Engine Block Casting Date

[Son of Marty]

36 minutes ago, Conserv said:

 

Thanks, Toby,

 

This is good to know.  So would I generally drill a fresh hole and insert this indicator?  And seal it with....um, whatever?  And if pops up -- like on my Butterball Turkey -- does it definitively mean "my block is done"?

 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

 

 

It's just epoxied on to the block or head during a rebuild to show it the engine has overheated for warranty purposes this one is still good but it shows that the block has been rebuild by a outside machine shop at sometime. 

[Conserv]

21 minutes ago, Son of Marty said:

It's just epoxied on to the block or head during a rebuild to show it the engine has overheated for warranty purposes this one is still good but it shows that the block has been rebuild by a outside machine shop at sometime. 

 

Thank you.  So it may often be a sign that your "starting point" is oversized bores (not always but often)?  Good to know!

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

[Son of Marty]

13 hours ago, Conserv said:

 

Thank you.  So it may often be a sign that your "starting point" is oversized bores (not always but often)?  Good to know!

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

yes exactly, you really can't tell what work has been done but something has been.

[Conserv]

So no one on the forum -- save for Jim and me -- has a photo of an M10 block with or without a casting date on the right side?  No one?

 

OK, I suppose we need two photos for each example: (a.) right side of the block, especially the forward half of the right side; and (b.) the engine number boss.

 

Thanks and regards,

 

Steve

 

Edited September 5, 2016 by Conserv

[Conserv]

Block 2780601, from a 1974 tii that would have been manufactured in December 1973.  The casting date here, in a slight variation on the dating style we've seen above, is October 31, 1973 ("31K73").

 

(Photos and engine courtesy of PaulTWinterton.)

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2016 by Conserv

[Conserv]

And here's a block (currently sitting in Korman's showroom) that was cast October 10, 1975 ("10K" under "75").  I'd expect to be from an early 1976 model -- originally.

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

[1936spyder]

Steve-

 

As I am somewhat familiar with casting dates of '60's era American cars, your logic makes sense. However, I'm a bit confounded by the stampings on my block. I have a 1973 Malaga 2002 Automatic VIN 2533986. According to Andreas Harz at the BMW Archives, my car was built on March 13, 1973 and delivered to Hoffman on the 16th. The casting on the rear of the block where the VIN should be simply reads "20" on the left and "A" on the right. The castings on the block read "73" and "25D". Going by your logic the block should have been cast on April 25th, 1973 but that's clearly almost  1 1/2 months after the car was produced. To compound things further I wonder if the 20 and A stamped where the VIN should be could denote a 2.0 liter automatic??? 

 

What are your thoughts? Faulty block casting resulting in replacement when car was less than a yr old??? Block replaced at some point by owner's son (2nd owner) who just HAD to find a replacement block built the same year as the car's manufacture??? If so, why for an automatic?

 

Lastly, the head was replaced with a 121 unit cast 3/83, exactly 10 yrs after the car was built...

 

 

Wends

[Conserv]

On 5/1/2017 at 4:27 PM, 1936spyder said:

Steve-

 

As I am somewhat familiar with casting dates of '60's era American cars, your logic makes sense. However, I'm a bit confounded by the stampings on my block. I have a 1973 Malaga 2002 Automatic VIN 2533986. According to Andreas Harz at the BMW Archives, my car was built on March 13, 1973 and delivered to Hoffman on the 16th. The casting on the rear of the block where the VIN should be simply reads "20" on the left and "A" on the right. The castings on the block read "73" and "25D". Going by your logic the block should have been cast on April 25th, 1973 but that's clearly almost  1 1/2 months after the car was produced. To compound things further I wonder if the 20 and A stamped where the VIN should be could denote a 2.0 liter automatic??? 

 

What are your thoughts? Faulty block casting resulting in replacement when car was less than a yr old??? Block replaced at some point by owner's son (2nd owner) who just HAD to find a replacement block built the same year as the car's manufacture??? If so, why for an automatic?

 

Lastly, the head was replaced with a 121 unit cast 3/83, exactly 10 yrs after the car was built...

 

 

Wends

 

Wends,

 

The (a.) lack of a 7-digit VIN and (b.) presence of the "20" and "A" on the engine number boss likely announce that your car has a factory exchange (i.e., remanufactured) engine.  Here's what we know from those tidbits:

 

1. This system of identification appears to date to 1978 and later.  It does appear that BMW was exchanging (remanufacturing) 2002 M10's until at least 1995, perhaps later.  The 1978 date appears in BMW T.R.I. (Technical Reference Information) 11 02 84 (2033) and other forum members have shown various documents (receipts and factory documents accompanying exchange engines) that evidence the 1995 date.

