It's 53-55 Chevrolet 235 maybe truck maybe car, I have the same block in my shop right now. Just above GM on Mine is 10 , The Cast date on the rear of the block by CON 4 or Con 3 . My Block is H 16 4 which is August 16 54
Yours is Nov 30 53, It would have been in a 1954 production car or truck. It's more than likely a truck block, If it was in a Corvette you will never know as someone has changed the build code on the dist ramp.
Hi Keroppi . . . to cbmkr's point - there is no consistency in casting dates and the serial number on your engine.
Keep in mind the sequence of events back in the day:
1) A block was cast in the casting plant (the CONV) tells us which conveyor it ran down - the casting number tells us the vintage of the mold used.
2) After passing inspection it was placed in (work in process) WIP inventory at the machining facility.
3) Once machined the engine was placed in WIP inventory at the engine assembly plant.
4) Once built (into a complete engine) it was assigned a serial number based on its sequence for the year. The sequence restarted with 1001 at the beginning of a new year. The prefix would be partially stuck (Year <space> Plant) for an engine assembled in '53.
5) Once a particular engine was assigned to a particular build of a vehicle - the engine would then receive the Application code added to the prefix. This happened at the vehicle assembly plant.
In this regard your engine is a jumble. The BM is correct for a 3100 series truck application. The year prefix (which I agree with you looks altered and struck with a different font) is for a '52. The block was cast late in '53. Depending on when the block was turned into a complete engine would determine its sequence number (high number from 53 or low number from 54).
And as we can see from the specifications for 54:
tocmp: 1954 Specifications the serial number would have been struck on the left hand side of the Pad since the codes moved to a suffix in '54.
As for the 848 head. All we know is that it is not original to a late '53 block. How/why it got there is anybody's guess. The 848 head is a desirable choice among inline hot rodder's because it has a small combustion chamber which raises compression. Then there is the Parts Counter effect. Replacement heads shipped to GM dealers would have been from then contemporary production (the old part numbers were obsoleted when the new downward compatible part became available.)
regards,
stock49
