Original Canadian 1912 Engine Casting numbers

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Colin Mavins
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Original Canadian 1912 Engine Casting numbers

Post by Colin Mavins » Wed Feb 27, 2019 11:15 am

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Over the past 4 Years I have been blasted by the experts ,that every thing I say about my 12 is wrong so I will let the pictures talk for he. As for the ford there is no Made in the USA on this block never had never was no sign of it ever being there and the 150 block is the same. The casting date is above the engine Number it is hard to read but when the paint was off it reads 7-10-12 The low head does have made in the USA on it the cast date is split by the head bolt and can not be read ,on the right side of the block there is a 3 and a 33 is stamped on the top head surface. Just for the broken crank club there is the broken crank it is the original crank there is a aug 12 date stamped on the flange, the crank broke at about 15 mph.


Topic author
Colin Mavins
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Re: Original Canadian 1912 Engine Casting numbers

Post by Colin Mavins » Wed Feb 27, 2019 11:18 am

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Drkbp
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Re: Original Canadian 1912 Engine Casting numbers

Post by Drkbp » Wed Feb 27, 2019 3:40 pm

This is right about the time frame of the "B" blocks.
What was the question/wrong with the 146,808 for a 1912 car?
Since you have it apart and the crank was dated,
I am curious what the date is on the transmission stub shaft?


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Re: Original Canadian 1912 Engine Casting numbers

Post by SurfCityGene » Wed Feb 27, 2019 4:42 pm

Since you have these engines out and opened take a picture of the inside of the block above the rear most main bearing. On the '12 engine #12699X that I have there is only ONE vertical web directly underneath the third main for support. All later blocks will have two gussets for main bearing support.
There's no faking that so keep the picture handy..

PS... This is a weak area just in case you ever break the crankshaft make Sure you check that area for cracks.... Don't ask me why
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Darren J Wallace
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Re: Original Canadian 1912 Engine Casting numbers

Post by Darren J Wallace » Wed Feb 27, 2019 5:20 pm

Here's photos from today of my Sept/Oct '13 Canadian touring block and head. Never had anything cast into either one of them except the Ford logo. There's NO casting dates anywhere. I've looked really hard to find any evidence the motor ever had casting dates on it but it does not.
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1913 Canadian Touring & 1905 Queen, both cars are 4 generation family owned cars


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Re: Original Canadian 1912 Engine Casting numbers

Post by Allan » Wed Feb 27, 2019 5:34 pm

Darren, you just opened two cans of worms!!! The block in my van is B597. The transmission shaft was stamped 9 26 12. This block has the casting date above the engine number pad just as Colin shows. Then your block shows where the 'Made in USA' has been removed, unlike Colin's unmarked block. At least things are consistently inconsistent!

Allan from down under.


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Colin Mavins
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Re: Original Canadian 1912 Engine Casting numbers

Post by Colin Mavins » Wed Feb 27, 2019 7:13 pm

There was no problem with the number it was the fact that the casting date was above the engine number. There was no date on the transmission.


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Re: Original Canadian 1912 Engine Casting numbers

Post by Kerry » Wed Feb 27, 2019 7:52 pm

More are done that way, this is a 12 I rebuild some years ago and the casting date is at the engine number but had been screwed on up side down.
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Re: Original Canadian 1912 Engine Casting numbers

Post by Hap_Tucker » Wed Feb 27, 2019 9:34 pm

Colin,

Every Model T has a special story. Sometimes they come with a lot of known history and it makes it very easy to understand what happened with the car and when it happened. Other times we have to play detective and look for clues. And often times without some known history about the car we have to accept that we won't have as complete a history of our car as we might want.

Quick comment for folks that may read this later when they are searching for information on 1912 Canadian produced Model T Fords. All the engines for the all normal production Model Ts world wide were produced in the USA until May 1913. Starting in May 1913, Ford of Canada began assembling engines using parts supplied by Ford USA. (In some cases those parts were machined in Canada -- but without parts from the USA there would not have been a running engine & transmission. But they stamped them with their own unique Canadian engine serial number that started with a "C". Depending on the reference -- The Ford Service Bulletins (Canada) as well as the "Ford Owner & Dealer (Jun 1922) both say C1 was manufactured May 1, 1913 while the Ford Archives (Canada) indicate C1 was manufactured May 20, 1913 (ref page 540 Bruce McCalley "Model T Ford" and see also the foot notes on that page).

So for Canadian cars that were supplied with USA engines (and all 1912 cars would have been supplied with complete USA assembled engine & transmissions -- with USA serial numbers) you can use the USA information. However, you cannot just look up the USA engine serial number and assume it was placed in a Canadian car in a couple of days. And for late 1911 through 1912 the records are really incomplete. Bruce's book states, "There are apparently no records extant for late 1922 through 1912. The figures give are those published by Ford." Ref page 506 of his book that was copyrighted 1994. After that publication he and others did locate some additional information. Not for when an engine was manufactured, but for when a car with a given engine number was shipped. Please see: http://www.mtfca.com/encyclo/11-12Ser.htm . That same information includes some data for the B-serial numbered engines.

So where the Ford Data shares that engine numbers 144,501 to 157,424 would have been from Sep 1912 looking at the data based on a very small sample size of USA manufactured cars it initially indicates USA cars within the engine number range of 146,366 to 151,445 where assembled and shipped during Aug 1912. Again a Canadian car would have had the engine shipped (short trip across the river) to Canada. But it could have been stored and they did NOT have a moving assembly line back then so they may or may not have had a way that the first engine in was the first engine out. I would guess but it is only a guess that they did not have a system that insured they were kept in numerical order. The first photo below shows a single day's output of engines that was printed on page 47 of the "1912 Ford Factory Facts" pamphlet.
They are everywhere.

