cblankin

So much is placed on the engine pad numbers and letters I would like to know when and how were the engine numbers and letters stamped.
Were they stamped one number or letter at a time or did the person doing the stamping open his little wooden box of numbers and letters and go to stamping. What happen if he made a mistake? I don't think
they would scrap and engine for a mistake in stamping.

66jack

They used a 'gang stamp' to do it...

As far as a "boo boo" on a bad/wrong number stamp, i too would like to know what they did with the engine...

ILBMF

From what I have seen over the years on all types of engines it seems most manufacturers place the stamps in some sort of device to keep things lined up and I would say they are mostly hand stamped and often the edges of the numbers appear lightly stamped due to the tool leaning a bit. It would seem that this is done before the head is on the block.

I'm no expert on this, but that is my best assumption because I own stamp sets and have stamped serial numbers in forklift frames over the years when the original ID plates get damaged.

Nowhere Man

For errors that happened they used a grinder and ground the numbers off and stamped it again. Those are the fun ones to determine if real or not

ILBMF

What do you know about Chevrolet blocks that have never been decked and have no stamped numbers at all? I assume a replacement block? I saw one at the machine shop like that last month and it definitely hadn't been decked and the machinist agreed it hadn't been touched.

Boyan

Also depends on what year and which part of the engine stamping you are looking at. Very early cars had more hand stamps than others. Then later were mostly gang stamped, but may have had the HP suffix hand stamped, or maybe just the last character. Its a whole history lesson on how these cars were done. Its not easy to explain it, you have to see and experience all the deviations.

As for the mistakes like Double stamp, over stamp, upside down, grindouts etc....they were all destroyed by GM and the assembly line was shut down until a correct replacment was found. ALL Corvette engines came with PERFECTLY spaced characters and broachmarks everyone could see!!!!!

Nowhere Man

Over the counter short block

ILBMF

Speaking of GM destroying parts, in the 80's I used to go to the GM parts plant in Dorsey, Md to do service calls on electric forklifts and they had a full size roll off dumpster with a security guard standing by. One employee would sit at his desk watching his green computer screen and when a part number would pop up he would yell down the aisle for another guy to bring up the part so it could be destroyed with a sledge hammer. I saw alloy Vette wheels, cowl induction hoods, radiators, brake pads and worse, engine blocks get the hammer. That's when I found out just how easy it is to destroy a block...just tap the side of the water jacket with the sledge.

I asked them why they were destroying parts and it was all because of space. They would project what they needed in inventory and sometimes they were either wrong or they didn't anticipate a new model car needing so many replacement parts so quickly do to recalls or just the junk they were producing at the time wasn't holding up. They would replace that roll off at least once a week.

Critter1

This tool, or holder, was used to stamp the VIN in the block at the St Louis plant from the 70's to the end of production in 81. The individual characters were removable and were changed after every engine for the next engine/VIN in line.

The replaceable individual character slugs were in the tray next to the holder in the last picture. It was simply a matter of removing the retainer clip and replacing one or more of the slugs.

The holder was very similar for earlier years.

larrywalk

Bought my '65 L76 in December '67; the seller told me it had an oil consumption problem early in its life and that Chevrolet had replaced the short block under warranty. The pad was clean with a block date of March '65 which was too late to be original for my December '64 vette. The pad was clean - no numbers at all. On the other hand, the dates on the heads were correct "K" '64 heads. When I rebuilt this engine in '83, all the short block pieces were the correct L76 parts. (I did not have the block decked.)

c5stingray

In my opinion, I disagree with last statement by Boyan. from what I understand, chevy do not stop an assembly line because of assembly line mistake. they usually correct the error and reuse the part. most if not all of corvette books and guides I had read agree to this fact, however I do agree with him about the way GM identify their early engine block. that statement in my opinion is correct.

ILBMF

From the pics posted by Critter1 it looks like it was done on the assembly line

62corvette

I can see all the way from Wisconsin that Boyan had his tongue firmly in his cheek, eating a slice of wry bread when he wrote that paragraph.

John McGraw

Engine codes were stamped at the engine plant, and the VIN derivative was stamped on the line. No VIN stamp until early 1960 model, and gang holder was not used until mid-year 1960.


Regards, John McGraw

maddoe

At the risk of speaking for him, I'm fairly certain Boyan's last statement was laden with sarcasm.

roberts427

That's exactly what happened and they were never behind schedule.

Boyan

I agree!!!

tuxnharley

It looked like pie from here.........

Critter1

The engine/transmission stamp procedure was done as the assembly was traveling/hanging on the engine conveyor. It was a moving target.

Each of the boxes of characters in the group of boxes had at least half a dozen of each character so it would be possible/likely that the next time the same numeric character was selected, it could be a different slug than the one that was used on a previous engine an hour earlier. That means that the actual stamped character may have been slightly different and leave a different character style than the previous engine.

bugzbunny

No replacement original block, but I don't know if thats the engine I gave them with numbers gone