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EFV-8 Club Forum / General Ford Discussion / 40 Flathead Distributor

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Discussion Topic: 40 Flathead Distributor

37 Coupe

02-20-2012 @ 8:18 AM

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I always get a kick out of seeing someone trying to convert to the "popular" crab style distributor and thinking of a long past friend/old Ford mechanic I knew. He was a local Ford dealership garage mechanic in the forties and fifties untill he started his own repair business. He was a friend of my dads and in 1971 when I bought my first early V8 Ford a 1946 coupe he always helped me help myself and had a lot of KR Wilson tools. He had worked on or serviced my coupe from new and had shown me and told me about the improved distibutor on the 46 models over the crab that was a problem with moisture and drowning out so frequently with all of the openings. He always said Ford had a good one all through the thirties,made a bad one and got it corrected after the war. If someone was plagued with these problems with roads and drainage as it was back then distributors were upgraded to 46-48 style.He would be surprised today why people would want to go out of their way to use this distributor. I know in a way why because they are easier route wires and they look cool but back in the day they were not so cool.

rdevarga

02-20-2012 @ 7:54 AM

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Thanks Gents:

Henry Ford Downing of the Pit Stop was all over it and suggested a full system from mounting plate to spark plugs. Cost $275 and a nice long conversation.

Richard

Richard deVarga
Austin Texas

parrish

01-10-2012 @ 8:17 PM

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If you still want the adapter, Henry (fun guy,tell him I said 'Hi") down your way at the pitstop has 'em

http://www.thepitstopgary.com
903-685-2531

TomO

01-09-2012 @ 10:42 AM

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Richard,

There is no advantage to using the pancake distributor over the helmet shaped distributor.

The adapter plate is required to use the pancake distributor with the pre 1942 camshaft. With a 42-48 camshaft, the timing cover can be changes and no adapter is required for the pancake dist.

Electronic ignitions are much more trouble some than the stock Ford distributor.

Tom

supereal

01-07-2012 @ 8:36 PM

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The crab cap style distributor was used 42-44, but had problems with moisture entering around the plug wire boots. It was used thru '44 on military engines. If you want to update, I suggest you move up to the double cap type that began in '46. As for electronic conversions, they tend to be temperature sensitive, and can become erratic on the poorly regulated early charging systems. I have yet to see one that provided any evident improvement in performance, but plenty that were troublesome.

Stroker

01-07-2012 @ 4:29 PM

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rdevarga: I'm not sure what year vehicle you are working on, as 40's used a crank-mounted fan on both Standard and DeLuxe models. I have a 38 Deluxe, with generator
mounted fan, and used a crab for many years without clearance problems.

I'm not sure what you mean by a Harman/Collins "adapter plate" as basically, all you
need to do is switch from a 3-bolt timing cover to the later 2-bolt, and use a drive
spacer (cam "button") which is available from most all suppliers like Speedway Motors.

If you decide to go "Electronic", buy the best, which would, in my humble opinion be the MSD unit that looks just like, and mounts like your referenced 42 "crab". Not cheap, but very dependable. I would stay away from any of the "electronic conversions", and unless you are running a full-race motor, there is really no point
in running anything other than a Ford distributor on 6 volts.

rdevarga

01-07-2012 @ 2:30 PM

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Looking into retiring my '40 Model #78 distributor and converting to the newer '42-44 Model #21A crab style distributor.

Q1: Are the Harman Collins adapter plates still available?

Q2: Will the new distributor have any clearance issues to the generator mounted fan?

Q3: Also moving over to 12V, any reason not to consider an electronic ignition?

Richard deVarga
Austin Texas

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