I’m looking for some help here…. I’m wondering what other Team Chevelle members have for date codes on the heads compared to the production date of their Chevelle. If you pull up the .pdf file, my casting dates are all listed. I was told the heads are the originals but with a four month gap… it has me wondering. And yes I know the exhaust manifolds are way outside a six month window.

Dwight

My 70 Chevelle has an 01B build date, and both of my heads are dated L 10 9

Richard

Wow! December casting and a January bild date.. Thanks for the info Richard.

M 70 LS5 original 512 block was cast on L18 9(Dec 18 69),my heads were cast on A 17 70 and A 21 70,motor was assembled on Jan 23 70(T0123CRT) stamp on pad,also M22 Trans was built POT19C,(Dec 19,1969)car was built Feb. 1st, if this helps any.

I have owned my #'s matching 69 396 for 30yrs.

The heads/block/intake/ex manifolds/carb/w-pump/alt/starter/m20 muncie/ are all dated mid to late Feb 69 & wheels are all 1st wk march 69 with 3rd wk march 69 bld date for the car.I think rear end is mid Feb 69 too but i fam not 100% sure of that,its been a while since i viewed that data for my car.

Last i knew rule of thumb is 3 months max ,anything past 2-2.5 months & i would not be comfortable with it if you paid #'s matching price for car. But if you didnt pay #'s matching price then 3 months would be max before i would say ok this is getting dated too far out but i am not 100 point show car judge either so it's JMHO being around/working on this muscle care stuff (prefer GM) for the past 40yrs.

To fully ans your question,its beating a dead horse if you did not pay #'s matching price for car but if you were told its #'s matching and paid #'s matching price then its not beating a dead horse and its an issue for sure .

A 4 month gap from car bld date to head bld dates is too far for comfort IMHO esp if you paid #'s matching price for the car.

Your build dates seem to be all over the place and somewhat suspect to me,but i am not a judge/expert.

Scott

A couple of facts to consider are that your car was built fairly late in the model year run and we are talking about big blocks, not small blocks. While the SS was a pretty popular car, small blocks were flying out the door much faster than big blocks. If it was a small block with a 4 month casting date to build date gap I'd be much more suspicous.

Of course GM wasn't in the habit of having unused inventory lying around unused, but if a couple of heads came down the line that failed on a quality issue but not to the point of scrapping them, they just might sit for a month or more before the issue was repaired and they were put back into inventory, it all depends on the ebb and flow of business at that point in time. It also seems quite plausible to me that they were trying to clean out inventory to prepare for the beginning of the next model year.

Since both heads are roughly equally distant from the build date but only by a small amount, I don't think I'd lose too much sleep over it. If one head was a month behind and the other was 10 months behind I'd say that one had been replaced, but as yours sits it strikes me as interesting but not exactly of any kind of serious concern.

Rich no offence but his is a 69 bbc and mine is also a 69 bbc and maybe you didnt open his file up with all his dated componanats to see his car is a 69 with componant bld dates all over the place when compaired to mine and others #'s matching car data i have seen in the past for 69 & 70 bbc cars.

I bought my #'s matching car from the original owned in 1978 which was built 3/69 and the dates(motor/trans/alt/rear/etc) are way closer then his with most of my dates being in mid to late feb 69 (wheels 1st wk march) on 3rd wk march 69 car built date. There arer others that chimed in with exp like mine too and his dates are all over the place if you take the time look at his PDF file compaired to mine and others with #'s matching bbc cars built around 69 & 70 like his bbc car.

His dates being all over the place smacks of a built to date match car to me but if he didnt pay #'s matching price and wasnt led to believe its #'s matching then he is ok.

And i agree with you that there is a poss heads could be dated 4 months out which should be ok just as long as rest of dates on block/trans/rear/alt/starter/etc are closer to his cars bld date but with his componant dates all over the place its a different story/red flag which is why i think its a fake when it comes to #'s matching and that his head dates are NG in this case because all other dates spread all over the place too.

Just my 2 cents.

Scott

Well Scott, all Dwight asked about were the heads. I addressed his specific question about the dates on the heads.

If some odds and ends aren't reasonably dated correctly for the build date of the car, that doesn't necessarily mean the whole car is botched or a fake. Criminy, the car is almost 40 years old, parts wear out or break and get replaced over time. If someone was going to fake a car they'd either find parts with dates that are close or modify the parts to have dates that are closer.

