Help with engine ID

K

ksswaney

New member
Hey guys. I have what I believe to be a Ford 300 cid engine but I can't seem to determine what year this thing is. I have a blue sticker on my valve cover that says the following:

Serial #: 26152 K-20-HA
Eng Displ. 300
Model 300GF-6005-A

Any idea on the vintage of this bad boy? Website with a good decoder?

This is a 300 industrial that is in an old Generator - not a truck or a vehicle.

Thanks for any info you can provide! Can post pic of sticker if necessary as well.
 
here is tag on valve cover I described
ford-300-vc-tag-scaled.jpg
 
From the little bit I can find, they were used in Onan generators made in the early 70's. Perhaps you can look up the serial number of the generator and get an idea from there. Is it gasoline, propane, or natural gas? Is the ignition electronic, or does it have points?

Lou Manglass
 
Hey ksswaney- welcome. You want to look for the numbers cast in the block, it will reveal engine size and build date. They are on the right side (manifold side) near the rear. The first # give engine info, the date is the smaller number to the right after the bump that looks like a straight-head screw.
 

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Lou,

Cant find much on this generator I have. It is a stamford generator - but funny thing... under the yellow industiral paint is the Onan Green. Appear to the 1 in the same. Hasn't helped me find the year of my Ford 300 though .....

Points distrib. I believe. Will check now....
 
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points confirmed

Also didnt answer all of your questions... this was a natural gas gen set that I am converting to gas. Trying to get the right fuel pump. Seems the one I got has too long of an arm on it.

Newage Stamford generator SN J7789/3
 
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The problem with the 300 is that it was produced over 4 different decades, 60's,70's,80's, and 90's, the FE's had a similar problem they were produced in the 50's,60's,and 70's, with the FE at the Dearborn foundry (DIF) they addressed this by casting 2 dots under the first digit of the casting date code to signify the second decade of production but I don't know if they did something like this with 240/300 blocks, you would need to use the casting number and casting date together to determine the year while hoping that a casting number wasn't used more than 9 years, example being if a C5TE casting number block were used thru the 75 model year.
 
Points means it's pre-1975. I have just removed a 300 from a truck, and it's not going back in. I have a NOS new nice fuel pump, the old style with the filter canister on top. Also the 1 barrel carb which ran good. Would like to see them be used, if you're interested in getting these send me a PM.
 
So the number next to the bellhousing starts off with D5T (not sure on third character) but looks like according to the link above

D = 1970 Decade
5 = year so 1975
T = Heavy truck engineering

Sound right?

Thx guys
 
It could be 1975, the points vs electronic isn't a hard and fast rule, for one it could have been swapped if the engine was swapped into an older truck and second the transition to Duraspark was kind of hit or miss some cars got them as early as 1974 while some rigs kept points, I think it was 76 or 77 before you could expect all rigs to have Duraspark.OK I just reread your earlier posts about this being an industrial engine, I think industrial engines were some of the last to transition to electronic ignition.
 
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The transition from points to electronic would be a decision made by Onan; in this instance. They would have no regard for the year.
 
If it was prior to Ford offering an electronic ignition on their industrial 300's it wouldn't matter what Onan wanted if they insisted on an electronic ignition they would have had to look elsewhere for an engine.
 
427John said:
If it was prior to Ford offering an electronic ignition on their industrial 300's it wouldn't matter what Onan wanted if they insisted on an electronic ignition they would have had to look elsewhere for an engine.
Click to expand...
IN GENERAL the non-automotive applications lagged behind in upgrades of this nature. If Onan is like the other companies I've interacted with on the factory level, they don't give a thought about the ignition system, they order a complete powerplant and install it in their equipment.
 
I was a technician in a Ford dealership in 1975 and 1976. '75 was the transition year to electronic ignition on passenger cars and light trucks. '77 was the transition year to duraspark II with the 8mm wires and large distributor caps. However, I would not consider it unusual for a '75 industrial engine to still be using points. There were no emissions requirements on industrial engines then and electronic ignition was still considered unreliable.

Lou Manglass
 
manglass said:
I was a technician in a Ford dealership in 1975 and 1976. '75 was the transition year to electronic ignition on passenger cars and light trucks. '77 was the transition year to duraspark II with the 8mm wires and large distributor caps. However, I would not consider it unusual for a '75 industrial engine to still be using points. There were no emissions requirements on industrial engines then and electronic ignition was still considered unreliable.

Lou Manglass
Click to expand...
I'm glad to hear that, I once had a conversation with a former Ford engineer that worked in the department for the Duraspark ignition system, he took great exception when I made a comment about how the ignition boxes frequently failed the first couple of years they were in use, so much so that some dealers were having trouble keeping enough on hand to replace the ones that failed. I stated that I clearly remembered cars languishing at the dealer a couple of weeks waiting for replacement modules, my uncles 76 F100 4x4 and F250 2x4 being some of them. The guy was adamant that there were no reliability issues with the Duraspark system even in the beginning, I'm a big fan of Duraspark but in the first few years they had problems.
 
427John said:
I'm glad to hear that, I once had a conversation with a former Ford engineer that worked in the department for the Duraspark ignition system, he took great exception when I made a comment about how the ignition boxes frequently failed the first couple of years they were in use, so much so that some dealers were having trouble keeping enough on hand to replace the ones that failed. I stated that I clearly remembered cars languishing at the dealer a couple of weeks waiting for replacement modules, my uncles 76 F100 4x4 and F250 2x4 being some of them. The guy was adamant that there were no reliability issues with the Duraspark system even in the beginning, I'm a big fan of Duraspark but in the first few years they had problems.
Click to expand...
This is a bit off-topic but I'll try to keep it informative and short. I owned a gas station/repair shop from 1976-1986 and I can safely say all the early electronic ignition systems had their problems. Ford, of course, was the module. Chrysler products went through so many ballast resistors that I used to keep spares in the glovebox of my tow truck. General Motors had 2 common failure points: 1) The rotors would carbon track through and ground out to the distributor shaft, & 2) The wires for the pickup would flex with the vacuum advance and eventually fail. At first, the failure was often intermittent so a lot of modules were needlessly replaced.

Lou Manglass
 
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