Chrysler flathead

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MercuryMac

Builder Junky!
Joined
Jan 18, 2013
Messages
4,909
Location
Northern Alberta, Canada.
Here's my Flathead six Chrysler. This one is the industrial 230 ci. with the short 23 1/2" head. I think the different lengths of the head just mean that Chrysler didn't have to Siamese as many cylinders not that they necessarily made larger cylinders, on the longer ones. There were some bigger displacement ones though. I'm supposed to run it at 1500 revs at high idle in this 1954 Massey-Harris 33 tractor.
 

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That is very interesting, because the 23 1/2" L-head is the Plymouth engine. (I have a '55 model 230 in my 46 Plymouth.) The interesting thing is the completely different bell-housing that puts the starter on the left side, the different intake-exhaust manifolds, up-draft carb, and the blocked off fuel pump location (sort of behind what ever that deal is on the front right side).
 
There are quite a lot of different bellhousings for Chrysler sixes, Neto. This is a combine motor so it had a different bellhousing that I couldn't use, I had to find a tractor one.
That's the governor at the right front and the controlling arms.
 
There are quite a lot of different bellhousings for Chrysler sixes, Neto. This is a combine motor so it had a different bellhousing that I couldn't use, I had to find a tractor one.
That's the governor at the right front and the controlling arms.

I've heard a lot about the use of these MoPar engines in forklifts and in farm equipment over the years, but the only industrial engine I've ever seen "in real life" was one on an irrigation set up in Nebraska, might have been any time between 74 to 80 or so. I don't recall what it had at the back, for a bell housing. Seen them in lots of cars, pickups, and trucks, but that's it. (Maybe I have actually seen one in a tractor, as I've been around a lot of old tractors over the years, but just didn't recognize it.)
 
I used to work for a wholesale nursery and they had 3 old concrete truck mixers repurposed to use for mixing potting soil, all powered by Mopar flathead 6's. They all used a combo torque converter/3spd gearbox, something like the old Fluid Drive used in cars I think. Those old engines just ran forever.
 
ZZ, was that the same 'fluid drive' that came in cars? I drove a lumber loader sometimes, with that fluid drive behind a flat six, in it.

I think so, it looked the same to me. You only used the clutch for shifting gears. In the cars, you could come to a stop with out using the clutch, then drive off like a regular automatic. It was a 1:1 converter with no torque multiplication so it was a bit of a slug, but it made driving in stop and go traffic easier.
 

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