engine broaching marks

[Roy B.]

At Berkeley the HOT subject was engine pad broaching marks ( A new thing for me to learn about) and the old argument over paint color and (shad).
Well me being me, I stuck my head in Sh+t and gave my thoughts !because a person that has shown their vett three times before and got %100 on the engine pad being original. Now at this meet was told it was a re-stamp.WOW

OK my idea was when a person inters their Corvette at a National meet ( I said National) and supposably all the big wigs are there and if she or he passes the engine pad ( broach marks and all) test. Take a high resolution photo of it ,take the serial number , give the owner a paper of some sort so she or he can keep it with their Corvette till it' Sold. NCRS has it on file , owner has proof ( NO MORE ARGUMENT) at the next meet showing.
On Paint, like all paint shops NCRS agrees on color and shad , has many 6x6 fiberglass examples sent to all chapters for comparing. ( NO MORE ARGUMENT) at the next meet showing.
Now am I to simple minded to think this could work, OH! yes I know some one may blow their engine , then replace it not telling NCRS they did. (how often would that happen) %1 may be? would it be worth a discussion?? May be ?? would it be worth trying?? May be?? But leaving things as they are I see this argument never, never, ending.
How would YOU solve this problem please??

[John R.]

Re: engine broaching marks

Sounds like a different phoilosophy prevailed in Berkeley than the one I heard at the NCRS Judging Retreat in Dallas in February. At the retreat, the man who who I understand could write the book on this subject told my judging partner and me that if the casting number, configuration and casting date on the cylinder case and the numbers stamped on the pad were correct within the NCRS guidelines we should be able to "see" broach marks on the pad whether they were readily discernible or not. Frankly, I was taken aback after having spent several years reading the discussion on this board about restamps and broach marks. Our mentor stated that the NCRS was a "restorer's society" and that included the restoration of engines. I was reminded of this at a recent chapter meet where several other judges took great delight in pronouncing that the L36 engine in a '67 convertible was a "re-smack." While the owner of the '67 took the judges' comments in a courteous manner, I wondered if we would ever see him again at an NCRS event. What should we be encouraging as a judging organization?

[Don 42616]

Re: engine broaching marks

NCRS should always judge for originality. If a dubious stamp pad is approved why not a range of other parts? I have found that the Judges I encountered have been accurate. I'm sure thats not always the case tho. So is life---------..
Nothing is perfect. This tech. line is close. I learn from it everyday. Regards, Don

[Harmon C.]

Re: engine broaching marks

Original broach marks are very hard to duplicte. A good engine pad judge who has seen how machining is done at the factory and looked at many pads will know most of the time if the broach marks were put on at the factory. A very good restoation of a pad may get credit if they appear very close to the way the general did it. Lyle

[Don 42616]

Re: engine broaching marks

Restamping a pad is a fraud. Mainly to decieve for resale. I don't think anyone doubts that. I sure ran into this many times shopping for my midyears this last year. We are all aware a restamp & original motor carry 2 different price levels...It is a fraud when seller does not declare if pad is restamped.. Don

[Jack H.]

Re: engine broaching marks

Yes, there's a artform content to BOTH the restoration process as well as to the judging process. Ergo our system is imperfect and, in some cases, boils down to individual judgment calls by those fellow club members tasked with providing 'judging services' to the their fellow members who are at a meet in the role of owner.

One of the safeguards we have against 'frivilous' judgement calls is the requirement for there to be TWO judges (or more) who have to agree on each item. Another safeguard, is the requirement for the Team Leader to sign off on any full deduction items scored. The ultimate safeguard is the owner's right of appeal up the chain of command on the judging field. So, there's reasonable due diligence in our system...

BUT, a shortfall we do suffer is the proliferation of meets (Chapter, Regional, National) and the lack of uniform knowledge on behalf of those who serve. To a novice, it can be a hard pill to swallow that this/that aspect of their car was OK at a Chapter meet in place X on date Y, then NOT OK at a Regional/National meet in location A, at time B when the same set of judging rules/standards are supposed to apply. This is a real issue but unfortunately I don't see a perfect solution for it...

