MTFCA Forum

My friend Bob recently bought a 26 touring from the estate of a friend who had passed away a few months ago. The previous owner bought it off ebay a few years ago and he always had trouble with the transmission and the hogshead was off it as he had never got it back together because something was in a bind. Bob found that the upper hogshead bolts did not even line up with block holes. We also determined that there was no mag coil ring or magnets in the engine, and it was running a distributor ignition system. As part of the deal Bob got a second "improved" engine that had reportedly been used to run a sawmill and it was mounted in the front half of a T frame with an earlier firewall and steering column for controls. We could tell that it had a coil ignition system, so it might be a good donor transmission for Bob's incomplete transmission since he wanted to go back to a coil ignition system. When he got to taking it apart we found that there were no bands in it and the drums looked to be in perfect condition; perhaps it had always been a sawmill engine. In checking the engine number we found that it had been built in September 1929, more than two years after car production stopped. The pictures show the side of the engine with late style manifolds, but the manifolds are attached with domed bolts over the clamps rather than the normal studs and nuts. Cast on the side of the block is 22 F. The valve cover does not have a hole for the carb rod, but there is a hole in the block for the rod as seen from the other side.
The pan and hogshead are not from this engine as Bob is keeping the originals for his other engine with the car. Makes me wonder if a lot of these post production engines could have only used as industrial type engines.
Ralph

Interesting....
Ford built almost 5,000 model T engines in 1929 according to dear old Bruce and who would argue with that.
I had always assumed that they were 1927 style with a vaporizer and bolts between the block and hogs head. Bruce states that they were “replacement” engines so it’s unlikely they had items missing such as transmission bands. Mind you when used in an industrial application I suppose some enterprising person would remove the unnecessary items.
I have inspected several 1927 engines over the years and several had no hole in the block between cylinders 2 and 3. It’s odd that yours has the hole in the block but none in the valve cover.

According to Wikipedia (gasp!), Ford continued to produce Model T engines up through August 1941:

"The T engine was produced continuously from September 27, 1908, through August 4, 1941, exactly 12,000 days. This makes it one of the longest engines in series production, especially considering that the specifications remained mostly unchanged for this entire duration. Its production run for the U.S. consumer market for passenger cars and pickups was shorter, being the 19 years' production run of the Model T itself for that market (1908 to 1927). But the engine continued to be produced and sold to various consumer, industrial, military, and marine markets throughout the world until 1941."

I have a late rebuilt short block that was apparently a stationary engine. I can't get to it to look, but I remember the number and letters stamped on the pad were nothing like 27 production numbers. Being a stationary engine, the cylinders were worn way beyond .080 and the cylinders had to be sleeved. The block was solid between cylinders 2 and 3. I have another 1926 bare block, which also must have been a stationary engine. It, too, will have to be sleeved. When a new .060 piston is placed in the top of a cylinder, daylight can be seen on all sides of the piston and if not held, and allowed to drop into the cylinder, it'll drop through the bore faster than lightning.