Re: Cylinder case casting date and engine assembly date are the same!!
Hi Jim:
My April 67 small block was cast and assembled on the same day. It caused Al Grenning some consternation when he first saw it, but he's fine with it now.
The key element in understanding this was John Hinckley's explanation that the Saginaw foundry ran around the clock and a fleet of trucks ran continuously for the 45 minute drive from Saginaw to Flint. Blocks were loaded "hot" and cooled down on the drive. There was no last-in-first-out inventory system at the time, so any available block might get pulled for the Flint assembly line.
It turns out that the screw styles used to hold the date code tag on the block's casting mold indicate whether it was cast on the first shift, second shift, or third shift. I'm away from home right now but I can post this info later if you are interested.
The "clock-like" marking cast into the block shows what hour of the shift the casting was made.
So, by inspecting these marks you can determine very precisely when the block was cast. These markings show that my block was cast during the first hour of the first shift on March 17. This makes it easier to understand how the engine was assembled at Flint on March 17.
By the way, Noland Adams' C2 book contains the results of a survey he performed on casting dates and assembly dates. As I recall, about 2% of the midyear small blocks in his survey were cast and assembled on the same day.
Hi Jim:
My April 67 small block was cast and assembled on the same day. It caused Al Grenning some consternation when he first saw it, but he's fine with it now.
The key element in understanding this was John Hinckley's explanation that the Saginaw foundry ran around the clock and a fleet of trucks ran continuously for the 45 minute drive from Saginaw to Flint. Blocks were loaded "hot" and cooled down on the drive. There was no last-in-first-out inventory system at the time, so any available block might get pulled for the Flint assembly line.
It turns out that the screw styles used to hold the date code tag on the block's casting mold indicate whether it was cast on the first shift, second shift, or third shift. I'm away from home right now but I can post this info later if you are interested.
The "clock-like" marking cast into the block shows what hour of the shift the casting was made.
So, by inspecting these marks you can determine very precisely when the block was cast. These markings show that my block was cast during the first hour of the first shift on March 17. This makes it easier to understand how the engine was assembled at Flint on March 17.
By the way, Noland Adams' C2 book contains the results of a survey he performed on casting dates and assembly dates. As I recall, about 2% of the midyear small blocks in his survey were cast and assembled on the same day.
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