I picked up a spare 16H engine recently and on opening it up found this piston. Std 16H would have a solid skirt but you can see daylight through the scrolled cutaway between the skirt and the top. A bit a too high tech for a humble side valve.
Just wondering whether anyone has seen one of these and knows where they were typically used?

That looks alot like a side valve V8 ford piston

Thanks Splatt

have done a search on those and they have a bore x stroke variant pretty close to the 16H so you could well be right.
So it wasn't too high tech for a humble side valve after all.

Years past in Kiwi it was probably much easier and cheaper to get a Ford piston. I believe a number of American and Canadien V8s got there during WW2. Certainly in the canteen truck that charged the Germans.

Cookie,

that does make sense, and Chev at least were selling cars here in the 50's, or at least my father owned one then - steering wheel on the right (correct) side of course
They must have been rather unstable as one of his mates once tried to tell me that they contemplated putting wheels on its roof since it spent so much time upside down by the side of the road

I went to that junkyard that was in Smash Palace and they had a number of old Chevs and Fords. Holden must have been selling in Kiwi a long time as there were a number of those as well as brother Vauxhaul. Kiwis have always been resourseful, I guess they had to be, I certainly learned stuff there Ive seen nowhere else for saving engine blocks that would have been thrown away nearly anywhere else. I don't imagine lack of the correct piston would stop a Kiwi machinist for long.
I hope the new easy availabilty of stuff does not cut down on Kiwi creativity.
The kid from Nelson who lives with us is going to DeAnza to learn CNC machining and rapid prototyping, my hopes are that he will be able to easily get a job in kiwi with these skills.
Keep the Norton in good condition so you can sell it to me when I retire!

Cookie wrote:I went to that junkyard that was in Smash Palace and they had a number of old Chevs and Fords. Holden must have been selling in Kiwi a long time as there were a number of those as well as brother Vauxhaul. Kiwis have always been resourseful, I guess they had to be, I certainly learned stuff there Ive seen nowhere else for saving engine blocks that would have been thrown away nearly anywhere else. I don't imagine lack of the correct piston would stop a Kiwi machinist for long.
I hope the new easy availabilty of stuff does not cut down on Kiwi creativity.
The kid from Nelson who lives with us is going to DeAnza to learn CNC machining and rapid prototyping, my hopes are that he will be able to easily get a job in kiwi with these skills.
Keep the Norton in good condition so you can sell it to me when I retire!

Funnily a mate and i were discussing Smash Palace yesterday - we took the day off work and went riding. It's still there, i've been past it but never stopped yet.
Up until 20 or 30 so years ago we had a very controlled economy, importing things like new cars was only for the very well to do due to high import duties and other restrictions. We supposedly had one of the oldest vehicle fleets around, for a developed country at least, so there was a good incentive to keep things going .
All changed now, we have one of the least restrictive economies and we have been flooded with cheap used Japanese cars, they also have right hand drive cars and after a relatively short life their system encourages people to buy new rather than relicense.
Sadly, apart from us grey heads and our old toys, we have largely joined the throwaway world.
Back on the 16H, have found a 2.6mm (1/10th inch) thick spacer below the barrel, the Ford piston must be a bit taller than the Norton one - or they just wanted to detune the engine.

Personally I kind of wonder if all that is an improvement?
Can you could find measurements for the 16 H piston? That Ford one might actually be an improvement???

For any who might be interested to compare, i believe this is a factory piston.
The rag went into the crankcase opening about 2 seconds after this pic.