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Oct 05, 2017 12:09 pm
Colin M34 Offline
Member
Registered since: Dec 01, 2007
Location: Suffolk, UK


Subject: Re: LG45 / LG6 strange engine number
HI Lawrence

The plot thickens. I like your idea that this was a reserve engine held outside the works. Could this be at Central garage Bradford?

I also like your idea that the number on the engine is Lagonda's own. This might be a works order or batch number and does not have to be the same number as stamped on the chassis plate.

Colin M34

 

Oct 09, 2017 6:53 pm
h14 Offline
Member
Registered since: Nov 30, 2008
Location: Chalandray, France


Subject: Re: LG45 / LG6 strange engine number
Hi Colin & Tim,
Now back home. Well, 384 is well into LG45 territory. The earliest engine number I find in an LG6 is 418, in a 1938 saloon 12324...but 418 may be spurious. A safer guide is that the prototype LG6 short chassis E3007 has 437, and the first long chassis, 12510, has 439.

The latest engine number I can find in an LG45 is in chassis 12269, and that is 433. The latest S3 engine I can find in a quick search is LG45/405/S3. So 384 is definitely an S3 engine...unless later uprated to LG45 spec.

There are at least 7 LG6 engines fitted to M45s and LG45s, so it follows that this may originally have been LG45 carefully ground out and restamped LG6, to suit an LG6 to which it was later fitted. That said, all the LG6 engines so fitted remain stamped LG6...so unlikely.

An alternative is that the number stamped is in fact completely spurious. My quick search just now revealed that LG45/384/S3 exists, in chassis 12192! Furthermore that could well be the original engine to that LG45 as it ties in well for an early-ish 1937 registration.

Baffling. I'm not sure if Lagonda stamped internal components with the engine number, but that might be the next step to check. As Lagonda were not above producing two different cars carrying identical chassis numbers, anything is possible. Could even be a more recent replacement block deliberately stamped incorrectly, to warn that it is not original.

Absence of a chassis number is not necessarily an issue; my V12 is fitted with one of the three engines it had between 1939 and 1945 according to the works record; but there is no chassis number stamped in the usual place.

Might be worth a word with Arnold Davey.

Laurence
This post has been edited 2 times. Last edit on Oct 09, 2017 6:56 pm by h14.  

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