inconsistant judging

[Domenic T.]

Re: inconsistant judging

I think I am getting confused, but is it OK now to deck your block and re-stamp it so the car appears to be original?

DOM

[Clem Z.]

Re: inconsistant judging

I do not want to hijack Leonard's very interesting thread, but wanted to throw my 2 cents in specifically about having one's engine block ("cylinder case" in some judging manuals) "decked" during an overhaul.

In my experience, Dominic's comments are right on the money. It should be very rare when an engine block is needing ..."decking". Fellow member Jerry W mentioned that "engines wear out, and blocks must be decked for repairs'. While true in some instances, I've personally only seen one or two cases that I heard of legitimate reasoning for decking the block. I've rebuild about one dozen muscle car engines for myself in the 40 years I've been owning/driving/ and enjoying these cars. I've never needed to deck one. In addition to this, I worked as a shop helper in a dealership (early 1970s, and peak era of muscle cars). In working with more complete overhauls than I can even remember, I only saw one block decked.

Not wanting to step on any toes here, but most know I have a tenancy to speak rather bluntly. In my opinion, many engine blocks are decked by machine shops looking to help cover the investment costs of their high-dollar equipment. Similar to "hardened" valve seats, ....which no one has ever shown me any documented proof that today's non-leaded fuels caused legitimate cylinder head damage.

Enough said.....

Ridge.

shops that have "deck mounted" boring bars have to deck the block so the boring machine bore perpendicular to the crank center line. factory blocks decks surfaces are not parallel to the crank center line because they are not bored off of the deck surface at the factory. better shops have fixture mounted boring bars that do not require the deck to be parallel to the crank center line to get the correct bore.

[Mike G.]

Re: inconsistant judging

welcome to the world of opinions.

[Kenneth H.]

Re: inconsistant judging

Dom, from what I'm reading, the answer is yes, provided it "appears" as original, and that's the catch or, conversely, the opportunity.

Thanks.

[Mike G.]

Re: inconsistant judging

every judge has his own things he looks at and looks for. every judge has his own idea of how close to original a part is and his own idea of how much of a deduct it deservs. it should be close but not always. someone that is real good with stamps can see things that other cant. this is why there is no such thing as a 100 point car. out of the 8 to 10 judges that look at a car any given show, someone will find something. i dont think a car right off the line is a 100 point car. thats why you only need 97 points to go to the next round. i am not a specialest in any way but i have seen some not real pads look pretty darn good and i have seen some real pads look pretty darn bad.

when i judge sometimes something is wrong but not worth a point so i give it a dot. when you get two dots i take a point. just the way i do it. with paint , tops , and tires you can go to the books for the correct deduct. everything else is an opinion. everyone has an opinion and no two are alike.

[John H.]

Re: inconsistant judging

I think I am getting confused, but is it OK now to deck your block and re-stamp it so the car appears to be original?

DOM

Dom -

That has always been an accepted part of restoration, as long as it simply duplicates what was there originally (see "restoration" and "counterfeiting" definitions on pages 4 & 11 of the "Corvette Judging Reference Manual", 8th Edition, and the penalties for "Counterfeiting" on page 22).

Whether it gets judging credit depends on whether or not the restored pad surface and stampings appear to be typical of factory production.

[Michael W.]

Re: inconsistant judging

welcome to the world of opinions.

That's just YOUR opinion

[Michael W.]

Re: inconsistant judging

Dom, from what I'm reading, the answer is yes, provided it "appears" as original, and that's the catch or, conversely, the opportunity.

Thanks.

Actually, no.

If it appears to be a restamp, it would get a complete deduct.

There again, if a restamp were good enough to appear to be an original, how would a person know that it's not an original?

[Gene M.]

Re: inconsistant judging

Quote:
Originally Posted by Domenic Tallarita (51287)
I think I am getting confused, but is it OK now to deck your block and re-stamp it so the car appears to be original

Dom -

That has always been an accepted part of restoration, as long as it simply duplicates what was there originally (see "restoration" and "counterfeiting" definitions on pages 4 & 11 of the "Corvette Judging Reference Manual", 8th Edition, and the penalties for "Counterfeiting" on page 22).

