Inliners International Forums General Discussion MOPAR I got a free Fenton Aluminum head

I was at a car cruise the other night and I met an interesting gentleman in his late 70's. He was driving a beautiful 48 Plymouth street rod. We started talking and I told him about my stock 38 plymouth with the original 201 flathead. He got all excited and practically ran over to my car. He started telling me about how he worked in a garage back in the 40's and 50's and he was the only guy in the shop that worked on the mopars. He loved the flatheads. He also started talking about the 48 plymouth race car he used to have back then. He ran several different modified flatheads in it over the years. He then said that he still had the aluminum fenton cylinder head sitting in his garage that he ran on the car. He told me it's been there since the 50's. He said the next time he saw me he'd give it to me. I couldn't believe it. I got his name and number and I told him I was very interested in going to his house to see it. I called him yesterday and he was more excited than me that I wanted to go to his house. When we got there he pulled out the head and put it in my car. I asked him how much he wanted for it and he told me it was free. He said he knew there was a reason he kept it all these years and he wanted me to have it and he was happy to know it was going to get run on a flathead again. I couldn't believe how nice he was. I was shocked and excited to get the head but I think he was more excited than I was. He told me to put it on the car and bring it over to his house someday so he can see it. That was all the payment he wanted. He told me that he bought the head used in the 40's so it was pretty old. He checked it out before I got there and he said it was still straight. I bead blasted it and chased all the threads last night, it looks really nice clean.

Now for a few questions.
Are all heads for the 201, 218, 230 the same? Everything looks like it will bolt right up. The only difference I see is the plugs are spaced evenly apart and my originals arene't

Should I bolt it up like it is or get it shaved?

What will it actually do for the car? Will I notice a difference?

How rare is this head and how much would it be worth?

My engine is totally stock right now, I'm waiting for my split manifold to get here and then I'm adding dual exhaust.

I can't answer your questions, but if I were in your shoes I'd ask that gentleman over to your place when you get started on the motor build. Knowledge from someone like him is fast disappearing and who knows what he can impart to you as his memory is rekindled as the build progresses.You are pretty darn lucky to have his availability now.

I agree with Drew, you should make sure that ol' guy knows you appreciate his gift by putting it on your engine and take it to show him. You also need to pick his brain for his knowledge. I'll bet he'd be more than happy to sit with a cup of coffee and share all he knows.

I wouldn't mill the head, before you find out if it needs to be milled at all. Then, when you do install it, be sure to check for your valve-to head clearance. You can do that with a dial indicator, or use modeling clay, like we used to do in 'the old days'

Congratulations on your new friend!

I decided I'm not going to mill the head at all. I got it all cleaned up and it looks great, I wish I knew how to post a picture. My wife and I decided that when we bring the car back to show him we're going to try to take him and his wife out to dinner to show our appreciation. I always wanted an aluminum head for this motor, I think it's so cool to have one made back that some has history behind it. I'm going to order some gaskets today.

I don't think I've ever seen a flathead six head with the plugs spaced evenly apart... Are you sure it's for a mopar?

Here's a couple of pics of my EDGY head for comparison.

Pete

What a great story! Thanks for posting it...

I'd be interested to know if he has a twin carby manifold lying around for my replica. But it's not really that important, I guess.

More to the point, as others have said, people with the kind of knowledge he's got are fast disappearing. I agree that you should arrange some quality time with him, with an engine in bits in full view, and let him tell you any tricks they used to have, any problems they used to find.

When they were having problems these engines were easy to find. These days it's a bit harder.

Oh yeah, I hope your throwaway question about what it's worth was only so you'd have a figure to throw at the missus to justify it taking up bench space...

The last Fenton head on Ebay went for #2045.20. YES THATS RIGHT. To view this item go to Ebay and enter # 300126841429, also he had Fenton headers that sold for $1607.00. Ebay # 300126841955. Take that man and wife out for a steak dinner.

Wow! That looks nice...

The combustion chamber is different, I wonder if it proved to be much of an improvement... and how it compares with the Edgy head.

I'm feeling light headed right now, that one that sold on ebay is the exact head he gave me. It sold for $2,045.00!!!! I could buy a car for that much money. I wouldn't sell it though, it has to go on my car. I started tearing the engine down last night. He did mention that he wished he still had the dual carb set up, he said he would have given me that too. The only other parts he had left were a set of wire spoke kelsey hayes wheels but I didn't see them. I'm going to ask to see those when I go back over there with the head on the engine. Jesus, I still can't believe what the one on ebay sold for, I was just curious to what it was worth and I was guessing $400-$500. I'm not sure I'm going to tell my wife, she might want me to sell it so she can get her own car.

