CASTING DATE QUESTION

Ross Wooldridge

Old Man with a Hat
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Engine is supposed to be a 440.

Casting date on the block says 1•24•65

Real or bogus?

Jan 25, 1965, or does it translate to something different, like shift week month which would make it 1st shift 2nd week of April 65.

Thoughts please?
 
The casting dates are normal month/date/year and do not translate into anything else. If the engine is a '68 or later it might have a serial number stamped on the pan rail behind the starter which will contain a Julian date. Could the casting date actually be be 7-24-65? In that case it could be an early production 440 for '66. Block casting number for 440 from '66-'72 is 2536430 if it has that casting number it is a 440. The machined pad on the top of the block should therefore be stamped B440. If the 1/24/65 casting date is correct, this engine would be a 426 wedge if it is an RB series engine. The standard 426 RB has a casting number of 2205697. 426 Max Wedge engines were 2406730 or 2532230. 426 industrial engine is 2658836.

Dave
 
Here's a picture sent to me of the numbers they say is the casting date.

I was under the impression that the casting date was usually found just above the block casting part number (2536430), but in this pic that number is nowhere to be seen. First digit sure looks like a 1 to me, and if this truly is a casting date, then it would be Jan 24, 1965. A 440 I'm not so sure it is, but the person believes it is, and is going to provide me with a picture of the pad by the distributor later today.

Thoughts?

440 casting date.jpeg
 
Here's a picture sent to me of the numbers they say is the casting date.

I was under the impression that the casting date was usually found just above the block casting part number (2536430), but in this pic that number is nowhere to be seen. First digit sure looks like a 1 to me, and if this truly is a casting date, then it would be Jan 24, 1965. A 440 I'm not so sure it is, but the person believes it is, and is going to provide me with a picture of the pad by the distributor later today.

Thoughts?

View attachment 280815

It almost looks like there should be another digit next to the '1'. Maybe the foundry screwed up and left it out, or it fell out.
 
Not likely to be a 440 if that casting date is the correct one. The were no doubt engines in the 440 configuration being tested prior to their introduction in '66. The odds that a test engine ever got out of a test car or the dyno and got put into a production car=nil. Casting number and ID pad will tell the tale.

Dave
 
I managed to get out to my shop today - here's a pic of my 66 Monaco's original 440, clearly showing the casting number and casting date. I've asked the other guy to get me a pic showing both from his motor too.

20190424_183155.jpg
 
Interesting - assembly date on the pad, casting date on the block. Almost a year between casting and assembly? That's a long time!

Most likely, as noted in a previous post, a digit was left out of the casting date, stranger things have been known to happen.

Dave
 
Eleven months before being assembled, wonder what they were checking. This would have been the a early "big bore block", everything before this is 4.25 and smaller. This was a big leap, the 4.25 bore, in the 383 had been around since the begining in '57''casting/'58 M.Y.. Chrysler jumped over the others in CID everyone else was in the 7litre area because of racing rules, when Chrysler decided to make 7.2 litres for their luxury cars.
 
Eleven months before being assembled, wonder what they were checking. This would have been the a early "big bore block", everything before this is 4.25 and smaller. This was a big leap, the 4.25 bore, in the 383 had been around since the begining in '57''casting/'58 M.Y.. Chrysler jumped over the others in CID everyone else was in the 7litre area because of racing rules, when Chrysler decided to make 7.2 litres for their luxury cars.

The main item of concern would have been controlling the migration of the cylinder bores. 413, 426w and 440 shared the same configuration of the block other than the bore size. Going to a bigger bore meant a thinner bore casting wall that had to be kept very straight to retain its integrity.

Dave
 
Ross,

I would check the casting dates of the heads, exhaust, and intake.

I wouldn’t assume anything is or isn’t as well.
 
. Going to a bigger bore meant a thinner bore casting wall that had to be kept very straight to retain its integrity
Not really thinner, but yes they were starting to run out of real estate with the 4.84 spacing, so straight is very important or so they thought. The 4.50 bore Siamese blocks proved you really don't need that flow all the way around.
 
Interesting - assembly date on the pad, casting date on the block. Almost a year between casting and assembly? That's a long time!

Confused.....

What year difference?

A casting date of 10 Oct or 11 Nov 1965 would be totally appropriate for an engine assembled 12 20 1965 for a B series 1966 model year car.
 
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