Posts by bobmannel

  • Correct Date for Fan

    I don't know of any cases where the fan date would be after the engine assembly month. The fan was part of the engine when tested, which would be done shortly after the engine was assembled.


    Have not started on the starter motor stamping. It is just a low priority since it is not seen. I want to do the coil next.

  • Correct Date for Fan

    Fans were often made in batches outside of Ford but under contract and date stamped when made, having nothing to do with the engine. So fan dates can be months before the engine or car. It just depends on how long it took to get low on stock before more were made. Some fans might be in the same month as the car and/or engine, but others months earlier.

  • K Code 1964 Fairlane "BabyBolt"

    Ford produced K-codes with the standard option list if customers wanted them some other way to what was sent out to the dealers. But, Ford did not modify them with the sole exception of the Thunderbolts. The Thunderbolts were in essentially two groups -- the first 11 were fully built K-codes, then modified by Dearborn Steel Tubing (DST). The DSO was 89 (Transportation Services within Ford Motor Company). Next was a pilot car, then the remaining were partial K-code cars without a drivetrain. Even these were not completed by a Ford assembly plant, but a Ford contractor. They all carried the 89 DSO and either a 0004 or 0024 special order number. In 1963 there were reported to be 13 Lightning Bolts built by Carroll Shelby with Paxton Superchargers. I have heard a rumor about 37 similarly built in 1964, but none has ever surfaced that I am aware of, nor do I have any firm documentation of Carroll Shelby modifying these cars. These again left the factory as standard K-codes and were modified elsewhere. They did not carry special order numbers or anything other than standard district sales office numbers. The first I heard of "Baby Bolts" is from people who wanted to make a connection with the Thunderbolts, but had small-block V8 motors. The name stuck, but I have not seen any evidence to support the use of the term in 1964. As for the name itself, I think it sounds rather wimpy. The Fairlane is either a K-code because it came from the factory with the high performance 289, or a 1964 Thunderbolt (with 427). All other configurations are modifieds outside of Ford.


    K-codes have risen to the level where cars are being rebodied to assume a K-code serial number from a scrapped car. Done with meticulous care, it can be hard to detect, but I don't know of any so far that have been done to that level of care. If you know where and what to look for, you can get a pretty good idea of whether the real car is still there.


    The car in question is unknown by me. I do have 9 Burgundy 64 Fairlane hardtops in my Fairlane K-code registry. If I had a serial number on this car, I could say more if it is in my list.

  • Factory Casting Repair?

    There appear to be a number of HiPo blocks cast in June that were held for Shelby for the Cobra. This is likely because Shelby wanted the 5-bolts for which he had already done the engineering (rather than the 6-bolt, although he eventually did install some in Cobras). All the engines that fell in this group seem to have late August assembly date codes. Your engine appears to be one of them.


    One Cobra engine with a 4F5 block was assembled on 4H28. Since there is more than one like yours, and it was stamped with a sequenctial number, I doubt that the repair was the reason for the spread between block and assembly date. In addition, this repair is not in the areas Ford designated as a repairable area according to Ford's TSB #25, Article 477. That is not to say it is not a Ford repair, only that reasonable doubt remains without further information.

  • Original hipo 289 in car

    Can't answer the first question. As to the second question, you can't predict with any degree of certainty a correlation between the engine casting and the car's door tag date. The door tag is a scheduled date. The car could be finished before or after that date by weeks. The block casting number only tells you when the block was actually cast. There is also an assembly date code which is when the engine was assembled. It will always be after the casting date of the block and all other casting dates on the engine (the intake manifold being the easiest to see), by days, weeks, or in rare cases, months. But, the assembly date of the engine can be before or after the door tag date. If after, it is usually not too much after -- a week or two. Engines can be 4 weeks or more before the door tag date, and anything in between. Two months is getting out there, but it is still possible.


    When looking over such a situation, it is best to get as many date codes as you can and see if there is at least consistency. For example, if the casting date code of the intake manifold is after the engine assembly date code, then someone has been messing around with the engine. I would be more suspicious of the engine preceeding the car by a couple months in that case. But, if everything is consistent, the motor numbers all look good, it becomes very difficult for someone to state with any authority the engine is not original when falling in a broad range prior to, to a smaller range after, the car's date.


