I found Hotrod Lincoln's comment about the '261 CID' early engines to be quite interesting. it has only been in the last ten/fifteen years that I ever heard any mention to the 261's existence. In 1951/52 I put what was touted as being 105 HP Chevy six from a large truck in my '42 Delux coupe that had tossed a rod. I did not keep the car long, sold it to a friend, so I never drove it.
In 1954/56 I was living in Las Vegas. In early 1955 I was working with a man that had a very nice '41 Delux club coupe. My co-worker decided to take a quick trip down to Los Angeles for the week-end. He only got as far as Baker CA when the engine blew up. he left the car in Baker, caught a bus back to Vegas, telling us his sad tail about the car. The car had to be towed into Baker and was sitting in an impound yard.
My Co-worker was short on funds so I offered him a $100.00 for the car and I would pay the tow and storage.
Myself and a friend went down to Baker on the following weekend, payed the fee's due and brought it back to Vegas on a tow bar. The engine was toast, with a rod sticking out of the side of the block. I went on the hunt for an engine, was told that a salvage yard out on the Boulder Highway had some military surplus engines. I went out to the company to check things out. Turns out the engine were surplus truck engines NIB, a big problem was since they were military, they had sealed intake (fording) and ignition systems. Some extensive checking revealed that the engine were the 105 hp Chevy truck engines and were being sold on an exchange basis. Hmmmmm. I made a deal on an engine for $100. exchange, told the seller that I would pull my engine and bring it back in it's original shipping container.
We pulled the engine out of the '41 stripped it down to the bare block, stripped all of the accessories off of the new engine, put all of the '41 accessories onto the new engine and installed it in the car. We put Marvel Mystery Oil in the cylinders, slowly turned the engine over, drained the pan and installed new oil. The engine started right up, smoked a little bit for awhile, the result of the MMO, then settled down to a nice purr.
We installed all of the military equipment onto the old '41 engine and put it back in it's original crate, returning it to the salvage yard. everybody was happy.
The '41 turned out to be a very nice car, it ran great, the added horse power was a real plus. I drove the '41 for about a year and then sold it to buy a ''50 Olds Rocket 88.. Wm
