Engine Number Identification Question

[1938al]

Good Morning Guys-
I am trying to figure out the engine which I received along with my 67 Moke thirteen years ago. The story is that the previous owner's son wrecked his 66 Moke and so he went out and bought a 67 Moke and then he dismantled the 66 keeping all of it as spares. So, this engine came with all of the extra parts. The story sounds true as the sump on this engine is cracked open. The engine id plate reads 8AN FA-U-H12. It is not 8AC so it does not seem to be an original Moke 850. I can not find any reference to the "N" after 8A. It is definitely an N not an M. Any Ideas? Thanks Alan

[Bodge]

The engine id plate reads 8AN FA-U-H12.

Hi Alan

The good news is that your engine is an original Moke engine. Mokes with 8AN prefixed engines are mostly found in North America.

I am not actually certain what the "8AN" stands for, but it may well signify an engine with positive crankcase ventilation (PCV) which was used only for vehicles destined for emissions-conscious export markets. The PCV system is easily recognised by the mushroom shaped PCV valve positioned above and attached to the inlet manifold. The system was also known in some factory publications as closed circuit engine breathing. Instead of venting to atmosphere as in open crankcase ventilation, the fumes passed from the tappet chest cover through an oil separator (trap) and then via the PCV valve into the inlet manifold. Roger

[1938al]

Hi Roger, You are right on , It does have the oil separator and the mushroom shaped pcv valve. Glad it is a Moke engine. Both Mokes came out of Indiana,USA. I missed one number somehow on the eng # It should have been 8AN-FA-UH212. The 67 Moke"s eng # is 8AC-FA-UH3520. That engine does not have the oil separator and pcv. I would think that the 66 was an earlier engine but it has the pcv system and the 67 does not. Any idea when they made the change. The Heritage certificate lists my 67as being produced December 1965. Thanks for your help. Alan

[Bodge]

I missed one number somehow on the eng # It should have been 8AN-FA-UH212. The 67 Moke"s eng # is 8AC-FA-UH3520.

Quite a few of the Catalina Mokes that we rescued in 2014 had 8AN engine prefixes and a couple of them have almost identical numbers to yours.

I did some research at the British Motor Museum at Gaydon and reckon that your Moke was very probably manufactured on the 27th January 1966 and dispatched on 2nd February.

8AN prefixes would have started at 101 and so your engine is around the 100th one produced as they were not necessarily fitted sequentially. The 8AN engines were produced alongside the normal 8AC engines so I would have thought that they would have started around mid December 1965. I do not know how many Mokes were fitted with closed circuit breathing, but one of the Catalina Mokes has an engine number in the 800s. So there were probably in excess of 800 or so. Roger

[1938al]

Morning Roger, Thanks for the information. Very interesting. I just went and read about the Catalina Mokes .I did not know about that.Quite a story and great to see they were not scrapped. Alan

[Wally2]

Hi,
My Moke had a PCV breather and a preheater on the carb and was built as left hand drive for export to the US in '65/66.
The engine number is however, 8AC not 8AN, according to the chap at Gaydon the workshop guys tended to just put the next tag on, not really caring about us lot 50 years on!
Cheers
Chris