Those who have gained expertise in judging stamp pads are rather scarce resources. The expertise they've learned over the years is rather closely held for a number of reasons:

(1) It's their individual intellectual property.
(2) Do we really want to open the kimona and publish an omnibus manual telling others how to 'fake it' correctly?

And, occassionally there are legitimate disagreements among these experts from time to time on a case by case basis. There was NOT a single '2' stamp die at Chevy over the years. Individual dies loaded into the gang stamp(s) did break/wear out and get replaced from time to time. The replacement stamp wasn't guaranteed to be exactly the same specific font as the original...

Broach marks can/do vary from block to block depending on a range of considerations:

(A) Where was the broaching done (Flint/Tonawanda)?
(B) How fresh was the broaching tool in its periodic maintenance cycle (sharp/true edge)?
(C) How uniform was the cast iron in a specific block?
(D) How 'set' was a given block (hot/cold from initial casting)?

Bottom line, this judgement call may be one of the 'toughest' decisions judges are asked to make and experience/knowledge is a BIG factor. I don't see a 'perfect' solution to making the club totally uniform in this area with the downside being there ARE differences in outcome based on where you have your car judged, when you have it judged, and who's at the helm making the judgement call on the stamp pad, the VIN tag, the trim tag...

[Rob A.]

Re: engine broaching marks

I wonder if with the ever increasing prices of these cars, Judges aren't feeling a stronger sense of responsibility in determining originality of engine pad stamping. Whether intended to or not, receiving full credit in this area of NCRS judging weighs heavily on the value of the car and a buyers willingness to pay the prices these cars are demanding now. It seems like the only real determination that can ever be made is that it "appears" to be a factory stamped pad, and that's all the judges can be asked to do.

[Harmon C.]

Re: engine broaching marks

If I was ask if the pad was factory original to buy a Corvette or the broach marks appear original is two very different questions. You can lose the 38 points and still get a Duntov so one would need to see the judging sheets not the award to know where the points were lost. You better know yourself or hire someone before you spend big bucks. Lyle

[Michael H.]

Re: engine broaching marks

Rob,

This is exactly why I stopped judging stamp pads at the Bloomington Gold meet years ago and to this day, I try to avoide discussing or inspecting numbers. Too much responsibility and I eventually felt it was no longer possible to make 100% accurate calls because the quality of the latest restamps were getting better by the year. My job was easy in the beginning because few people really knew what the numbers were supposed to look like and had almost no knowledge of the texture on the block but that changed.

In my last year as "stamp pad inspector", there was an owner of a 63 that didn't agree with my call and decided to sue me, David Burroughs, Bloomington Gold and anyone else that happened to be on the field that day. He lost his case, of course, (his numbers were hopelessly incorrect) but the incredible amount of red tape invoved served as a valuable lesson to all. I retired.

The numbers arguement will go on and on with no end in sight. Half of the members want strict inspection and substantial point deduct and the other half wants the opposite. Funny but, the half that wants less strict inspection and less point deduction also just happens to be the half with the "restored" numbers.

Like it or not, correct numbers DO matter. It can be argued that a correctly restored stamp pad is just as good as an original, but I believe most of the Corvette world sees it the other way.

Michael

[Ted S.]

The moral of the story is if you don't have a GM..

stamping, deck it, paint it, get everything else right on the car, get top flight, and I can still call it "original numbers matching but decked". Correct??? It still amazes me that I can get swap out everything else on the car and it's ok but the block is sacred. Go figure. As long as it's configured the same as it left the factory it should be viewed as "restored" (not necessarily "original")(aka National Corvette "Restorers" Society verses National Corvette "Originality" Society). The pad should be viewed as all other items on the car. A good repro gets points, it's not all or nothing. If it was all or nothing on all components there sure wouldn't be many top flight cars out there.

It would be interesting to know how many of the high performance cars still have their "original" engine components. Swap the carb, change the heads, find a date coded water pump, find a correctly coded carb, overbore it and put new pistons in, etc. etc. and it's still "original"? To me that would all seem to be part of the process of "restoring". By the way Lyle this isn't aimed at you.

