First time poster... with a couple of questions.

[Conrad Rossi]

I couldn't read the heads marking. Most likely assembled in Argentina. It was the hub back then for Latin America. You might be able to find the first owner if you contact the Argentine Ford V8 club.

[Blindhuckster]

I second the recommendation to send the distributor off to have Micheal at Third Gen ford parts to rebuild it. Also have Skip Haney rebuild your coil. I would not change over to the efire system. I did both of these on my 37 21 stud engine that had a couple of lower compression cylinders like yours and with these two items addressed, it runs surprisingly well. I also replaced the spark plugs and spark plug wires as well as distributor caps

https://thirdgenauto.com/?gclid=CjwK...xoCNikQAvD_BwE

https://skipscoilsandpumps.com/contact-us

[cas3]

Nice car, lucky fella. Obviously, we need a spark to light the fire. once you get that sorted out, I believe you probably have some stuck valves affecting the low compression. If grandpa was running it occasionally with old gas the gunk will stick on the intake valve stems. A real cylinder leakage test would be Ideal, but a poor man can weld an air fitting on an old gutted out spark plug base, put the cyl at TDC and blow some (low) air in and see whats leaking. Air at the carb =intake valve, air at the exhaust pipe is exhaust valve. A real peasant would just spin the motor over ( all plugs removed) with his thumb over the plug holes. Any good cylinder will blow your thumb off with a bang, and the weak ones will "fluff". Next, the poor man will look in the holes while your helper spins the motor and see if you can see any valves that don't move as much as they should. Hard to see, and if sticking open they can be brought back to life with shots of oil and tapping down with an allen wrench.

Also, not mentioned yet is always when trying to bring life back to an old motor a few squirts of oil in each cylinder will bring up compression, perhaps enough to get it running, and if luck is with you it may improve after some miles.

good luck, happy motoring

[tubman]

I'll come right out and say ir. Both the "E-Fire" distributor and especially the Speedway carburetor are products of questionable quality and will only cause you more problems along the way. You will be better served by having the original distributor and carburetor gone through by reputable technicians here on "The Barn". Michael at "Third Gen Automotive" as mentioned for the distributor, and "Uncle Max" (Max Musgrave) for Stromberg carburetors are the best.

You can fool around with the aftermarket crap later if you want to, but nobody really needs that kind of complication in their life.

[dsglass95]

Originally Posted by tubman

I'll come right out and say ir. Both the "E-Fire" distributor and especially the Speedway carburetor are products of questionable quality and will only cause you more problems along the way. You will be better served by having the original distributor and carburetor gone through by reputable technicians here on "The Barn". Michael at "Third Gen Automotive" as mentioned for the distributor, and "Uncle Max" (Max Musgrave) for Stromberg carburetors are the best.

You can fool around with the aftermarket crap later if you want to, but nobody really needs that kind of complication in their life.

The Stromberg that was on the car was/is in really poor shape, the throttle shaft was the loosest that I have ever seen. I priced the parts that would of taken to rebuild it,( I have rebuilt 100's of carburetors over the years), and it just wasn't worth it. So I looked for quite some time for a good used one and I was thinking about buying a new one. I got the Speedway carb on sale for less than half what a new Stromberg would be, so I went ahead and bought it. It obviously didn't fix my starting problem, but once I get it running, I will deal with the carb again if I have to.

[Lanny]

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Alphonse Gabriel Capone, sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface" is one
of only a few that could have afforded to import that rare '32 in those days.

Did he happen to carve his initials inside someplace ?




.

[dsglass95]

Originally Posted by Lanny

Alphonse Gabriel Capone, sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface" is one
of only a few that could have afforded to import that rare '32 in those days.

Did he happen to carve his initials inside someplace ?




.

