I am in the process of swapping engines from a '80 240D parts car into a '79 that has an engine that was overheated and supposedly has a blown head gasket. I got the donor engine out last weekend and worked on it a little this weekend cleaning it up checking the clutch etc. . Started to disconnect every thing on the blown engine to pull it and looked to see the engine # to price out rings etc. in case I decide to rebuild it later. I was supprized to see that the engine # on the block was ground off! The 616 was still there but the rest of the surface had obvious grind marks and no numbers. The car has a salvage title because it had some body damage to the right front fender at one time and the insurance co. totaled it(according to the guy I bought it from). Does anybody know why the engine # would be ground off. Could the engine be stolen or is this something that is done when the car is salvaged. Would this be done if the car had another engine installed. There is 354k on the speedo so it is possible it is the second engine.

Sedecrem