 

2. The "20" is the code for an M10 engine, part number 11 00 1 261 406, described, also in T.R.I. 11 02 84 (2033), page 6 -- somewhat enigmatically -- as intended for "2002 1968-1973 up to 1975".

 

3. It was an exchange engine ("A") rather than a new engine ("N").  This is on page 4 of T.R.I. 11 02 84 (2033).

 

The head currently on the engine could well have been married to the block at the time of the factory remanufacturing.  If so, it could have been a used or new head at the time it was married to the block.

 

How about some photos of the engine number boss and the block's casting date?  There are often additional serial numbers and date codes stamped on the factory exchange engines.

 

Here's a (barely) workable link to the applicable BMW T.R.I.  On my iPad, it opens the bulletin in iBooks.  I don't know what other operating systems do with the link:

 

http://s3.amazonaws.com/faquploads/monthly_2016_04/571dc783db4ea_SBTEngineIdentification_pdf.cee3f3e5b3f73ba232c566f2a6372a03?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAJD5USCGK6UKUZQLA/20170502/us-east-1/s3/aws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20170502T023022Z&X-Amz-Expires=1200&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&response-content-disposition=attachment; filename*=UTF-8''571dc783db4ea_SBTEngineIdentification.pdf&X-Amz-Signature=ed96f76a1b5421a15aa3ab3d3c22a2bf5266bc92c4737c617c38d2cea5893f68

 

There are multiple other threads discussing these exchange engine identifiers.

 

And why does your 1973 model car have a 1973 engine block, albeit one manufactured after the car was manufactured?  Chance.

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

Edited May 2, 2017 by Conserv

[NickVyse]

Just to roll this back a few years.. And they correspond to a month or so before VIN manufacture. 

 

 

[HBChris]

The engine in my son's 75 2002 A was replaced in late 80s with an 87 casting date block and it also has a 121 head which I thought was a bit strange.

[Conserv]

13 hours ago, NickVyse said:

Just to roll this back a few years.. And they correspond to a month or so before VIN manufacture. 

 

 

<img class="ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed" data-fileid="187199" src="//d2um9aptpsgwwp.cloudfront.net/monthly_2017_05/68.jpg.f853c18078cf11521ff16728c6315a30.jpg" alt="68.jpg.f853c18078cf11521ff16728c6315a30.jpg" />

 

Whoa, Nick!  Does the first one say October 25, 1966 ("25K 66")?  And the second is August 19, 1968 ("19H68").  I assume the ubiquitous "EB" is the foundry's name (Ford Motors, for instance, used a "CF" design for decades to denote their Cleveland Foundry), but I haven't come up with a proper name yet.

 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

[Conserv]

6 hours ago, HBChris said:

The engine in my son's 75 2002 A was replaced in late 80s with an 87 casting date block and it also has a 121 head which I thought was a bit strange.

 

Did they just use whatever they had sitting in stock?

 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

[Son of Marty]

Steve at one time you could order a rebuild that matched your original engine compression ratio/ head etc. I don't know if this is still true or why someone wouldn't order a TIi engine to get the higher C/R but that's just me. 

[jgerock]

Here is my other spare engine block VIN 1679747

[Conserv]

4 hours ago, Son of Marty said:

Steve at one time you could order a rebuild that matched your original engine compression ratio/ head etc. I don't know if this is still true or why someone wouldn't order a TIi engine to get the higher C/R but that's just me. 

 

I didn't know that, although I suspect that must have been during the '02's heyday, the original production period.  And I don't know how or if replacement engines needed to adhere to the original engines' emissions standards.  I cannot imagine, for instance, that I could buy a new 1976 model, with an 8.0:1 compression ratio, and immediately swap the engine for a tii engine, with a European 9.5:1 compression ratio, defeating U.S. '76 emissions standards.  I'd love to know more.

 

The exchange engine document linked above, T.S.I. 11 02 84 (2033), and preceding and successive versions of the same communication, appears to document solely the era from 1978 through the end of the 2002 replacement engine program, which probably ended some time shortly after 1995.  Since the 2002 was out of production by 1976, I would gather that BMW was seeking to simplify their offerings for the model by 1978: this 1978 and later program shows solely four different 2002 engines, with four different part numbers and respective codes: (1.) a 1968-73 version, Code 20; (2.) a 1974-75 version, Code 21; (3.) a 1976 49-states version, Code 21 US; and (4.) a tii version, Code 22TI US.

 

I'm confident there is substantially more information out there, we just need to find it.

 

Best regards,

 

Steve