outback touring. It also explains the popularity of events like "Back to the Track 2005" where we get to travel the desert tracks on Avgas and not have to worry about fuel additives .

[Frank L.]

Thanks troops for the info.... I'll give a good go.

Now just wondering....gaskets, head and intake manifold.

Any particular brand better than others?

Also fuel pumps....should we go with mechanical or electric to make it a bit more reliable?

Comments please.....

Regards

Originally posted by Tony Smith
Perhaps not. In many of the Outback Aboriginal communities petrol sniffing has become quite a problem amongst the young, with devastating results. To combat this many communities have outlawed Unleaded and the old Super petrol. This means that you can only buy Diesel or Avgas. Avgas doesn't have many of the aromatics that the sniffers get high on, but it does have an octane rating of 110/130 and double lead content .

OH! You get the good stuff. Our fly-boys have to make do with 100LL and I suspect watch the boost and mixture controls like a hawk.

This means that modern petrol engined cars and 4wds have all sorts of catalyst and oxygen sensor problems . . . . .

The EU spec fiddling here with petrol has seen the situation worsen with another tweak to RVP and volatility hike in the quest for low pollution and it plays havoc with old carburettors causing both icing and percolation.

Comme ça; this little siphon I use for getting the odd cup of petrol from a jerrican, the tap leaks at about 1.5 drips/min, this was taken on a damp 8ºC day and occurred within 1 min.

R.
(Making a water heat arrangement for a certain 48NNIP Solex)