And if you look at the chart below that photo you will see that for months that if from Oct 1911 to Jul 1912 there was a wide range of overlap when the first and last engine number recorded in the Accounts Receivable ledgers had a wide range from lowest shipped number to highest shipped number in a given month. And that a given engine number could have been shipped in any of several months because of the overlap.

And finally on page 138 of Bruce's book he discusses that the casting date on many of the 1912 engines was located above the water inlet and below the engine serial number as Kerry's photo shows.

We like your car!

Respectfully submitted,

Hap l9l5 cut off
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Respectfully submitted,

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Re: Original Canadian 1912 Engine Casting numbers

Post by Wayne Sheldon » Wed Feb 27, 2019 10:42 pm

Thank you Hap! You are the best!


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Re: Original Canadian 1912 Engine Casting numbers

Post by Allan » Wed Feb 27, 2019 11:42 pm

Hap, re 'first engine in. first engine out' I suspect that was certainly NOT the case. I have seen an early engine block with a July 1911 casting date which was stamped with a 4 digit C prefix engine number. Perhaps the logical reason is shiploads of US production blocks were sent to Canada to begin production. Warehoused stock may have been cleared and the early block at the back of the warehouse ended up on top of the pile in Canada, and so was an early out.
I kick myself for not recording the actual casting date and engine number.

Allan from down under

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Re: Original Canadian 1912 Engine Casting numbers

Post by Hap_Tucker » Thu Feb 28, 2019 7:47 am

Wayne,

Thank you. Lots of folks have shared lots of information and I'm slowly trying to link more of it together. If folks on the forum as well as previous folks in e-mails, articles, newspapers etc. hadn't shared or recorded the data we would have even less to go on. So I encourage everyone to keep those cards and letters -- I mean postings and e-mails coming!

Allan,

I agree with you that Ford USA as well as Ford Canada etc. almost certainly did not have a first in - first out method for many items including the engine assemblies (engine, head, pan, transmission, manifolds, fan etc.) back then. So far I have not run across any actual documentation on how Ford USA, or other Ford assembly branches (Canada & England in 1912) handled the storage and removal from storage of the completed engine assemblies during that time period. The few photos I have seen were probably staged (or possibly not?). And the small sample of data that Bruce compiled from the USA Accounts Receivable Ledgers (which are missing quite a few of the ledgers) (again ref: http://www.mtfca.com/encyclo/11-12Ser.htm ) strongly indicates that there was definitely NOT a "first in and first out" process for completed engine assemblies. But I am hoping we can get a larger sample size to confirm that or to correct that belief "IF" the larger sample size shows that many of the engines were installed in a close to "engine serial number" process.

If there is any one living near the Benson Ford Archives with some extra time on their hands and would be interested in helping us expand the size of that database, please let us (or at least me) know. Currently I am hoping that in 4 more years I can retire and "play a lot more with old cars and data about old cars." But we don't always get dealt the cards we want in life -- so we will wait and see. In the mean time -- I would love to work with others to start obtaining and cataloging some of the additional data. (That includes Canadian data that is stored across the river from Detroit in the partial Canadian Ford Archives located at Windsor University (see: http://web4.uwindsor.ca/units/archive/ford.nsf Note: Ford of Canada gave some of their historical data to the University of Windsor but a lot of it went to other locations (most likely including the dumpster). I know that the University of Windsor has information on the 1904-1906 Fords in the ledgers they have. That information was compiled by John Biggs and published in Carl's excellent book "Pate's Early Ford Automobile Encyclopedia." And I want to work to find out how much further their ledgers cover. But it is a bit of a drive from South Carolina and even further for our friends overseas.)

Concerning the engine block with a Jul 1911 casting date and a 4 digit C prefix engine number. The four digit numbers (9,999 and below) were all assembled/stamped during 1913 (slight chance into calendar year 1914). While many things are possible, I would suspect that was a possible outlier and did not occur very often or perhaps it was a block that was used by a dealer as a replacement in 1913 or so when someone damaged their 1913 engine block. Again, a larger sample size should help us determine if that was routine, happened occasionally or this was a real exception. On page 540 of Bruce's book "Model T Ford" he has 23 engine blocks with 4 digit Canadian serial numbers listed. Some do NOT have a casting date listed. Of the 14 that do have a casting date listed they are all in the 1913 year. The earliest was 1-15-13.

It reminds me of doing a puzzle. We have a few of the pieces and they are all "blue." But I am not sure if the ones I am looking at are blue sky, or blue water, or go to a "Gunmetal Blue" 1927 Model T (ref page 403 - McCalley).

Again thank you to everyone who is supporting our efforts and even more importantly our club and hobby.

Respectfully submitted,

Hap l9l5 cut off
Respectfully submitted,

Hap l9l5 cut off


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Colin Mavins
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Re: Original Canadian 1912 Engine Casting numbers

Post by Colin Mavins » Thu Feb 28, 2019 8:14 am

Thank you I was going through pictures and found some from 2013 when we were fixing the crank. It seems that with out a picture to prove it your wrong so my thought was to let the pictures do the talking . It must be working ,i have no PM's calling me wrong. Cheers Colin

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