The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Engine Serial Number Help

Hello,

My truck is a '47 AD with clean title. When my brother first bought the truck, it had a Rochester B carb on it. I've since replaced it with a Carter W-1. However, I've finally realized that while the other 216s pictured in other folks trucks are grey, mine is olive green. Is it possible that my truck was built with a GMC engine? I thought that I'd heard they occasionally used GMC engines in Chevy's and vice versa.

I've checked the ESN and it appears to be:
E B A 424 I 27

The E and A are large type, probably 5/8" tall letters. The "B" looks to be hand written with a vibratory pen between the E and the A. The last six digits are smaller type, stamped in a line.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Bill

E B A 424 I 27

EBA = 1947 3100 Chevrolet truck 216 engine, regular transmission

The sequence number in each plant was the number stamped minus 1000

424,127 = 423,127 from that one plant

That is an odd number, because only about 260,000 1947 USA Chevrolet Advance-Design trucks were produced in 1947.

That number is most likely too large for any plant in any Advance-Design year.

Tim,

I think that the 4th digit is an "I", 424 "i" 27; I just typed it as a capital, and it appears as a "1".

Would that make any sense, and do you have any idea why it's green other than a PO could have painted the sheet metal?

Thanks,

Bill

There closest years to 1947 that Chevrolet had a green engine were ( supposedly ): 1924-28 4-cylinder gray-green/dark green; and, 1954/etc 6-cylinder 261 green (alpine green).

Any engine as old as that 1947 engine has most likely seen at least one (and maybe several) rebuilds. If you were doing a rebuild on a work-truck engine and you wanted to paint it, great care in choosing/buying original color paint was most likely not a priority.