Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 6:33 pm Post subject: Remanufacture or original engine?
Instead of hijacking the other thread of Dfoley's "Won't Start" I'll continue this here from Wes's post on the other thread.
"An original engine would have an MCXXXXX serial within 4000 of your jeep's serial in 1950/51 moving out to about with 12000 in 1951/52.
The RMCXXXXX serial only comes on a factory new replacement engine.
An Army rebuilt MCXXXXX will not get an R ahead of the serial. It will get an Army rebuild plate."
So now, there is a difference of 43,043 in my jeeps ser. no. and the engine no.
I guess I got a army rebulit non original engine. Anyway I'm I'm happy with what I have. _________________ Tropical Veteran
35th Inf. Reg. "CACTI" 4th I.D. VN
Amateur Radio K5XOM
Joined: May 05, 2005 Posts: 109 Location: Del Rio, Texas
Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 2:21 pm Post subject:
OK...with this knowledge I should expect my jeep (vehicle #: MC 19598) to have an engine serial number no greater than approximately 23600. Because my Engine # is MC 95489 I must therefore conclude that it is NOT the engine which was originally placed in my jeeps frame. No problem, I can understand this and don't have any issues with this new knowledge. The current state of our knowledge seems to indicate that only 65-70 thousand M38's were ever produced. However, if we follow the same logic my engine number MC 95489 should have been on a vehicle with a Vehicle MC# ~83489. This is ~13-18 thousand more than the last known (highest vehicle #) M38 to come off the lines in the summer of 1952).
Another puzzling question I have...how could my engine, which has a SN which indicates it was manufactured towards the end of the M38's life, have a re-manufactured tag on it that indicates it was re-manufactured in July 1950. _________________ Dan
1951 M38
how could my engine, which has a SN which indicates it was manufactured towards the end of the M38's life, have a re-manufactured tag on it that indicates it was re-manufactured in July 1950.
Can't offer any reasonable explanation for that. That engine was built in 1952 so you will have to try and figure out how that happened. MC74420 was the switch to the new style reinforced rear engine flange and that was introduced in Feb 1952. There was a very short 1000 engine production test run of these engines in Dec 1951 so this is old knowledge and how a 1950 rebuild plate ended up on a 1952 engine is anybody's guess but my money says if your engine serial really is MC95489 and the back of your block is the late reinforced type then it stands to reason that either it was carried to 1950 in a time machine or someone after Feb 1952 nailed that tag on that block. My money is on the latter!
None of this engine serial vs vehicle serial interpolation is new. Thousands of factory spare engines were produced under separate contracts during and after the M38's 2 year production run. Several thousand production sequence M38 engines were used in other application like generator sets and compressors. This is why we have the different variations in engine serialization vs vehicle serialization. Throw in that the jeeps did not always leave the assembly line in serial order and it should be quite ibvious how far off our interpolations can be. _________________ Wes K
45 MB, 51 M38, 54 M37, 66 M101A1, 60 CJ5, 76 DJ5D, 47Bantam T3-C & 5? M100
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