The Ford Barn - cut-away V8 story

I have received a number of inquiries about the Ford cut-away engine restored by our Regional group in Seattle, RG18. I will post here an edited story I sent to our club newsletter back in 1995 about this.

Restoration of the Cut-A-Way Engine and Transmission

by Mike Dermond (aka deuce_roadster )

Jerry Windle was the one who located the cut-a-way and arranged for member Tom Dailey to haul it, and probably is who asked PSRG to restore it. Tom got it from Bennett Pence near Bernard South Dakota in the northeast part of the state. Bennett's brother loaded the cutaway into the Dailey's trailer out of what was described to me as a chicken coup using a front end loader. I believe it was during this operation that the bell housing and transmission case were cracked and broken, and the stand bent.

Once the engine and trans arrived in Seattle, the PSRG (and SCRG*) went about the task of fixing and restoring both the engine as well as the stand which was also damaged (probably during loading). I volunteered to be manager of the task and have work done in my shop in Lynnwood by many PSRG and SCRG members. I am sorry that I don't have a list of every club member who worked on it, some have passed away, like Dewey Landis, Bill Steil, Bruce Dalrymple.

I believe we stared work on this in early 1995 and delivered the completed unit to Jerry Windle at the Bend Western National Meet in that fall. Johnny and Sara Synder transported it to Bend in their trailer with their 40 Lincoln Continental Convertible. (A V8 60 hp Vedette engine restored by Don Kelson and his crew was also donated) Besides disassembly of the engine and transmission, the stand had to be repaired by me. Dewey found another transmission case and cut it to match the original chrome broken one. The intake manifold was also broken, and a spare was milled to match it too. Some parts were missing like the distributor and generator but those were easy to come up with and were cut to reveal the insides.

I took the block to have the bell housing crack repaired to a shop up by Lake Stevens (now in Everett) that did all kinds of cast iron repairs. When I called the owner “cast iron Mike” on the phone and said I had a flathead block that needed some repair he said it was "no problem". I didn't tell him it was a cut-a-way. When I arrived with the block and he came out to look at it, I asked him without a smile on my face if it could be fixed! He looked at the gaping holes in it for about a minute. Finally, I couldn't help but laugh and explained all I really needed was the crack on the bell housing fixed.

The heads needed to be re-chromed, everything needed to be painted and assembled. I chose all the colors and did all the painting. Johnny Synder's neighbor worked at a chrome shop and he arranged to get the heads done as well as chrome plating the clutch cover. The crankshaft was originally chrome plated and was acceptable after cleaning it up.

During disassembly we got a big surprise. The block was a 21 stud block (1937 or early 1938) and the heads on it were 24 stud units! With the heads on, it looked like a normal 24 stud engine! This was accomplished by using 2 studs and nuts on each side that were in the same position on both 21 and 24 stud blocks. The rest of them were knurled dummy studs about 1 inch long with a nut that just pushed down in the holes of each head.

I gave a seminar at the Western National Meet about the restoration of the engine and took the heads off so folks could see how that unique 21/24 stud combination was accomplished. Since there wasn't an EFV8 museum built in Auburn yet, both the cut-a-way and the 60 hp Vedette were housed at the California Transportation Museum in Sacramento that held the Towe collection (before Towe had to liquidate his cars). Both engines eventually made it to the Museum in Auburn Indiana. Tom and Alice visited them there and report that a plaque giving us credit is prominently displayed.

* This was a joint effort of the PSRG 18 and the now disbanded SCRG (Snohomish County RG)139.

I found higher resolution pictures of the engine and replaced the ones in the Cut-a-Way album. Since it has been over 25 years since I did this project with the club, I am sure there are other details I didn't cover. I hope some of you found this interesting.