MTFCA Forum

So I've looked up old posts about the day a car or engine was built and I could not find one that had the day for the frame of my car. I'm assuming that the engine and frame should match. Mine like most does not. This is what I have so far.

Engine # 14327067 Built 30 Sept 1926
Frame # 14456143 Built ?? Oct 1926

Can someone help with the day in Oct?

That should make it a 27 model year touring car. Although it is titled as a 1926. (leaving that one alone. Ha!)

I will take a stab at this one based on what I have learned.

It appears your car has a replacement engine. The reason I say this is the original engine number was the number stamped into the frame when the car was built. Thus, both numbers were the same. If you have a different number on the engine now, either the engine was replaced (most likely) or the frame was replaced, making the numbers different.

As far as I know, date of manufacture, or means to determine date of manufacture, was never stamped into frames by Ford.

As far a "model year" goes, Ford had a fiscal year that began in August (If I remember correctly). Thus, the "new" year began about then. Ford practiced using new design or safer design parts as soon as the new parts were available. This causes problems when trying to ID the year of a car by the parts on the car. We have a car that had many 1920 parts on it but still had 1919 running board brackets. We figure it was built late 1919 and can be classified as a 1919 since it was actually built in 1919 or it can be classified as a 1920 since it was most likely built in late 1919 being a 1920 "model", rolling off the line after the new fiscal year began. I sure wish the original engine had been in/with the car when we bought it. Alas, we can only guess now.

Good Luck,
Terry

Thanks Terry. You are correct someone put another engine in the car. Or the car was a Frankenstein built one. There is a Model T encyclopedia out there that has the month and day based not the number. I found it for the engine but the post I looked up stopped for numbers higher than 30 Sept 26.

Engine # 14327067 Built 30 Sept 1926
Frame # 14456143 Built ?? Oct 1926

Can someone help with the day in Oct?

Wednesday, October 27, 1926.

Yes, the number stamped on the frame is the serial number of the original engine. Frames did not have a separate number.

The serial numbers are in Bruce McCalley's Model T Encyclopedia. You may find a hard copy for sale online, but the flash drive version is better because of all the extra materials it contains. Of course, both versions are better than the limited one on this MTFCA website.

http://dauntlessgeezer.com/DG80.html

Thanks so much Steve. That's what I wanted to know. Somewhere along the line as with most T's the engine was replaced. The good thing is that the frame of the car was used to title it so if I ever have to replace the block I can.