No, but the car was painted Midnight Purple when my in-laws bought it. My mother in-law said that they were told by the seller at the auction that it was a "Lady of the evenings" car. Wife wants to paint it Midnight Purple again too. Lol

[cas3]

Gotta agree with tubman, sadly the original carb could have been sent to uncle max for a rebuild for similar money as the new speedway junk. and... no comment on the fancy "new" ignition stuff

[Conrad Rossi]

From the pictures looks like the cables are old and have been tampered, which could be giving you erratic current. I might be worth checking and replacing your battery cables. At least that was one of the issues I has when I was trying to fire up my +30 years dormant car.

One of the many things I learned here is the importance of having good grounds with a solid path to ground and the correct cables gages. If the cables are old, most likely they’re corroded inside and you can see it. Ground straps usually have their tinning look dull and you can see the copper underneath.

Ground path: battery to firewall, firewall, to engine. Then add a ground from the starter support bolt to a transmission bolt. Ensure all metal surfaces are shinny clean with no corrosion, including bolts.

One thing you can do if you haven’t done it already is disconnecting the fuel pump from the carburetor. Then, fill up the carburetor bowl with gas. It will give you about 20-30 seconds to run. Make sure you use the choke, which you will have to find out the right balance to get the car fired up. Use starting fluid. Once the car runs a couple of times, then you can fill in the bowl and connect it to the gas pump. I had to do this prime the carb despite having a functioning pump.

Good luck!

[dsglass95]

Originally Posted by Conrad Rossi

From the pictures looks like the cables are old and have been tampered, which could be giving you erratic current. I might be worth checking and replacing your battery cables. At least that was one of the issues I has when I was trying to fire up my +30 years dormant car.

One of the many things I learned here is the importance of having good grounds with a solid path to ground and the correct cables gages. If the cables are old, most likely they’re corroded inside and you can see it. Ground straps usually have their tinning look dull and you can see the copper underneath.

Ground path: battery to firewall, firewall, to engine. Then add a ground from the starter support bolt to a transmission bolt. Ensure all metal surfaces are shinny clean with no corrosion, including bolts.

One thing you can do if you haven’t done it already is disconnecting the fuel pump from the carburetor. Then, fill up the carburetor bowl with gas. It will give you about 20-30 seconds to run. Make sure you use the choke, which you will have to find out the right balance to get the car fired up. Use starting fluid. Once the car runs a couple of times, then you can fill in the bowl and connect it to the gas pump. I had to do this prime the carb despite having a functioning pump.

Good luck!

I haven't looked to see if the motor is grounded to the body or not. But the motor is grounded directly to the battery, it was this way when we unburied it. As far as filling the float bowl goes, someone in the past had drilled a hole in the top of the carb that was on the motor, then capped it off with a grease zerk. I filled the old carb bowl dozen's of times and never was able to get it started.

[TJ]

One thing to mention since you are new to flatheads and may work on the distributor is the offset cam on the rear of the distributor. The distributor has a cam in back the fits into a groove on the camshaft. The cam is offset and can easily be placed 180 degrees out of time. Make sure all lines up before you try to start the motor. If not placed correctly a lot of damage can be done to the distributor.

[Bored&Stroked]

Just so you don't get confused by the prior post -- it is an offset "tang" that fits into a slot on the front of the camshaft. The tang is offset - so make sure you're not 180 degrees off and try to force the bolts in. Many a newbie has done this and cracked the distributor housing.

Not trying to step on TJ's shoes - he is mentioning a very important aspect of our 32 - 48 Ford Flatheads!

[TJ]

Originally Posted by Bored&Stroked

Just so you don't get confused by the prior post -- it is an offset "tang" that fits into a slot on the front of the camshaft. The tang is offset - so make sure you're not 180 degrees off and try to force the bolts in. Many a newbie has done this and cracked the distributor housing.

Not trying to step on TJ's shoes - he is mentioning a very important aspect of our 32 - 48 Ford Flatheads!

Thanks for clarifying my post. For some reason the word "tang" (which is the correct word) did not bubble to the top of this old brain.

[DavidG]

Somewhat off topic, but your engine compartment photos bring back memories of the many cars that I brought back from Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay in the early 70s and early 90s when on assignment there with Ford, namely the work of many like-minded Rube Goldbergs.

