Hello. Im restoring 49 roadmaster with str8 fireball with dynaflow gearbox. i have problem with displacement of engine. engine no. 1828965-3
By the numbers and the location of the dipstick, it looks like it is a 1949 320 cu. in. out of a series 70, so it might well be the correct one for your Roadmaster.
Please show us where you found that info. If it's from a Roadmaster (series 70) the engine number should end with -7 Special (series 40) ends with -4 Super (series 50) ends with -5 1949 Buick I.D. info: The number on the photo ends with -3, but there was no series 30 in 1949. The 320.2 CI engine was also used in the Super, so not only Roadmaster material. The serial number on the engine wasn't used for model year 1949, according to my photo of the I.D. info above, the Wilmington, DE factory started with 55050001... I searched all the way from 1939 to 1953, couldn't find numbers that would include 53227457 from the photo above.
I found it here. https://www.buicks.net/shop/reference/engine_ident_52.php Having played with a few of those engines, and having owned one or two, this leads me to believe it's a 320, they were usually painted black from the factory right after the war, it could be a factory or warranty replacement, I don't know. Now I know immediately after the war the smaller engine (248) was offered in Super and eventually in Special. The Roadmaster was the only one that got the 320. According to the Buick books I have, the Super always got the smaller engine throughout the straight 8 era. It was only in 1953 that Super got the larger V-8 while the Special had to make do with the 263 straight 8. Checking the "Standard Catalog for American Cars, 4th Edition ", (Gunnel, Krause publications, 2002) (OK, so it's a bit old, but so am I) it states that engine numbers 5220972-7 to 5548366-7 were used in Series 70 Roadmaster in 1949. This one reads 5322745-7 so that puts it squarely in the middle of the 1949 run. The first number you were looking at was a casting number from the foundry. The second number (5322745-7) is the serial number. Count up the digits and it makes sense.
No, that number doesn't end with -7, it ends with 57. The way I understand it, the number ending with the 7 is the serial number and not the engine code. (red stripe in the photo below) As you can see, 53227457 was skipped. The numbers ran from 55050001 to 5517948. After that they skipped to 55417001 and ended with 55417948. So, serial number 53227457 isn't even a model year 1949 serial number. Do you see a 7 at the end in those start or ending numbers? The engine number ends with -4, -5 or -7 (blue stripe) But the engine number in his photo ends with -3?
You're misreading the numbers. Count the digits; - there are 8 depicted there. Seven are the individual serial and the last one is the series number. The bottom picture with the number starting 1828965-3 is a casting number. There were a number of blocks that would have this number on them. The stamped number on the flat plate is an engraved serial number. There are seven characters in the number followed by "7". The book has it written as "-7" because all the engines in that series had a "7" in them. So the last individual number in this is a "5", not "7" and since there isn't enough room on the plate they omitted the dash. My 46 Super had the "5" at the end of it's number and also didn't have the dash. The serial number for the car was attached to the frame rail and on the body on the inside of the driver's side door pillar. The engine numbers were always stamped on the flat plate. The casting numbers were put on at the foundry and have nothing to do with the car's ID number. It corresponds more with the part number if anything. If you had a listing of the casting numbers you could theoretically date the block down to a shift, but I think that information is gone. The car serial number and the engine number were different. Unless you had the actual build sheet, there is no telling exactly which block was in there from the factory, what most experts do is date the car using the data plate and if the engine serial is within an acceptable or plausible range it's considered "correct", unless of course you have the actual information. This block is a 320 cu. in. and it belongs in a Roadmaster and it falls within the 1949 model range.
