Guys, and gals, bought this Corvette a few years ago assuming all numbers matching with pretty good authentication, but now I'm rethinking the pad may be fake ,

66 L72 pad, my concern is the three in the production date . I've seen many others and the font is different.
your thoughts please

 

Dcare - Welcome to the Corvette Forum. As to the '3', it looks okay to me but I'm not much of a 'numbers detective' so you'll have to wait for others who know about that stuff to chime in.
On the subject of your 66 L72, congrats and hope you join us on this thread by a fellow Forum Member, 68Hemi, where folks have been posting pics and telling us the background
stories on their 66 L72's. Some are totally bone stock, others not so much but some interesting reading on all of them. We have 50 owners who've joined us including
some from overseas, like France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and the UK.
Here is the thread, hope you join us on it.
C2 1966 L72 count - CorvetteForum - Chevrolet Corvette Forum Discussion
Mike T - Prescott AZ

 

 

If you are the current registered owner, why not just spend a few bucks and have CCAS tell you for sure.

 

I would have liked to till I found out it was 2K to have it done. Looking at the pictures above it doesn't look like it's real.

 

The '3' stampings are different in some of those engines, some have the flattened top, others have the rounded top. Yours being a 66, seems to have the rounded top as does the other IP Bigblock engine stamping posted by KingRat.
If you get to looking over that other L72 Thread I mentioned, in the initial post by 68Hemi, he shows the original block that came with the L72 Roadster and the '3' has the same rounded top as yours.
Mike T - Prescott AZ

 

Consider also that that 3 is in the date code portion of the stamping, so even blocks in nearby VINs could show a different style of 3. The day portion of the date was changed daily and, by necessity, there had to be more than one stamp with the 3-character available to them – plus, they didn't give a rip about what style the numbers were.

I think the stamp looks very good. If was not done by Chevrolet, then whomever stamped it did an excellent job with the spacing, characters, and background texture.

 

Whoever told you it was 2K is misinformed. You may want to contact Al and get real information.

 

I was told the same price and I have the paper work from him to prove it.

 

If you have an invoice in the 2K range I would guess that it from many years ago. I can assure you that the current rate is far less than that.

 

Sorry it was from 2 years ago. I have the complete packet from him. I don't want to start a pissing match here. If it wasn't so much I would have had it done. I will use Roy S. instead.

 

You can't go by the Tonawanda engine stamp because the examples posted by KingRat were all done on different days. What individual digits the person doing the stamping grabbed each day could vary, so the only way to compare the assembly stamp is to compare it to other engines assembled on 11/03.

On the other hand, those St Louis VIN stamps were all likely done the same day. As each engine was stamped with the VIN, only the digit(s) that needed to be changed were removed from the gang holder and replaced with the digits needed for the next VIN. So when OP's block was stamped, the "2" at the end of the previous car's VIN was removed from the holder, and replaced with the "3" needed to stamp his block with VIN 6107683. None of the other digits would be replaced. After OP's block was stamped this continued on till VIN 6107689 when both the "8" and the "9" were replaced with a "9" and an "0" making VIN 6107690. After 6107699 the "699" would be replaced with "700", but through out the process the "6107" at the beginning of the VIN would not be removed from the gang holder, and would be identical on every block stamp that day. The "6107" would only be removed from the holder at the end of the shift.

Go back and look at the pictures posted by KingRat, and compare the "6107" in all three pictures. The 6-1-0-7 digits look the same on each pad, the positioning of each one looks the same and to me the gap between each digit looks the same too. Looking at the "6107" in the three pictures, they all look pretty much the same to me, leading me to think the OP's pad is real.

 

you are presuming that there was only one gang stamp holder in the plant. maybe and maybe not. and in both the engine assembly plant and the vehicle assembly plant?

 

you guys are staring at the numbers stamped and you should be looking at the pad surface first.. That is NOT the patina of a 57 year old stamp pad. its a big red flag before you even look at the numbers.
how about the casting date of the block and heads? those have to be in range long before you look at anything else.

 

guys I'm more looking towards the three on the production date which is round at the top . the examples sent from others in the Forum all have flat top threes with production dates very close to mine. On all examples I've seen online I have never seen a round three on a production date . Casting on the Block is from mid September, it is a 4-bolt main cap block. Rear is definitely a big block rear, everything else appears to be correct I'm wondering if this was just a restamp when the motor was redone back in 2000

 

It looks to me like the engine suffix is to low, like it was stamped with the head on. I believe the BB were stamped prior to the heads being installed and usually the plug in the head would cover the suffix as seen in the other 2 examples.

 

Here's a picture of mine for comparison.

 

Agreed. For the Tonawanda stamp you have to find other 11/03 blocks because they wouldn't have changed the 3 between blocks on that production day.

I also think KingRat's last digit of the VIN shows the wear and tear on the gang holder. To my eye, KingRat's 3 is just a smidge out of alignment with the rest of the string, which would be expected, given that last place is changed out tens or hundreds (?) of times a day.

 

Here’s mine, but I don’t have any 3’s.

 

But at the end of the day, you are still going to be second guessing.

So when you sell it, are you going to say matching numbers, like the guy you bought it from? But if you have no documentation or certification, can you honestly say that?

I guess it’s on the buyer to do the due diligence.