Dates

[John M.]

I'm looking at an 870 327 cast on Friday, Feb 12th '65, assembly stamped Monday Feb 15th. The heads were cast Sat Feb 13th. Could it have been installed in the Corvette on Tuesday the 16th? Amazing timeline.

[John H.]

Re: Dates

I'm looking at an 870 327 cast on Friday, Feb 12th '65, assembly stamped Monday Feb 15th. The heads were cast Sat Feb 13th. Could it have been installed in the Corvette on Tuesday the 16th? Amazing timeline.

John -

ONLY if the engine was shipped to St. Louis via a dedicated truck on an "expedited emergency" basis, as engines were shipped by rail, not by truck, and even that would be VERY close. As a practical matter, I'd say NO.

[John M.]

Re: Dates

Thanks John.
I've always been interested in these dates. Sometimes a few days and sometimes a month. I would have liked to have been there (for a while) to observe what the discrepancies were all about.
John

[Mike E.]

Re: Dates

John McRae,

The dates are interesting to me too. One thing I've been doing is collect images of engine pads when I see them on the web. I've only been doing it for a year or so and I have a small collection 12 or so small block '65 pads within a VIN range of 1300-22000. I don't really want to post these in the forum but if you would like them let me know.

From this small sample the norm seems to be 10 days to 2 weeks between engine assembly to cars birthdate. Also keep in mind I think the birth date calculator is just an estimate. On my '65 the Birthday calculator says Monday the 25th and the shipping report says Friday January 29th 1965.


I do have a question for John Hinckley on this topic:
I was doing some work on and off for a few weeks at the old Mustang plant in Dearborn during the mid-90's and they had a Cobra with a bad engine sitting in the repair bay during the time I was working in the plant. No engines were available at the time for replacement because of issues with them, but I assume the engine would be swapped out at some point. Do you know how the St. Louis plant would have handle this? Would the engine have been replaced or repaired.

Mike

[John H.]

Re: Dates

I do have a question for John Hinckley on this topic:
I was doing some work on and off for a few weeks at the old Mustang plant in Dearborn during the mid-90's and they had a Cobra with a bad engine sitting in the repair bay during the time I was working in the plant. No engines were available at the time for replacement because of issues with them, but I assume the engine would be swapped out at some point. Do you know how the St. Louis plant would have handle this? Would the engine have been replaced or repaired.

Mike

Mike -

In the event of an engine failure (or an obvious internal problem), the engine would be pulled, stripped of St. Louis-installed parts, and returned to the engine plant for credit; another engine would be run down the Engine Dress Line, VIN-stamped, hustled down to Heavy Repair, and installed in the car.

Assembly plants didn't do ANY internal engine work; the engine plants were responsible for engine warranty, and didn't want anyone else inside their engines.