    Here is an example of seemingly wrong dates being correct. I have a 65 Fairlane HiPo built in April 1965. The differential tag and casting date codes were July 1964. That's 9 months earlier than the scheduled build date of the car. Easy to say this can't be. When I removed the axle housing and began a clean up on it, I discovered a repair. When the metal was stamped for the center housing, the metal folded over on itself rather than being formed. The stamping of the folded metal caused it to crack in the fold. Probably leaked after assembled. The crack as repaired by welding and the differential surface was resurfaced at the weld. It was a very professional-looking repair. My guess is that after the repair, the axle assembly was rotated into production and wound up in my car nine months later.

  • 38-amp alternator

    Already have this imformation. Trying to see if other alternators can be identified as 38-amp on the 289. I had always thought that the 289 received the 42-amp alternator, but it appears the 38-amp was also used. So, I am trying to collect any more data that verifies this.

  • L10 Change on 65 HiPo Head

    So far, it appears that 1966 289 HiPos were L9 engines, and 1967 289 HiPos were L13 and L14 engines. (L5, L6, L7, and L8 apply to 1965 289 HiPo engines.) However, L13 does not mean that L10 (small valve springs), or L11 (rail rockers/round holes on Windsor engines), or L12 (rail rockers/round holes on Cleveland engines) were encorporated. 1967 began with L13, and L14 replaced the smaller valve springs with larger ones, which was not applicable to the 289 HiPo. In summary, I don't know of any 289 HiPo engine tags with L10, L11, L12, or L15 (emissions driven changes). If there are, I would be interested in hearing about it.

  • pistons

    The correct compression ratio for the 1965 289 HiPo was 9.8:1. HiPos always had valve reliefs. Early 1965 225HP 289 4Vs used flattop pistons without valve reliefs and were true 10:1 compression engines, but mid-year the pistons were changed to include valve reliefs, so comression dropped to 9.8:1 -- same as the 289 HiPo. The pistons were not the same. The HiPo piston reportedly used a higher strength aluminum material. Today, materials are much improved, so the same piston can be used in both applications.


    P.S. The 10.5:1 compression ratio was associated with the small-chamber 1963-early 64 heads.

  • 63 WATER PUMP I.D.

    On page 3-46 I show the C2OE-8505-C water pump. Your C3OE-8512-A impeller crosses to the C2OZ-8512-A part number, which Ford indicates is the standard 4.7" impeller. But, your description of 3.9" would seem to indicate a HiPo impeller. A picture of the impeller and casting number might help. According to Ford, the early HiPo impeller was part number C3OZ-8512-A with a engineering number (probably the same as the casting number in this case) of C2OE-8512-B.

  • 65 Fuel Canister Mask

    Oops! The S is there, but it is under a layer and could not be seen. The red color was just for effect. I continued to refine the mask. The difficulty was in decisions about the stars and small Genuine Parts letters. If you look at any canister close up, those letters and the stars are really bad. I took a middle-of-the-road approach. I had a good idea what the letters and stars were supposed to look like, so I first made them that way, then deemphasized the corners by making them softer. I figured that the application with the mask would further degrade the crispness. I will say that this mask is much truer to the real thing than what I have currently seen in reproduction. Here is the mask and a close-up of the star area.

    [Blocked Image: http://www.fordsmallblock.com/Pictures/FuelCanister-final.jpg][Blocked Image: http://www.fordsmallblock.com/Pictures/FuelCanister-final-close.jpg]

  • 65 Fuel Canister Mask

    The work on a mask has already been done. Using original canisters, the proper fonts were created to make the mask as close to the original as possible. The greatest difficulty was in the small letters and the three stars. The mask attempts to duplicate these in a realistic way as the original stars and small letters were not crisp. I have this mask in CorelDraw as a vector graphic. I can save it in other formats if someone wishes to make a mask. The color red is just for effect.

    [Blocked Image: http://www.fordsmallblock.com/Pictures/fuelfilter.jpg]