When I bought my 55’ Chevy the guy told me that it was an original 235 in the engine bay. Looking further into what that meant, it wasn’t what I thought it was. A 55’ 235 with a straight drive was basically a one year only deal with solid lifters, so I was looking forward to feeler gauge valve adjustments. Not a big deal. Today I was under the car and saw what the casting number for the block and learned to my pleasure that it is a 58-62 block with a 56 cylinder head. Numbers 3764476 and 3836848 respectively, so it’s a hydraulic lifter engine. What is kind of disturbing is that the serial number pad has been “altered”
You could lie through your teeth and say it’s a Smokey Yunick Mystery 6 run on the early days of NASCAR on Daytona beach. Make a hellava story. Ha Ha kidding of course.
The pad on those engines was finished with a rotary cutter, it wasn't a straight broach like they used on V8s. The pad and stamped number looks right to me. What's the casting date code? That will help us figure out for sure what it's out of. J is the suffix for a 58-62 truck 235, with no extras. The three digit date was used until they started adding the zero before the month if it was a single digit. I forget what year, but some time in that era. I see no evidence that it was modified.
I would remove the side cover for the lifter chamber to see which lifters are in it. The numbers on the block should be correct but a rebuilder could have put anything in there. The '56 head should work with either type.
Yeah, the numbers by the starter. Like this The last digit is the only one that's really important, the first letter will probably be C for March, since the stamped number on the pad says it was ***embled on March 26th. The last digit is the last digit of the year, in the picture above, it's 4. The casting date format is Letter, Number (1 or 2 digits), Number (1 or 2 digits). This stands for Month (a=Jan, b=Feb, etc), Day of month, and last part of Year
Lol! That’s exactly what I was saying. Thanks squirrel, I didn’t know you were into the buzzin’ half dozen.
Like others have said, there is nothing wrong with the pad where the numbers and letters are. They all look like that. The 848 head was a common swap for the 235 as it was considered to have a slightly higher compression than an older stock head. It's common to see the 848 on any 235.
That pad looks like every 235/261 I have ever seen. People make way too much of this casting number thing. That looks like a tag from a rebuilt engine, I have a 235 with a GM rebuild tag there was a time you could buy a remanned short block to rebuilt engine from Allstate (Sears), Montgomery Ward or any other intendent rebuilders although in that era the taags were rivetted on. Whatever the core they started with was what you got, if you needed a 235 short block it could be what every was ready and sitting in the warehouse. That engine could have been put in there 30 years ago or in 1960 who knows.
That's the ear on the starter solenoid...it's not a rebuilder tag. But the rebuilder story is fun. My dad got a Monkey Wards rebuilt 383 for the family wagon in 1974, after the engine died in Gila Bend. Rented a truck to haul it to the shop that installed it.
The Jalopy Journal