Do you mind doing me a favour before you put it on?

I'm kind of entranced by the combustion chamber shape, so I'd really like some accurate dimensions and so on. I'll copy the pics from eBay, but there's more to it than the pics can show.

If you wouldn't mind getting all sorts of dimensions for all parts of it, I'd appreciate it.

You never know, it's not real hard to cast up an alloy head for a flathead if you make it in two pieces. I might get inspired one day.

I pulled the old head off last night, what a pain that is with all of those studs. I had to lift it perfectly in order to get it off. I compaired the original to the Fenton, with the Fenton head the spark plug is placed directly between the two valves instead of over one like the original.

Do you want dimensions of just the combistion chamber or of the whole head? I could take a bunch of detailed photos with a ruler or tape in the photos. I will need to know soon, as soon as the gaskets arrive at NAPA I'm putting it back together.

I thought of a couple of questions that I hope someone can answer. Now that I have the head off there was some light carbon on the pistons and around the valves. I cleaned it all off and noticed the pistons have one letter stamped on each of them, A's, B's and D's I think they were. Does this mean anything? I'm curious if the engine was rebuilt or original. The car has 42,000 original miles.

What sealant should I use on the head studs (3 came out with the nut) and on other bolts that go into the water jackets?

When I remove the intake and exhaust manifolds in order to put on the split exhaust manifold does porting either one make any difference on these engines? Should I do anything to them like just smoothing them or gasket matching?

Thanks for any help, it's been about 8 years since I have worked on anything old. I absolutely love it and didn't realize how much I missed it. My wife has had to come get me out of the garage the last two nights or I would probably still be there in the morning. She thinks I'm crazy because I spent hours bead blasting and painting nuts and bolts. I literally blasted thru the rubber gloves, now I get to go back to harbor freight!

I took a bunch of photos with a ruler but I can't figure out how to post them on here.

go to www.imageshack.us

click where it says browse,

a window will come up titled choose file

assuming you've uploaded the photos to your computer you will be able to find them in your "My Pictures" folder, or whatever folder you chose to save them onto your computer in.


just clicking on the picture will set it as the file to upload.


check the "remove size" box
then click on "host it"

when its finished uploading,
highlight and copy all the info in the Thumbnail for forums (1)
paste it in the post where ever you want it to be at...


and it will look like this


clicking on the picture will bring up another window for the full size,

i like this because the pictures dont take up the whole computer screen and make the thread too wide for your screen, and you can post relatively high resolution photos without them all taking time to load

then click "Upload another image" (top left of the page)and start over to upload more photos

Shot with Canon PowerShot Pro1 at 2007-07-19

Lets see if this worked

Shot with Canon PowerShot Pro1 at 2007-07-19

Heres one of my car, I have a bunch of closeup's showing dimensions of the combustion chamber if any wants to see them. I can't figure out how to get more than one picture up at a time.

Thanks for the e.mailed pictures, Robert... I tried to e.mail a 'thank you' etc but it was blocked!

One more thing, if you don't mind. Could you give me a measurement for the depth of the parallel section of the chamber? And it looks to me like the chamber roof starts to curve towards a taper just on the spark plug side of the head stud holes, is that right?

You never know, I might get around to this one day... there are very few of this size Chrysler engine used here, but one was used in a car that ran in the Australian Grand Prix of 1951. I want to build a replica of that car (if I can ever find some '40 to '47 Ford brakes!) and this would be a nice addition to it for when it's not exactly being a complete replica.

I also have a friend who is going to restore a '47 Dodge, he might well become an accomplice in this issue. He spends his days teaching in a technical college... wonder if his students need a project?

You could make a cast of the combustion chambers in silicone rubber, plastic or even plaster and mail them to Ray Bell for his "scientific research".

Just a suggestion.

And a good one... though plaster would surely break up with a bit of rough treatment in the mail.

Coincidentally, this weekend I should be picking up (at least seeing... it might not fit into my available space) my very own 230 engine. A guy who replaced it with a 245 in his '53 De Soto is giving it to me.

There's a whole bunch of flathead Mopars in his and his friends' collections. The group of about six help each other restore cars, all Chrysler products, and there's a goodly list of them.

I think they have a '34 De Soto in the works at the moment, while the pride of the 'fleet' is a '47 De Soto (or is it a Fargo?) prime mover with a fifth wheeler.

I'm doing magazine articles about two of the cars and the fifth wheeler, as well as one about how they work together doing their restorations.