Engine block stampings

[Jonesy]

[ QUOTE ]
OK guys - think about this! The Z-28 blocks were cast at the Saginaw Michigan gray iron plant. If a block was cast first thing in the morning, it took about 35 minutes to "shake out", 3-4 hours hanging in the cooling court, 1 hour to get through cleaning (these times are all assuming the lines never stopped - that would be very unusual). Then it had to wait in the shipping area before being loaded into a truck and shipped to the Flint Machigan motor plant. Now the block had to get unloaded, through receiving, through staging, all the way through block machining - piled on a pallet and taken over to the assembly line. Finally, it's got to be assembled and date stamped. All of this is nearly (never say never) impossible to do on a DZ block in one day. Two days - yeah, but same day - not likely. It did, however, happen occassionally at Tonawanda because the motor plant was attached to the metal casting plant - so castings were carried one pallet at a time into the motor plant.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are REAl examples out there of both Tonawanda and Flint engines that were cast and built in the same day. Mot a high occurance, but it did happen.

[Bob Martin]

Thanks to everyone for there input. It makes me feel better. I knew it was not a re-stamp but never saw one with the same day before. Thanks again Bob

[bergy]

FYI - You can look at the casting time on the block. If it's cast late on first shift or any time on second shift, it would definitely be impossible for a Saginaw casting to be assembled the same day. Look for an early first shift casting time.

[bergy]

I don't believe that anyone has said that it's a restamp - I'm just saying that the owner could look at the time code on the block and demonstrate how it makes sense that it's not a restamp. Of course, now that god has spoken - there's no need for a technical discussion.

[Jonesy]

[JohnZ]

We (NCRS) have documented a number of Flint small-blocks that were cast and assembled on the same day, and MANY that were assembled the day after they were cast. The Saginaw Foundry sent 55,000 iron castings to Flint V-8 every day, and those dedicated GM trucks ran 24/7. Machining at Flint V-8 ran on three shifts, and both assembly lines ran on two shifts (170 per hour on Line 1, 130 per hour on Line 2).

[bergy]

I agree Bob - I said that it was difficult ( as reinforced by the small number of instances that it happened) but not impossible. There were two Saginaw Foundries producing iron castings (one gray and the other ductile). Saginaw gray only ran two shifts and V8 blocks only ran at a rate of about 2500 molds per shift. The technical point is that you can tell by the casting clock if it was even possible for a specific case to make it to Flint in time for machining on the same day. For example, there's no way that an 11:00pm casting could get through processing and down to Flint for complete machining in one hour! I worked at Tonawanda, but traveled to our sister plants in St. Catherines and Saginaw quite a lot.

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

[ QUOTE ]
We (NCRS) have documented a number of Flint small-blocks that were cast and assembled on the same day, and MANY that were assembled the day after they were cast. The Saginaw Foundry sent 55,000 iron castings to Flint V-8 every day, and those dedicated GM trucks ran 24/7. Machining at Flint V-8 ran on three shifts, and both assembly lines ran on two shifts (170 per hour on Line 1, 130 per hour on Line 2).



[/ QUOTE ]

This is 'spot-on' per the date frames we see on the Deuces. I thought it was almost impossible for this tight of a date, but multiple Deuces have these tight dates. Now, we can tell rehits when the dates are not tight enough.

[1969z280]

Bob:

If someone restamped the block, why wouldn't they have made it a couple days later than the casting date? My opinion would be that it's probably the real deal. Good luck and enjoy it, Ed

[Jonesy]

Furthermore, its not a restamp, so there is your example of being cast and built the same day.