Sexton engine rebuild tag

[Jesse Browning]

Can someone tell me what the letters at the top stand for? Other pictures are of engine parts. Jesse.

[BCA]

RCEME stands for "Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers" . This style of rebuild plate was rivited to rebuilt vehicle engines throughout the 1950's and into the 1970's. Similar, but generally smaller tags, were used on rebuilt transmissions and transfer cases etc to indicate the date and workshop where the item was rebuilt. Someone probably can break the workshop code: 202 Workshop may have been at Montreal.
I have some NOS blank engine rebuild plates. PM me for details if interested.
Brian

[Jesse Browning]

Brian; Thanks for the information. I had wondered which country my Sexton belonged to, and this seems to answer the question. Jesse.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Jesse Browning

I had wondered which country my Sexton belonged to, and this seems to answer the question.

Jesse,

This still stands:

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

Like I said, your Sexton was supplied to Portugal by Canada. There is no way to tell if the Sexton first served in NW Europe and was shipped back to Canada after 1945, or if it was used for training in Canada before it was supplied to Portugal in the early 1950s.

The 1952 rebuild date is an indication the Sextons were refurbished before being supplied to Portugal.

Hanno

[maple_leaf_eh]

Originally Posted by BCA

.... Someone probably can break the workshop code: 202 Workshop may have been at Montreal.

I have some NOS blank engine rebuild plates. PM me for details if interested.
Brian

202 (Two oh two) Workshop is a live and thriving place. They like to brag about being a unique and highly productive blend of military bosses and civilian workers in what could be an incredably stifling workplace atmosphere.

http://www.forces.gc.ca/admmat-smama...epasse-eng.asp

[Yeo.NT]

It's just to bad 202 does not do very good rebuilds these days. I would say a 3 out of 5 detroit 6V53's coming out of there are buggered.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by maple_leaf_eh

http://www.forces.gc.ca/admmat-smama...epasse-eng.asp

It was on October 1, 1946 that the RCEME Workshop became the 202nd RCEME Workshop. Its official establishment as a depot for technical material to provide services to Canada and the United Kingdom was authorized on November 21, 1946. The 25 COD managed the depot until April 1, 1948 when it became an independent Unit.
[snip]
The early 50s were marked by a great deal of work on equipment destined for NATO and the UN during the Korean war

Like Sextons and Grizzlies slated for shipping to Portugal?

The 1960s saw several major projects such as the development of the Bobcat Armored Personnel Carrier (APC), the rebuild of the Centurion tank, reparations to the Sherman M4A2 tank and the 105mm and 155mm guns, the manufacturing of dummy ENTAC anti-tank guided missiles, and many other projects.

Interestingly, the pictured Sherman is not a M4A2, but a M4A1(76)W, a type which was never used by Canada. It could be 202ns RCEME workshop prepared US supplies for shipping to NATO countries?

Hanno

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by BCA

RCEME stands for "Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers" . This style of rebuild plate was rivited to rebuilt vehicle engines throughout the 1950's and into the 1970's. Similar, but generally smaller tags, were used on rebuilt transmissions and transfer cases etc to indicate the date and workshop where the item was rebuilt. Someone probably can break the workshop code: 202 Workshop may have been at Montreal.

Having had a closer look at the dat plate, I do not think it says 202 but 203 or 205. Jesse, can you please confirm?

Hanno

[Jesse Browning]

The shop number is 205. Interestingly, this engine seems to have some problems due to the rebuild process. The engine has almost no perceptible wear. It has an oil contamination problem though. Small scores, and embedded particles in most bushings. As of today, I have all accessories apart. The problem seems to be a large wad of sand or other abrasive that was left in the fuel pump extension. Also. the oil filter motor was never conected to an oil supply, and the manual knob was still lock-wired. In it's short service life, the engine also ate a small piece of metal. Probably a screw. The suction side of the impeller is all banged up. After that, you can follow the progress of the screw through the whole engine by the marks it made. It ended up in no. 8 cylinder, and chipped a couple of edges off the piston before it was finally spit out. I read an article once stating that most aircraft engine failures in military aircraft (WWII era) were caused by foreign materials, mostly rouge, left in the engine during manufacture. Jesse.

[cantankrs]

Hi Jesse,

Interesting thread, pics, and info you've detailed about the foreign objects. I have bits of a number of R975-EC2's to rebuild into one or possibly two motors for my General Grant project.

Looks like you've blasted your intake and pushrod tubes - did you have to do much to clean them up inside or were they all connected up still?

Great to see your Sexton making good progress.

Regards

Alex

[maple_leaf_eh]

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

Like Sextons and Grizzlies slated for shipping to Portugal?


