An Interesting Day of Discovery

[Deleted User]
[Deleted User]
edited November -1 in HUDSON
Hello Fellow Hudnuts,

Had an interesting day as I began to get into my new 50 Commodore. I went to change to points in the car and found the ones that I had purchased to be wrong. I had purchased for a 1950 with a 262 motor. Upon further investigation I have found the motor to have been changed to another 262. The original invoice shows the Serial No. and Motor No. as 502-99381. Upon looking on the block it shows the Motor No. as 107892. The distributor instead of being an Autolite IGS-4213-A1 is actually a IAT-4009-A. I suspect that this motor is out of 1952 car. From appearances the motor seems the same as on the invoice complete with single carb with Oil Bath Air Cleaner and Aluminum Cylinder Head. My question involves the distributor. I have another rebuilt distributor complete with a new Petronix 6-volt Electronic Ignition System. Serial No. is IAT-4203A. This number indicates that it was originally a dual point distributor. Can I use this distributor in the car? Also is there any way for me to be able to tell what year the motor originates from?

Comments

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    OK Alex, jump in here. Walt.
  • Hudsonrules
    Hudsonrules Senior Contributor
    :) Hi Alex, I was told years ago by a Hudson mechanic that new hudsons were shipped with water in the cooling system instead of anti freez and many engine blocks were cracked at the dealers because of that. The dealer would replace the engine with another from the factory before being able to sell the new Hudson. I have come across engine and serial numbers that did not match. One more item is some one may have installed an engine out of a wrecked Hudson years ago. Distributor? I do not know, have idea's , but someone may have changed it along the way. Enjoy your ride and keep notes so when you go to the parts store next time, you get the right part. Arnie in Nevada
  • hudsontech
    hudsontech Senior Contributor
    edited November 2010
    IGS-4213-A1 - 262 motors in 1948-1949 and 1950 Super and Commodore
    IGS-4009A - 1951 5A, 6A, 7A
    IAT-4203A, according to the parts book, fits 1952 thru 1954 six cylinder except Jet. I'm not sure if it will work in early engines, but I'll stick my neck out and say probably. There are others on here have a better handle on that

    Above info from the 1948-1954 Master Parts Catalog that I have in the on-line library @ hetclub.org/burr - it's in the manuals section.

    Now, when we get into serial numbers it gets a bit dicy. 1948 thru 1951 serial numbers started with 101. After 1951 serial numbers were continuous - for example 1951 ended with 132915 and 1952 began with 132916. So going by that your number of 107892 would put it in the 1951 production range - except...........always an except. That 107892 number can also fit in 1948, 1949 and 1950. But it's still for a 262 engine.



    Hope this helps.

    Hudsonly,
    Alex Burr
    Memphis, TN
  • hudsontech
    hudsontech Senior Contributor
    Hudsonrules wrote:
    :) Hi Alex, I was told years ago by a Hudson mechanic that new hudsons were shipped with water in the cooling system instead of anti freez and many engine blocks were cracked at the dealers because of that. The dealer would replace the engine with another from the factory before being able to sell the new Hudson. I have come across engine and serial numbers that did not match. One more item is some one may have installed an engine out of a wrecked Hudson years ago. Distributor? I do not know, have idea's , but someone may have changed it along the way. Enjoy your ride and keep notes so when you go to the parts store next time, you get the right part. Arnie in Nevada

    Arnie - never heard about cars being shipped with just water, leading to cracked blocks, in the radiators. But it's possible. Anything to save the price of anti-freeze. Corporate America does that all the time these days - shave a corner to save a buck hoping it won't screw up and wind up costing $10 to fix, if they'll even fix it!!! Some things never change.

    Hudsonly,
    Alex Burr
    Memphis, TN
  • RL Chilton
    RL Chilton Administrator, Member
    Arnie-

    Other strange things happen sometimes which results in non-matching numbers on new cars.

    I have an engine which is going to go into the convertible (didn't have the original), which, when purchased new, developed a head leak over the ensuing weekend. The owner of the Hudson took the car back to the dealer and informed them of the leak. They promptly replaced the head and gave it back to the customer. Another day or so goes by and and the same leak occurs again! This time the dealer checks the deck of the block, and sure enough there's a slight concave deck surface.

    A call to the factory resulted in a new engine being shipped to the dealer. The dealer then replaced the engine with the new one and made a happy customer.

    MEANWHILE, this first engine, which had maybe 2-300 miles on it, sat around the dealership until Hudson went under. An employee picked it up and took it home, where it sat in his garage for 30-some years. It got sold to another fella who put it in his garage for nearly 20 more years, until it finally got sold to someone who decided to do something with it. It then got re-built with all new parts except crank and cam and a re-surfaced deck before coming into my possession. Basically it's a brand-new re-built 308 with a few hundred original miles on it.

    Point being, that original Hudson had a different, non-matching engine in it within a week of leaving the dealership.
  • 53jetman
    53jetman Senior Contributor
    RL Chilton wrote:
    Arnie-
    Point being, that original Hudson had a different, non-matching engine in it within a week of leaving the dealership.

    I know of a few times we had to replace an engine in a brand new car, but the replacement engines did not carry engine numbers. The dealer was expected to number the engine according to car number with a prefix of "OH" in our case since our dealership was located in Ohio. If a car has an engine with a number that does not match the serial number on the door post, that engine had to have come from a "donor car".

    The engine in question above could have either come from a 1950 model car built in July 1950, or in April 1951 as these are the only two possibilities for this engine number to have been used by the factory.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    It is interesting that you say that the engine could have come from a 1950 car built in July 1950 as this is the exact time that the car was built. It was delivered to the original owner in August 1950. But since the engine has a distributor IAT-4009A I am leaning toward being a donor out of a 1951 car.
  • Park_W
    Park_W Senior Contributor
    53HudGuy, what is it about the 4203 distributor that indicated it was a dual-points type? (I assume from you wording that it doesn't have them now). Far as I know Hudson had no dual-points distributors after 1933.
  • 53jetman
    53jetman Senior Contributor
    53hudsonguy wrote:
    It is interesting that you say that the engine could have come from a 1950 car built in July 1950 as this is the exact time that the car was built. It was delivered to the original owner in August 1950. But since the engine has a distributor IAT-4009A I am leaning toward being a donor out of a 1951 car.

    Well, as Alex stated above, the replacement engine number could also have been built in 1948 or 1949 as well as 1950. What would tell the true story is if you can determine if the engine is the narrow block from 1948 thru 1950, or if it is the wide block version which began for 1951 and carried thru to end of production of the big six. As far as the distributor number is concerned, the later distributor can be used in the earlier block without any modifications.
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