fullcontrol

I recently purchased a 67 BB project car from Tom Hattey who operates Hattey Auto in Detroit.

He described the car as...

1967 corvette conv 427/400 matching # 4 speed barn find, car does not run its in need of a restoration, frame is bird cage are solid, it would make a nice project and clean michigan title

After looking it over it was indeed rough, but not horrible bad. The good news was that the casting number on the block was the correct 3904351 and the stamped engine number T0109JC was right on, plus the stamped vin was a match to the vin tag. Body lines were pretty good and interior was very complete. So we trailered it home.

A couple weeks have gone by now and we have disassembled everything to get ready to start the restoration. With the engine block out and the heads off we measured the bore at 4.154... which was simply impossible, right? Especially when it read .060 on top of the pistons. We had six people look at the motor, all very knowledgeable in the hobby. Days of head scratching and research followed.

Finally, I noticed something odd with the casting number on the block. The number three appears twice, but the second one looked just a tad larger. Someone grabs a screwdriver to scratch off some paint. Guess what we found?









After some more research we found the block is an over bored 396 with the last five numbers ground off and plastic numbers molded from a 427 block painted and glued in place. They popped off with just the smallest of taps.

No amount of due diligence before the sale would have discovered plastic numbers painted and glued on the block. Amazing the lengths people go to for a dishonest buck. Guess we should have paid more attention to the orange paint on his garage floor.

Of course, Tom Hattey has not returned phone calls or answered our emails.

mike16

looks like some overspray just around those numbers. who did that and when?

time to contact the previous owner

63split63

If they don't respond it's time to get some legal advice!

Bill

jdk971

make sure you keep any written items that state that if ya have them. also right down any
statements, they made to the such and any witnesses you have also. best of luck jim
ps you might call your county prosecutors office for fraud. get the name of the people you
talked to there. and if you get a hold of the dealer, mention that persons name.

b.lee

That's some BS.
Might be time for a cruise back up to Tom's place if he's not picking up the phone.

Mike Ward

Care to show us a picture of the stamp pad?

56Heap

Post a pic of the pad and yes you could have taken a screwdriver to the casting numbers prior to the purchase. JMO

Railroadman

There's a limit to how much jabbing and hacking you can do when it's still someone else's car.

fullcontrol

Yes, with the permission of the seller we could have scraped the paint off and tried to pop cast iron numbers off the block. Funny we had six guys with 100+ years of combined experience, including a national level NCRS judge, all looking at a block now on a pallet and it still took a couple days to give it a try. Hindsight is a powerful thing.

Seriously though, I didn't post this info asking for what we could have done and/or what we can do going forward. Rather I wanted to share a particularly devious technique employed by certain unscrupulous sellers so that my fellow forum members can better protect themselves.

DMV, State Police and legal representation will all be brought to bare on this small auto dealer working out of home garage.

PAmotorman

i posted about this 10 years ago and some guys even use RTV to make the numbers. always take a screw driver to the numbers. when i posted about this on the NCRS board i got several emails telling me that they found out i was right. i just noticed that this block came from the detroit area and that is where i found out about this trick.

SupremeDeluxe

Man, I'm sorry that happened. Sent you a PM.

Should a real 351 block have a "P" cast in below the 3904351?

Blk63Vette

Hello

I have a "forged" block too in my Vette its a 327 from a 62...Look closely it has a metal tab on top of the "original numbers"...Used JB welded to attach it.....The previous owner told me that it "might" be the original block... Yeah...Right...They are out there.. sorry about your luck..

vt65

sorry about your unfortunate incident and thank you for your warning, never heard of using plastic numbers before. I always remember what an old car dealer said to me once: "tell them what they want to hear!"

Mossy66

Your original post says the car does not run. Why is that? Was it the engine, or something else?

Just wondering because if the engine was in need of a rebuild, then the dealer would know that the plastic numbers would probably not make it past the hot tank.

I can only imagine how pissed you must be.

PAmotorman

i guess the NCRS judge never read my post on their website. when i posted on their website one owner emailed that he hit his with a power washer and the numbers blew off.

Dick Whittington

I learned about the casting # trick from the master in Low Buck TX at 3414 Quirt Avenue. He and a now retired dentist had made molds of dates and numbers and were using the stuff they make fillings for teeth for the block numbers.

62Jeff

Uhhhh, yeah I know that person well - er, I know of his character well.

John BX NY

Just wondering what the block casting date on the lower right block surface was on this car ?

PAmotorman

i would have thought that the NCRS would have warned it members to look out for this.

Mike Ward

Why? There's no attempt to authenticate anything during Flight Judging, other than trim tags and VINs.