66/427 Enginge casting date? Correct??

[William B.]

Re: 66/427 Enginge casting date? Correct??

Thanks, for everyones responses. Block was cast the 18th, according to the serial # car assembled 12/22/65. I do not have the engine pad date, I am going today to purchase? I think no matter what # it is too close. Please post your responses, but I will not be back to my computor untill wed.

[Craig S.]

Re: Could be assembled the same day it was cast??

Mike - since this is a 66 (not 67 as those were only SB) can't it also be a dow smith body which would put the production date out another 10 days or so from the body date? I have seen no reference if this was the body date or a birthday calcualtor based on the car serial. Just curious......I know AOS bodys in 67 were not sidepipe or BB, but I thought 66 at least the BB AOS combo was valid.......Craig

[Craig S.]

Re: Could be assembled the same day it was cast??

I see Bill's comment Sunday morning it is the serial date not the body build date so never mind my question above.......Craig

[Peter M.]

[Don 42616]

Re: 66/427 Enginge casting date? Correct??

Exactly, That is percisly why it is highly unlikly that motor was put into that body at assmby. Dates are reversed.

[Michael H.]

Re: Could be assembled the same day it was cast??

Craig,

I agree, I think Bill's latest post on Sunday AM changed all the rules on this one. In the original post, I assumed that he posted the actual body production date from the trim tag but in the most recent post, it sounds more like he used the birthday calculator instead and that may be off as much as a day or two.

I still believe the block cast date and block assy date are a possible legit combination but getting the engine into a chassis 760 miles away from where it was built, in 24 hours, is no small chore. It's a 12 hour trip by rail from Tonawanda to St Louis and that doesn't include loading/unloading etc etc.

Will be interesting to find out what the actual numbers/dates are.

Michael

[John L.]

Re: 66/427 Enginge casting date? Correct??

Block was cast on the 18'th which was a Saturday. The engine was probably assembled on the following Monday 12/20/65. Now, if this is a St Louis body, what is the body build date. I suggest you add two days to that date to derive the car assy date. I also think this is better than using the birthday calendar. If this is an AO Smith body then obviously this will not work. Also, based on the serial number you could use the 112 cars per day rule to alternately derive car assy date and test the other method I listed. I also have a Mid Dec 427/425 car with tight engine / car assy dates

[Michael H.]

Re: 66/427 Enginge casting date? Correct??

John,

For a St Louis car, the body build date can/will be either the same day as the assy date, or the day after. (working days, not counting Sundays/holidays)

In either case, there was roughly twelve hours of assy left when the trim tag was installed, and only about six or seven hours to "engine install", so that would eliminate the possibility of the third day.

In other words, if the body tag is Wednesday, the engine was in and running either Wednesday or Thursday, depending on the time of day the trim tag was installed.

Michael

[John H.]

Re: 66/427 Enginge casting date? Correct??

Also, Tonawanda didn't ship engines to St. Louis every day. '66 L36/L72 combined engine usage was about 40 per day (the only Corvette engines Tonawanda supplied), and a rail car held 180-200 engines; Chevrolet watched every penny, and seldom shipped a rail car that wasn't fully loaded. Combine that with the usual outgoing switching yard delays in making up a train at Tonawanda and the incoming switching yard delays in re-routing Tonawanda rail cars to the Mill, and tight date gaps between Tonawanda and St. Louis become even less likely.

[John L.]

Re: 66/427 Enginge casting date? Correct??

Michael -- I ap;ologize for perhaps not explaining my theory well enough. Here is an example -- If the body build date is 12/15/65 then by adding two days the car assy date equates 12/17/05.

[John L.]

Re: 66/427 Enginge casting date? Correct??

Whats is peculiar about 66 production is the following: If you look at the survey results in Nolands book - the 65 396 engines follow a nice ascending pattern correlating somewhat with serial number. 1966 427 corvettes seem to have engine assy dates that are all over the place until assy dates after endof jan 66 where they seem to follow a similar pattern to 65 i.e. a nice ascending pattern correltaing with serial number. The same is true for 67 427 corvettes up to the end of january. It sure looks like something was up with early to mid 66 & 67 427 engines.

[Michael H.]

Re: 66/427 Enginge casting date? Correct??

John,

I understand what you were saying but it didn't take an additional two days to complete the build.

Probably the most time consuming part of the entire vehicle assenbly was the body buildup/paint operations. I haven't actually figured it out to the hour or timed it but I have to guess that at least 50% of the entire build time was used in the body/paint area. When the painted body reached the point on the line where the trim tag was installed, the remaining time on the line was somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 hours. That means that it's entirely possible to have a unit roll out the door on the same day as the date on the trim tag, but most often, the following day. If, for example, a body received it's dated trim tag at the very beginning of first shift, that body would have the rest of both shifts to be completed.

A common misconception is the movement of the body after it left the body shop. (there really wasn't a body shop at all, at least the way we would think of a shop. it was in the same bldg as the rest of the entire line with no wall separating it from the rest of the plant) People think of bodies coming out of that "body shop" and then being stored somewhere until that particular body is needed. That wasn't at all the case. The body sailed right through the last reflow oven and directly into "hard trim" without even slowing down.

Wish I could remember the total time of the build, from a bare floor pan, to a completed Corvette. It's surprisingly short compared to what we would expect. I seem to remember a total of less than 24 hours end to end.

Michael

[Craig S.]

Re: Could be assembled the same day it was cast??

I wonder if there is any shot at getting the engines from Tonawanda faster than the bodies from Ionia MI? Maybe the process in the basement to get the bodies used was the typical 10 day or so delay between body production and use....or maybe it was the unloading process and they were stored for a while. I guess this may not be the case with engines. My original engine, that Al Grenning verified the pad stamp with his library, was cast on 2/23/67, built on 2/24/67, and installed in 18255 on 5/11/67 (birthday calculator) with an AOS body of I28. It is a KH suffix, AC, A.I.R., PS, L79 car. Al took an interest in the tank sticker as well as those uncommon options are dealt with differently in the dow plant than St Louis, and end up on the sticker twice. I suspect the reason my engine was atypical at 2 months early was it was a very infrequent suffix stamp. It was not a grind out....and has original broach marks verified by Al......Craig

[Michael H.]

Re: Could be assembled the same day it was cast??

I'm not real sure how AOS worked as far as storage of bodies. From what I understand, they did sit for several days before shipping but I don't know why.

Tonawanda engines were a different story though. Seems they were never stocked at source very long. I've never been there so I don't know anything about their operation.

As far as the AIR 350 HP with AC, that certainly would be a slow mover because of the rare combination of options so it likely would have sat at the mill for quite a while before use.

[Craig S.]

Re: Could be assembled the same day it was cast??

Thx Mike!......Craig