Early 3 piece engine case stamping
Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2016 11:16 pm
The post in the main section by Toby from Australia (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=43031) asking for help in identifying his early 3 piece engine case is very interesting as I had been looking into this recently. Rather than hijack his thread, I started this one which is an attempt to document some peculiarities in the early 3 piece engine serial number stamping. To say that Porsche hadn't thought this through carefully is an understatement.
I had not seen an early 3rd piece like his (below is a photo of Tony's engine). Although the stamping is only on the generator stand, I suspect Tony's stand and 3rd piece were originally together, else there would be half of a stamping on the 3rd piece (see below). This is likely the first version of the 3 piece case serial number marking. Obviously just stamping on the removable generator stand is not a satisfactory way to track engines for warranty purposes so I suspect this was extremely short lived. Next, we have my engine, out of a '54 production Speedster with an early 3 piece case which I have always found unusual. The provenance of the car is excellent and I have no doubts that the engine is original to the car and unmolested. Porsche's solution to the engine serial number warranty tracking problem was to stamp the number half on the engine and half on the removable generator stand since there wasn't enough room on the newly designed 3rd piece for the entire height of the stamped numbers. However, upon looking at the serial number on my engine closely, one may wonder if something fishy is going on with all the grinding marks? Everything told me that the grinding was done at the factory. I mean, really, who would try and re-stamp an engine in the correct way with the correct font and leave grinding marks like that. Not to mention that on this car, it would have had to have been re-stamped before 1959 as that is when the previous owner acquired it. Although I was absolutely convinced that it was a factory stamping, I was on the lookout for another similar stamping. I was conversing with Don Zingg about this subject some months back when amazingly, an engine shows up for sale in the classifieds section which was exactly what I was looking for... i.e. CONFIRMATION!
Then, Don finds a photo of another engine with similar grinding marks. Notice that all of these engines do not have a TDC mark. Next, Porsche changed the generator stand so it is reasonably flush with the new 3rd piece on the engine, eliminating the extra step of grinding the surface before stamping the numbers. Finally, a new 3rd piece casting with enough room for the entire number AND, thankfully a TDC mark. Note the single star at the end. I Just thought it would be good to document what Don and I found as I had not seen such documentation on the variations of the early 3 piece engine serial number stampings, particularly regarding preparing the surface by grinding before stamping on some early engines. If you have more information, please share.
I had not seen an early 3rd piece like his (below is a photo of Tony's engine). Although the stamping is only on the generator stand, I suspect Tony's stand and 3rd piece were originally together, else there would be half of a stamping on the 3rd piece (see below). This is likely the first version of the 3 piece case serial number marking. Obviously just stamping on the removable generator stand is not a satisfactory way to track engines for warranty purposes so I suspect this was extremely short lived. Next, we have my engine, out of a '54 production Speedster with an early 3 piece case which I have always found unusual. The provenance of the car is excellent and I have no doubts that the engine is original to the car and unmolested. Porsche's solution to the engine serial number warranty tracking problem was to stamp the number half on the engine and half on the removable generator stand since there wasn't enough room on the newly designed 3rd piece for the entire height of the stamped numbers. However, upon looking at the serial number on my engine closely, one may wonder if something fishy is going on with all the grinding marks? Everything told me that the grinding was done at the factory. I mean, really, who would try and re-stamp an engine in the correct way with the correct font and leave grinding marks like that. Not to mention that on this car, it would have had to have been re-stamped before 1959 as that is when the previous owner acquired it. Although I was absolutely convinced that it was a factory stamping, I was on the lookout for another similar stamping. I was conversing with Don Zingg about this subject some months back when amazingly, an engine shows up for sale in the classifieds section which was exactly what I was looking for... i.e. CONFIRMATION!
Then, Don finds a photo of another engine with similar grinding marks. Notice that all of these engines do not have a TDC mark. Next, Porsche changed the generator stand so it is reasonably flush with the new 3rd piece on the engine, eliminating the extra step of grinding the surface before stamping the numbers. Finally, a new 3rd piece casting with enough room for the entire number AND, thankfully a TDC mark. Note the single star at the end. I Just thought it would be good to document what Don and I found as I had not seen such documentation on the variations of the early 3 piece engine serial number stampings, particularly regarding preparing the surface by grinding before stamping on some early engines. If you have more information, please share.