The block and transmission very closely match the car's build date and in my opinion the heads are close enough to be plausible unless there are other reasons to doubt them. Other more easily replaced items have dates that seem off, but again, it's an old car which has probably had things replaced. And as we all well know, just because MOST dates are within a 2 month window on known complete numbers cars doesn't mean that ALL legit cars meet that same criteria.

Whether Dwight paid this or that for the car or was told it was entirely numbers matching or not was never part of his question and thus isn't really part of the conversation at this point as far as I'm concerned.

I recently rebuilt a set of horns from a documented low milage lS6 for a customer They were built 4 months before the car. Most I find are 30-45 days but these were production cars . Gary

Thanks for everyones input. As Rich stated the car is 38 years old and was once just a $500 used car (based on a friends purchase of a '68 Chevelle SS back in high school). I'm mostly concerned with the major components. Back in the days.... when the water pump, starter, or alt failed, you took it off and headed to the auto supply house. You exchanged it for a rebuilt part and never once thought about the casting number or date code. When I bought the basket case, they had stripped it for racing. It came with headers and goofy looking slotted aluminum mag wheels. When I'm out and about I look for date code correct components. Although currently, some of the small stuff is outside the window that I would like, it's a starting point. I would like to get the car back together first then worry about a swap meet found regulator being three months ahead of the car assembly date. If and when I sale the car, I'll include my little spread sheet. I don't know how many people will pull a valve cover off an A/C equipped car to check the dates.... The guy I recently sold my 67 Vette to, loved the spread sheet and all the dates that I had listed. Oh, I have located a set of May 14th heads. I'll buy them when my bride is out shopping.... Once again thanks for the help.

My Alum 842 heads are dated Aug 67 and Nov 67 and were pulled off a 69 L89 RS/SS Camaro built in late 68.

Anyone else ever see a year gap like this?

My Alum 842 heads are dated Aug 67 and Nov 67 and were pulled off a 69 L89 RS/SS Camaro built in late 68.

Anyone else ever see a year gap like this?

As being one of those guys who sees and hears about all of this stuff, I could sit here and type for hours about all of the documented cases of big date spreads on parts. For a minite, forget that we are restoring a car. Why are the dates there?

They are an early form of a lot or batch number. They are used for quality control only. So if a defect shows up we can pull them from our inventory before we use them, or track warranty problems out in the field. That means, we did not use it to rotate stock, and we sure did not throw them out because they got old or stale. I remember talking to Fran Preve (Tonawanda historian) about this very thing. He made mention that he remembered them finding a whole pallet of cylinder heads that were in a corner somewhere that were at least a decade old. They had not been finished machined. Guess, what they did? You guessed it, they machined them and used them!!!!

I myself always say it like this. Most smart Judges will accept a 6 month window before the production of the particular assembly it was installed on. Most owners, however, like to be within 90 days when this is possible. But if you are dealing with a car that you think has its original parts, I think it is OK to stay with what you have. In the case of a set of cast iron heads like the first example, it is easy enough to find them if you so choose,change them out, if you are restoring the car anyway. In the case of the above aluminum heads, this may be cost prohibitive and hard to find, and you might as well be satisfied with what you have. Anyway, I am never too quick to pull the trigger, and say the car was put together, just because some of the parts are a little early. Sometimes I feel it is more suspicious to see a whole engine within a week of itself, especially on some stuff outsourced like a distributor, or a carburator that was installed at car production, and not engine assembly. As far as beating a dead horse, I suspect I will be answering date code spacing questions from my rocking chair after I retire!!!!!

Jeff Dotterer
Dated Components
Diamond Restored Judge

Great Info..that makes sense too. Thanks. :thumbsup:

Ditto Jeff.

One of my best friends that I have known for 40 years worked on the line here in Baltimore in the late 60's,early70's.If you were installing widgets that day there was always a guy with a fork lift bringing you new widgets when you ran low.However there was also a spare pallet of widgets at the back of your station in case they guy with the forklift forgot you,had to go to the bathroom,etc.,that did not get rotated and were only used if your supply ran out.The line would not stop unless there was an emergency.Sometimes the emergency widgets had to be used and this would explain some date code abnormalities.

I have had my car for 31 years & i am the 2nd owner. My car WAS cherry when I got -1st owner never did anything to it except gas , oil , tires & battery. It is a 3rd week of Jan.1970 build date on the car-- has a Jan 7th assy date for the engine stamped on the pad. Heads are dated Dec. 26th of 1969. True story.