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Below is the casting date on the block of a very original 68 Corvette, that belongs to a friend of mine.
The car is a 12,000 mile, 427/390, 4 speed, convertible, built approximately May 16, 68 (according to the C3 birthday calculator), with much of it's history known. The engine assembly date is March 29th (0329), but the casting date looks like "O 7 8". March would be "C", and at first I thought that it might be a C that had filled in some, making it look like an O, but after enlarging a picture of it, it looks like an O?
Has anyone else seen anything like this? What are the chances a foundry worker grabbed an O instead of a C, when pepping the mold to cast this block? I know mistakes happened, but O doesn't even correlate to any month.
So is it an O or a C?????
Last edited by gbvette62; Apr 22, 2019 at 10:42 AM.
I think a C. You look at the top of the opening in the C and it doesn't line up. What I would NOT do is take a dremel and make it a C. Faked castings are way harder to do than stampings. And since there is no month O, it is either a C that filled in or a 0. Be interesting to compare fonts 0 th O, but there may be no letter O at all.
Listen just my two cents but that looks odd. the backgroud is almost raised above the block and there is no visible screw heads on each side and the letters don't seem to line up very well. Just odd looking. I am not saying it 's not real but it does not seem to match others I have seen.
Have you tried to scrap it off gently? There was a incidence were one was made out of JB weld. Just a thought!! ike
You took the photo looking straight at that letter. You need to feel that letter to determine if there is some additional depth where the "gap" in the letter "C" should be. It's very possible (and quite likely, considering actual knowledge about the car and its engine) that it is a "C", but the casting roughness in that gap area makes it appear as an "O" when you look head-on at it.
Strange Block Casting Date
