Thanks so much for that interesting and detailed explanation of the Chevrolet
engine prefixes. Absolutely fascinating.
What this also means is I have two engines available for sale if anyone is interested. One has had water in it and will need a rebore, the other one looks really good in the bores, don't know whether the bottom end is OK or not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by David_Hayward
Right! The answer appears to be from detailed study over the years that 'T' always stood for 'Truck' and 'R' for 'Right hand drive'. 'TR' was used initally on 1940 models, since they were just rhd truck engines. Subsequently AR, WR, ZR, XR, FR, PR. SR have been used but not necessarily in that order, and in different Model Years and for different end-users. There were probably variations in components. That said with say Holden assembly, it does appear that some mixing-up of engines destined for particular types of CMP occurred. Understandable given the vagaries of the crating deliveries.
By the way, 'R' mean passenger car engine.
However, what did the mysterious 'TRA' and 'TBA' mean? The answer appears to be that these are 1940 military-spec engines. Initial impression was that these followed-on from pure truck engines [Canadian engines all being built by Windsor Transmission Plant by the way with castings by McKinnon Industries Ltd of St Catherines]. I then thought that 'A' might appear to be 'Army', perhaps indicating end-user and / or mods from civilian spec. We know that these prefixes were replaced by 'AR' for 1941 Model Year, etc. That then leaves 'TBA'. I believe but cannot prove that Windsor could not cope with the incredible orders from the Brits in late June 1940 on top of the Canadian orders and GM of Canada contracted-out supplies of 216 engines from Buffalo aka Tonawanda Plant in New York State which had just opened-up [1938]. Code for these engines compared to Flint's was:
B, KB, ATB, TB
Note that a Flint-built 1940 heavy truck 216 rhd was 'TRA'. So, in fact 'TRA' has nothing to do with 'Army', and I suggest was in fact an imported batch from Flint Motor Plant and 'TBA' a similar batch from Tonwanda. I suggest that Windsor then added their own serial numbers and sent them to Oshawa accordingly. In other words these were 'overload' orders. Windsor then ramped-up production.
Because the British sent trucks to Alexandria both from the UK and arranged for direct delivery, those trucks in Aussieland with TBA/TRA engines were probably I suggest 1940 Model #11 cabs issued to the AIF and then shipped back in due course. Come war's end, demobbed trucks could have retained their original engines or very early ones were fitted into later ones after rebuilds etc.
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