“What casting date code did Cork Ireland / Ford of England have 1926-27?

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Model T Ford Forum: Forum 2015: “What casting date code did Cork Ireland / Ford of England have 1926-27?
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Hap Tucker in Sumter SC on Sunday, March 15, 2015 - 09:21 pm:

Chris Barker asked the following question at the thread located at: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/506218/525519.html?1426428333

My 'new' engine for my 1926 Coupe has had its engine number ground away.
It is a 26/27 motor - it has the hogshead bolt lugs.
It has 4 K D cast on the right side below cylinders 3 and 4. Does anyone know if it can be dated from this?
(I know that Canadian motors had a code similar to this.)

I (Hap) started a new thread with that question since the question was sort of hidden in the other thread and also to keep from hi-jacking the other thread.

Hap’s answer: Yes, the engine blocks used by Ford of England had casting dates at least into 1926. Ref page 115 of “The English Model T Ford Book vol 1.” There they show a photo of a 1926-27 style block with the caption: “1926 English cylinder block (cast at Cork), carrying both the casting date and the Ford script. By this date, blocks cast in the US no longer had these marks.”

I don’t have permission to post the photo but the casting date is to the right of the water inlet slightly to the rear and lower than the serial number pad. It is in the same general location as shown on the Canadian block below:



Canada switched to letters representing the years as shown below:



Does any have information on how the casting date for the engine blocks that were cast at Cork Ireland and used by Ford of England were formatted? Or can you refer us to a reference that might have that information. I did not have time to look through all of “The English Ford Book vol 1” so there may be additional information there. Chris’ question was specifically for the 1926-27 style blocks but info on the other blocks would also be appreciated.

Respectfully re-posted,

Hap l9l5 cut off


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Chris Barker, Somerset, England on Monday, March 16, 2015 - 02:16 pm:

I'm sorry, I forgot that my 'name' includes my location.
This isn't an English engine. It's just come from the USA, so it's either American or possibly Canadian.
It doesn't have markings on the left side as shown above, just 4 K D lower down and larger on the stb'd (right) side.
I guess D is 1926
4 could be April, or the 4th of the month
K could be November - or October if I was not used.
I doubt that K could be the 11th of the month because how would they mark the 27th on?

Does anyone know, please?


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Roger Karlsson, southern Sweden on Monday, March 16, 2015 - 02:40 pm:

Model T engines made in USA didn't have cast dates after some time in 1922 or whenever the last engine with two valve covers was made. The introduction of the single valve cover took months until all of production had it since there were many wooden patterns and core boxes used in parallel and the new style was only introduced one pattern a time as the old ones were worn out since this change was likely considered of minor importance. For other changes that needed to be introduced on all of production at a coordinated time like the bosses for the hogshead bolts, all patterns were changed/modified at the same time.

This above description was just to explain what I think the letters or numbers you have found on your engine may mean - its just an identification of what pattern was used to cast your engine and it doesn't tell much what year it was cast more than it's after july 27, 1925 when the bosses were introduced but could be later after '27 up until 1941, as spare engines and spare blocks were kept in production until then. All complete engines put into a Model T or made as spares were numbered, but spare blocks weren't. Your engine may have frozen early on and had a replacement block - sometimes they were never stamped with the old engine's number as they should have. Or maybe the whole engine was swapped and the number on this replacement engine was ground off since it didn't match the title. If your '26 was built after mid december '25, it'll probably have the original engine number stamped onto the top of the RH frame member under the front floorboard.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Roger Karlsson, southern Sweden on Monday, March 16, 2015 - 02:50 pm:

There are many other clues that can tell when an engine was made, like if you have a vaporizer carb and if the web between cylinders #2 and #3 is closed or looks like it's been cracked open - that's late '27 signs. A rounded crown on the bolt heads with signs they've been nickel plated is another sign of 1927 production - many dates of changes can be found in the encyclopedia:

http://www.mtfca.com/encyclo/E.htm#eng3
http://www.mtfca.com/encyclo/doc25.htm
http://www.mtfca.com/encyclo/doc26.htm
http://www.mtfca.com/encyclo/doc27.htm


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Hap Tucker in Sumter SC on Monday, March 16, 2015 - 07:00 pm:

Chris,

Roger -- those are good points for dating the engine. Note that in general there would have been some overlap when both an old style and new style was being produced. For example they had about 5 months of overlap when both the one piece and the two piece valve cover blocks were produced in the USA. (Ref: http://www.mtfca.com/encyclo/doc21.htm see the Nov 8 entry.)

I don't think it is a Canadian engine as they put the casting date near the water inlet and only used the letter for the year not the month or day.

Oh, I would still like to know the answer to the question about the English/Cork casting dates. The one on page 115 of “The English Model T Ford Book vol 1" is a little too hard for me to make out. So if anyone has info on that please share that also.

Respectfully submitted,

Hap l915 cut off


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