1940 Ford Tudor Build Thread

[Mike P]

Thanks for the videos Matt. Boats, irrigation pumps, sirens, saw mills, generators etc were all common homes for the 331 and 354 Hemis. As far as I know they never used the bigger 392s in industrial applications although I have heard rumors that some of the 392s did find their way into boat (marine applications).

The neatest application for an Industrial HEMI I think I ever came across was in an old Airport tug that was for sale on E Bay a few years ago.......now that would have been FUN.

They apparently sold enough industrial and marine motors to justify stamping out their own valve covers besides the more common Fire Power and Imperial passenger car covers.

HVC by M Patterson, on Flickr


The bumps between the spark plug holes on the Industrial and Marine valve covers were for clearance for adjustable rocker arms which were kind of rareto find on the first generation Hemis as mos of them came with hydraulic lifters and non-adjustable rockers. I;ve never had a marine hemi apart, but I've been around the Industrial Hemis, and even though the valve covers have the clearance bumps I've yet to find one that actually had solid lifters and adjustable rockers.

The (Non-Bump) Fire Power, Industrial and Marine Valve Covers are all pretty common. The non marked, and Fire Power Covers WITH adjustable rockers bumps (not shown but used on Chrysler 331, 354 and 392 letter series cars which did have solid cams and adjustable rockers) are probably the rarest and bring some really good money if you came across a set. Or at least they did until they started reproducing them in China.


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[rspears]

The neatest application for an Industrial HEMI I think I ever came across was in an old Airport tug that was for sale on E Bay a few years ago.......now that would have been FUN.

Mike, you made me remember that at NAS Corpus Christi we had a tug/tractor with a HEMI. That thing was a BEAST, and we got tagged more than once for speeding on the line. They pulled it in for rework, and it came back freshly painted, but they'd put a throttle limiter on it! Only took a few minutes to realize it was a nut welded to the floorboard with a carriage bolt that stopped the pedal, and that bending it forward gave us back our toy. If you blipped the throttle in gear, then hammered it "Super Tractor" would pull the front wheels! We put a big Anheuser Busch "A" with the eagle on the back, but the brass wouldn't buy that it was "A" for America.... Fun times, training pilots.

Very cool videos, Matt!