[TR] Motor Marking

Thu Oct 26 11:21:24 MDT 2017

Johna very nice look back at production practices.it reminds me of my first job in industry.i have always worked in glass and metal (windows to the layman), but not really.at my first job all the window parts were heavily documented in drawings and sealing procedures in the office.but when a project was sent to the factory all those documents were ignored. what would happen was a layout man would kind of draw full size every individual bar of the frame. a sill, 2 jambs and a head say. all laid out to exacting size on long pieces of 1" x 12" planks of wood.then he would mark in colors the different hole and notch prep, at its exact location, for all the machine work. a round red mark was a straight punch hole, while a round blue mark was to be drilled and countersunk.the men could then lay the part on the plank and see if they had the hole in the right place or the length was correct.after a while of being there and not understanding why the shop used this archaic almost Egyptian symbolic way of doing things i asked the owner why the shop did not use the very explicit drawings i was producing.his response was that the symbols and colors were used as many of the men were in fact illiterate.
i have continued to try and make any instructions i may produce as simple as possible based on this assumption. including using color.
frank    

      From: John Macartney <john.macartney at ukpips.org.uk>
 To: 'wbeech' <wbeech at flash.net> 
Cc: 'Triumphs' <triumphs at autox.team.net>
 Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2017 9:49 AM
 Subject: Re: [TR] Motor Marking

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   - high or low compression cylinder heads
   - Different camshafts had different colours on timing chain sprockets to indicate different camshafts for different markets
   - Road springs and shock absorbers had marks to identify spring rates for heavy duty suspensions in tropical markets.
  All this and lots more created a car that was unique to a market condition or geographic area and it’s important to remember that Standard-Triumph had twelve different assembly factories around the world so there was plenty of scope to use colours and marks that affected components being packed for export that had no other meaning except for the destination market and the people who worked in those plants.As far as your ‘Moggie’ goes, it’s quite likely that engine may have been identified with a label attached to a piece of wire that was tied to a part of the engine to indicate the car was going to Morgan to power a car and not another manufacturer to run a pump or a forklift truck.This whole question puzzles thousands of enthusiasts because many of them often fail to appreciate the massive number of variations found in any one model that was territorial dependent. As a further example, I’ve seen posts on the Triumph list over the years talking about tropical fans which says, “the factory parts book says…” and that in itself is of little use because it depends on the parts book being referred to. Standard-Triumph didn’t have just one parts book. There were probably considerably more than fifty on the go at any one time and when I was employed by the company, I know there were at least 12 different ones for the Herald alone. Those were further sub-divided into different languages because we didn’t just sell in North America. Sure, North America took about 25% of the global sports car output and about 12% of total output for all models which made it a major market – but it was by no means the only major market and the people who worked in Technical Publications faced a continuous and massive task in keeping up to speed on technical changes across the whole model range for the world as we know it.My best guess is the engines sold to Morgan would have mostly been UK domestic specification but that aside, Morgan would have certainly provided Standard-Triumph with regular forecasts of unit offtake for its own export business and this is where another raft of paint blobs and chinagraph marks would have come into play. All this probably doesn’t answer your question and it’s important to remember as well that as its now so many years since the company was in operation, lots of the assemblies may have been adapted / repainted / cannibalised from other components and a lot more as well.Of one thing we can be sure. The cars and their constituent parts were never designed or envisaged in lasting as long as they have, so that in itself is something of a miracle – and also anyone’s guess as to what happened to that component or assembly when it first saw the light of day😊Have you got all your woodworking tools sharpened and at the ready for the Morgan?  Cheers, John  From: wbeech [mailto:wbeech at flash.net] 
Sent: 25 October 2017 20:06
To: 'John Macartney' <john.macartney at ukpips.org.uk>
Subject: Motor Marking  Hi John,I hope you and yours are doing well.   I just bought a project car, non-TR, and have a question you might know the answer to.  I remember the email threads that explained the orange “TR3” paint markings on the engine blocks as having come through a sorting process at the T-S factory.  What was not discussed, no need to, is were the other blocks so marked as well?  This project is a 1954 Morgan +4 “Interim” and while it originally came with the Standard Vanguard 2088 motor, the 1991 TR2 was an option.   The project has no motor in it at the present just a loose TR3A  engine coming with it that will not fit without some re-work.  So, would this block had received some sort of orange marker at the factory?   Yours truly,Bill Beecher

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