Flathead timing covers???

[V8 Bob]

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Originally Posted by BUBBAS IGNITION

Need some help here regarding flathead timing covers and distributor mount.
After shipping almost 600 of the Chevrolet conversion distributors and building a few hundred of the reg Ford distributors , i actually thought i had it figured out which was which.
I made up a flathead display table that i use for swap meets etc and used every kind of front cover i could research etc.

I have these in my swap meet truck and can if you wish supply a picture of each individual cover.

Now i have some questions???? And maybe a correction or two???

1=I thought the only aluminum cover was a Mercury cover with lower (below the gear) support... ( correct or not)

2=All others are cast iron ??? ( correct or not)

3=Only the Merc used the lower support ?? ( correct or not)

4=There are possibly five cast iron covers.

Early ( 4 hole bell distributor) , early (3 hole bell distributor), shallow ( 2 bolt crab) used with a early camshaft, and a deep ( 2 bolt crab) used with earlier camshaft, and the cast upright single hole distributor.

How does this sound ???

I will do a cover write up after some discussion and include pics.

Do i have them all.??????????

I did discuss with Bruce L. and he suggested putting up this post .What ya think......

I'll try and address the '48-'53 covers. Below are 4 styles, two aluminum, A & B, and two cast iron, C & D. There may be more, But these are the only ones I've seen and removed so far.

Cover A with the lower shaft support came out in late '50 for F/M cars and trucks, as it has dual timing pointer locations for both the large wide-belt sheet metal and smaller narrow-belt cast iron pulleys, and should only be used with the extended shaft aluminum distributor.

Cover B also has dual pointer locations and has room for the extended shaft alloy distributor, but should only be used with iron body distributor because of the short upper support on the aluminum distributor, imo.

Covers C & D came on wide-belt large pulley engines because of the pointer locations, namely '48-'53 trucks and '49 Fords and Mercurys, and should be used with the iron body short distributors.

The second rear view picture, along with the third, shows the upper supports, and why the cast iron distributor with the stepped housing should only be used with covers B,C & D, and why the short body aluminum distributor can only be used with cover A.

The above is info is accurate to the best of my knowledge and hope it helps answer some questions.