Interestingly, the pictured Sherman is not a M4A2, but a M4A1(76)W, a type which was never used by Canada. It could be 202ns RCEME workshop prepared US supplies for shipping to NATO countries?

Hanno

Hanno:

Don't take that website literally. I sent them a correction notice for a blunder on their internal DND website. They had a very wrong caption on a Sexton. I think some scrawny web-geek was told to pretty up the website, and here is the unit history booklet. The letter designation might just be a typo that is repeated.

Terry

[Brian Gough]

Following is a list of "Base Workshop Numbers and Locations" as provided by Rob Grieve in his article "Canadian M38 Jeeps", published in CMP Magazine, issue #13, May 1996.

200 Halifax, N.S.
201 Coldbrook, N.S.
202 Montreal, P.Q.
203 Quebec, P.Q.
204 London, Ont.
205 Bordon, Ont.
206 Lakeview (Cawthra Rd.) Ont.
207 Barriesfield (Kingston) Ont.
208 Ottawa, Ont.
209 Petawawa, Ont.
210 Picton, Ont.
211 Regina, Sask.
212 Shilo, Man.
213 Winnipeg, Man.
214 Vancouver, B.C.
215 Calgary, Alb.
216 Chilliwack, B.C.
217 Esquimalt, B.C.
218 Vernon, B.C.
219 Whitehorse, Y.T.
220 Fort Nelson, B.C.
221 Rivers, Man.
222 MacDonald, Man.
223 Fort Churchill, Man.
224 Edmonton, Alb.
225 Trenton, Ont.
226 Lachine, P.Q.
227 Goosebay, Lab.
228 Hagersville, Ont.
229 ?
230 ?
231 ?
232 ?
233 ?
234 Valcartier, P.Q.
------------------------

Brian

[Jesse Browning]

Do you think my Sexton was near Borden Ont., or was that just where the rebuilt engine came from? Jesse.

[Jesse Browning]

The push rod tubes were clean inside. The induction tubes all had some rust inside, two being rusted out. The engine was complete and unmolested; suffering mainly from neglect (internal condensation) and the above mentioned problems. Interestingly, I had two Sextons to chose from when I bought this. For the most part identical. The other one ran. Amazingly, they put a 12 foot bar on the drive shaft and broke the engine loose. With the carb off, and spraying starting fluid into the elbow, they got it to fire. After the carb was re-installed, they drove it all over the farm with no air cleaner before selling it. He wanted more money for it since it was "restored". It is in a museum in southern Indiana now. This a picture of it in it's restored condition. This is how they ran the engine. Jesse.

[David Dunlop]

Hello Jesse.

Does the Serial Number of the engine match any vehicle records for your Sexton? If it's the original factory installed engine, there is a good chance the actual vehicle may have been at Borden when the engine was overhauled. If the numbers do not match, the odds increase that whenever the original engine in the Sexton needed servicing, it was simply shipped off to the nearest RCEME unit capable of doing the work and a "new" rebuilt engine was ordered out of stores through the system for installation.

[Jesse Browning]

David; I don't have any vehicle records. There are many stamped numbers on various parts of the engine, but none match the vehicle serial number. Jesse.

[David Dunlop]

Hello again Jesse.

I'm not that familiar with the Sexton, other than riding in Bill Gregg's many years back and enjoying the scent of avgas in the air, but if the original data plate(s) survived on your vehicle, it might have identified the original engine number for you. There is also the possibility that if the vehicle itself went in for a major model upgrade, a new data plate would have been added, showing that info as well. One can see this quite often on half tracks that left the factory as an M16 for example but were subsequently converted to an M3 vehicle.

I checked an old copy of Peter Ford's CMP INFOEX but none of the five Sextons he had been able to locate had Engine Data available and only one owner could provide a vehicle SN. Was hoping there might have been enough information available to help you plug yours into the production scheme of things.

[Van Hove Herman]

Is the indication on this plate on the rear side of a Ford V-8
engine also a workshop number ?
On the front side is an other plate with REF: ENG
May be brittisch and not canadian ?

[Perry Kitson]

I checked the rebuild tag on my Sexton engine, it's 205 Workshop as well. Dated 3-3-52. One odd note is the engine number on the tag, 456, does not match the engine's number, 507415. I wonder if the engine number on the tag was just a sequentail number assigned to the engines as they passed through the workshop. My engine shows very little wear as well, just the damage from condensation in a few cylinders. The motor had a stuck exhaust vavle on #7 cylinder that resulted in a broken push rod, and a heavily corroded supercharger impeller.

Perry

[Jesse Browning]

My engine was rebuilt 6-2-52 and had a number of 414. The original number is 507412. It looks like ours were on the assembly line pretty close together. My vehicle shop number is 1900. 1941 is in the Crown Point museum nearby, and 1539 is in a museum in southern Indiana. Jesse.