Your car is a rarity, however, if those fenders on it are the ones that were on it when it left Argentina. Not a lot of lane discipline down there, at least in the past, so fenders got bent, repaired, bent, and repaired to the point where there was no life left in the metallurgy. Of 30 or cars that I exported, only 3 did not have to have all four fenders replaced. But the climates of southern Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay are car friendly and new cars were so expensive that there was a lot of incentive to keep the old cars in regular use right up into the 1980s.

All of the Fords that I retrieved were open cars for the simple reason that all of the good '32-'34 closed cars that I found were rendered not worth the effort by virtue of the local (and in my opinion, bad) habit of welding in the roof opening. Your car appears to have escaped that fate.

Fordor sedans are my second-most favorite '32 closed body types. I really like their proportions, styling wise.

[cas3]

Being a new guy, Ill say folks here are trying to help. Your choice of a speedway carb would have probably been changed if you had asked first. Speedway sells some useful parts, some good, some not so good. Carbs are not on the good list. Uncle Max only works on stromberg carbs, re bushes the throttle plates, new real stromberg parts thruout,
re does the finish on the whole carb, all new screws, all linkage replated, and its tested and adjusted on his flow bench before its shipped out. When you get it, you bolt it on and it runs perfect.

I too have rebuilt all kinds of carbs thru my life, but this is done right. Last one was about 225 if I remember, and they look like new.

[cas3]

I'm gonna add one more comment, as a general rule, Henry built a good car, thats why many have survived, and generally command a higher price than a similar brand X.
So keeping it as much real ford parts as one can in todays world will probably give you more joy and happy motoring. New, is not necessarily better.

[dsglass95]

Hello all. I am back with a update on some of the suggestions that were given to me. I had time this morning to check for spark at the plugs. Found the plugs #4,8 and 5 were not firing. #4 and 8 were just the end of the wire at the plug needed cleaning, but #5 was corroded in the cap to the point that it broke while trying to get it apart to clean. So When I reach out to Third Gen on getting the distributor rebuilt, I will put new caps, wires and plugs on it at the same time. That brings me to the coil. This coil isn't stock, but the primary ohms at zero, while the secondary is at 3.4 ohms. I have never checked a 6 volt coil before, but since this car used a ballast resistor, I am believing that no resistance at the primary side of the coil is good. If I am making the wrong call on this, please let me know. Here are a few pics of the coil. Thanks.

[tubman]

You want some resistance on the primary windings, say 6 or 8 ohms. On the secondary, you want to see 15,000 to 20,000 ohms, maybe even higher. You may be reading the wrong scale on the ohmmeter. Since resistance can vary so much, most meters have variable scales. There is usually a knob or something to switch between them. Testing the primary while set to a high scale can make it appear that there is zero. There has to be some primary (and secondary) resistance, since you are getting spark.

Since that is an aftermarket coil, there's no telling how old it is. Most original Ford coils have long since given up the ghost due to age. They can be renewed.

[dsglass95]

Thanks for the info. It appears the this coil is bad then. My older meter shows 0 at any setting above 200, and my Fluke with auto range shows .7. I was able to get a Ford part number (18-12024) by finding the part number on the condenser,(68-12300), So I will be reaching out to Skip Haney to see if he can fix this one or not. Thank you to Blindhuckster for the links as well.

[Bored&Stroked]

Skip can rework/rebuild the coil and he will most likely advise you to get a new condenser. I'm not sure who is "building" condensers these days for these Diver's Helmet distributors. The old (even NOS) condensers tend to be dried out and worthless - so having a good condenser is a must. I use high-quality magneto condensers on my crab style distributor rebuilds (Harman Collins dual-coils) - they are expensive, but tend to be about the only ones I can find that last (at least in my world!).

I know that guys have retro-fitted non-original condensers to fit into these coils - you may ask Skip what he recommends and can he supply you with a tested setup. If it was mine, I'd modify a magneto condenser to fit (some fabricating, soldering, etc).