General TR Engine Serial Number Question - Observation on a TR4A

[SteveBones]

Has anyone seen a TR4A engine block without a serial number (or TR2, 3, or 4) ?

At the British Car Show in Morgan Hill, California a few weeks back (Bay Area), there was a 1967 Triumph TR4A that the current owner purchased back in 1983. He mentioned that the engineer block did not have a serial number. I took a look and did see that the actual location for the serial number was blank - smooth. On a side note, he said he was also a Triumph Dealership parts manager back in the day including time working at San Jose British Motors. The current owner mentioned that he purchased the car from another Triumph employee that purchased it new, so there is known history on the car.

Could it be that a factory replacement engine block was installed at some point. Did the factory rebuild engine block ship without the usual serial number? I had not seen this before.

Thanks,

 

[TR3driver]

Factory rebuilt engines were supposed to be serialized. I forget the indication offhand, but replacement blocks were supposed to have a serial number with an indication that it was a replacement.

But, they certainly made mistakes. Another possibility is that someone ground it off for some reason, perhaps in preparation to falsify the number, and then failed to follow through. Doesn't seem likely someone would do that for a TR, but a friend of mine tells me it is quite common in the vintage Corvette world, since "matching numbers" cars are quite a bit more valuable. (He, along with many others, got "caught" when people started checking for signs of wear in the stamps and matching that to known wear in the factory stamps. https://www.google.com/patents/US7738672 )

 

[Andrew Mace]

I have seen other Triumph NOS blocks (not wet-liner ones, though) with no numbers stamped on them. Most wet-liner-era "Factory Rebuilt Exchange" engines would have had a tag riveted onto the block with a unique serial number as well as specifications of bore and crank journal undersize.

 

[SteveBones]

Randall, Andrew,

Thanks for sharing what you have seen and know. Looks like not something that has been seen before.

I did not look real close, but could not see any obvious signs of grinding down the flat surface where the serial number is located. If the serial number had been removed, would have likely been down a long time ago or done by someone who know what they were doing.

So lack the engine block serial number was not something done by the factory. Thanks for letting me know.

Steve