[Roy B.]

Re: engine broaching marks

I heard NCRS is looking at the pad with a three part consideration for points.
1 numbers character
2 broach marks
3 condition
giving each a % of points. WOW
making it more confusing to me- I think, That was what they were talking about in Berkeley??
But any way I've not heard of a way as I stated to end this argument (YET), That at the National meet two or three or four or what ever it takes , top 1000 point judges or again what ever, should have the last word and verified the engine stamp once and for all for THAT person only, or THAT owner only, THAT Corvette only till it's SOLD.
That ends different location were showed and the hundreds of different judges opinions
OK again is that to simple???????????????????????
What would you do????????????????????????

[Kevin M.]

Re: engine broaching marks

As far as

"Those who have gained expertise in judging stamp pads are rather scarce resources. The expertise they've learned over the years is rather closely held for a number of reasons:

(1) It's their individual intellectual property. "

This is where I have a problem. Most of this expertise was gained at the expense of NCRS members and other owners in the Corvette community. We contributed to the data bases of both stamp pads, trim tags and VIN tags free. Now that a comprehensive collection of this information has been made the only way for the rest of us to learn, the ones that contributed to the data bases, is to buy it. I don't have the $50 bucks for the VIN trim book and most members will say, then you should get out of the hobby if you can't afford $50. I know that the writers of this information have spent their own time doing this and it costs money to put the information in print, but lot's of people have donated their time and resources free to the NCRS. This seems unfair to me, I think I know what a good stamp pad looks like and I think I can tell a fake Trim and VIN tag but it would sure be nice to have the resources that have been gather available to help me learn how to better do this.

If when you sign up to for judging classes this information was provided for studying maybe more people would become qualified to make better decisions when it comes to these areas. Instead of 5 hours of a senior judge talking and giving tips like "use lemon pledge to clean the interior of your car" you could have a power point presentation with pictures of pads, trim tags and VIN plates, it would be a lot easier to stay awake.

It's just like the archives that were discussed at the Western Regional, I wanted to ask once they are put in one place and become available to NCRS members are they going to charge a fee to use the archive? will it be online? Again most of these materials have been donated to the NCRS free with the intent of the donors that they be used by the members to research and learn more about the construction history and details of the Corvette.

How about some in-depth articles maybe a series on this information in the Restorer, there have been complaints about the quality of the articles in the Restorer and this would go a long way in improving that.

Just trying to make this a better organization with my ideas it is not a criticism I like this place and want to see it grow and continue. At the Western Regional it was discussed what can we do to bring future members to the organization, adding features like this would improve the quality of the organization and make us stand alone in the restoration hobby.

Kevin

[John Perkins]

Re: engine broaching marks

I have a 65 L76 Convertible with A/C. The car has matching numbers and the POP. It has been top flighted three times at the regional level twice and national level once by the previous owner. The last time was Monterey in 2002 and it passed the engine stamp and broach mark test. After hearing about the first post where another vehicle past several times and then failed, why would anyone want to chance having it pass again if it has passed in the past. If this happened to me, the value of my car would go down significantly. I am interested in hearing comments regarding my question

[Mark #28455]

Bowtie vs. restored

I agree with the above post that emphasized the double standard in judging the stamp pad vs. judging the paint, interior, etc. Unless your car is a Bowtie car, it has a BUNCH of NON-Original parts! Face it! If you have an earlier C1, you can always swap in an engine from a totalled or stolen car and nobody can tell.

The NCRS offers opinions on how to make non-lacquer paints look correct, but nobody wants to touch the subject of the engine pad. It's about time we stop talking about pad stampings as "original" or "fake" or "restamps" and take a lesson from the paint section and talk about "appears consistent with factory standards".

A different post above commented on the improving abilities of the pad restampers. Believe it! If the factory could do it, there CERTAINLY is a way for someone with enough desire to duplicate it. Now I wish those restampers would just turn their attention to making a correct carpet and exhaust for my car!

[Robert C.]

Re: Great thread, guys! *NM*