Whether it gets judging credit depends on whether or not the restored pad surface and stampings appear to be typical of factory production.

Be careful here. NCRS accepts restamps, but many restorers and true hobbiest off the judging field do not. So saying it is accepted as a means of restoration is not always true. Depends on who you are speaking to and where. Be also advised restamping VIN numbers is illegal.

[Jack H.]

Re: inconsistant judging

"Back in the day they had an acid that would lift the old #s when an engine was stolen and re-stamped, why don"t we document our engines once that way to proove it's authenticity if it is a re- stamped engine?"

Because that method is NOT sufficient to detect a restamp. It relies on residual stress from the original stamping. It's child's play to stress relieve a block, cylinder head or other form of casting via appropriate heat soak. Once that's done, bye bye residual stress and you'll improperly conclude a real McCoy restamp is the real McCoy item based on the acid lift method (or magnetic finger printing)...

[Ridge K.]

Re: inconsistant judging

DOM

Going further, I recall we have the 'Restoration' definition very clearly posted on this site and real clear restoration is NOT taking a 327 66 67 and making it a 427 car, nor taking a 427 390 and making it a 425HP car.

As far as that goes, side pipes and knock offs w/ gold lines also fit the bill.

Those are all forgeries (sorry if your out there doing it) but they are. Just earlier this week we have one of our newest members looking for heads, only to find out more bad news is probably behind why the heads were not correct for his car.

Where is our NCRS data base of cars and their documented condition?

Where are those records that will flush out all those fakes? Ya I know, every GM former and present employee in the world will swear they don't exist.

Ron, the data base is a good idea (and possibly already well along), but with not be all inclusive, nor ever considered the "final word".

Take my own '67 big block for example:

It was pulled into a barn and put up on blocks when the NCRS was in it's infancy. It's never been judged, hasn't been tagged since 1976, has not been offered for sale since before the NCRS was formed, ....so not even any title transfers since then.

Some have stated that Corvettes like that are becoming close to nonexistent status, but I've known of several in the last ten years. One month after I made my barn-find of this 43,000 mile 400hp car (in 2006), a good friend of mine found and purchased a '67 435 convertible with fewer than 30,000 original miles. It had been placed in garage storage in 1971, due to the original owner getting disgusted over local Chevy mechanics being unable to balance out the tri-power carbs.

Neither of these cars would have shown up in any NCRS database, nor were they ever listed on any of the C2 registries.

How many of these Corvettes are still out there? That's an unknown.
Seems like a good listing of previously judged Corvettes would be very helpful, however.

Ridge.

[Jim D.]

Re: inconsistant judging

There have been several posts where cars lost points, even at the regional level, for having known original/correct parts. Just because a judge, any judge, says it's so, doesn't mean it's true.

[Michael F.]

Re: inconsistant judging

you are an example of why I will never have my car judged

[Kirk M.]

Re: inconsistant judging

You know having gone through the process three times now, two chapter and one regional, I kinda felt the same way about the judging. However, when I got home from regionals, I compared the scoring sheets and was kinda amazed. I will list the scores starting with chapter meet 1, then chapter meet 2 and then regionals:

Operations - 754/760/760 (first score had blinker out - fixed)
Interior - 744/756/757 (tidied up stuff from first score - pretty consistent)
Exterior - 870/992/951 (first/paint not dulled, second dulled, third partly dulled so lost a portion of pts)
Mechanical - 1218/1203/1213 (worked on lots of minor stuff)
Chassis - 608/647/649 (worked on lots of minor stuff)
Total Raw - 4194/4358/4330 (you can see after I fixed lots of minor stuff in the first chapter meet the scores are pretty close, the last regional score would be even closer if I hadn't buffed out the dulled paint under the nose and lost my paint pts again)

Looks fairly consistent to me, although at times points get taken off for different things. One thing I know for sure, it is an education!

Kirk

[Terry M.]

Re: inconsistant judging

Michael,
How do you rate Kirk's score?