James Romano
Well-Known Member
Hiya. A few weeks ago I decided to pull my starter, clean and paint it. Along with that, clean and paint the driver's side block. This would finally tell me the year of my block and it was the last thing on my list to confirm that I basically unknowingly bought a survivor.
So into the grease I went... and behold.. 5.13.64 came out from under all the crap, crud and road **** built on there from 55 years of driving.
Now this is great! I was very happy to see this.. .two fold reasons. #1 and most important... it's my mother's birth date, year being 1936. I lost my mom this past January to Dementia, and a month prior to that, my father to blood cancer. Heavy right... yeah. So in that moment "Josephine" just became invaluable to me for obvious sentimental reasons. I fun family side note... my Mom actually drove the family car... which was a 73 Fury Custom Suburban wagon.
And #2. I know now my car is all original. But why the early date in 1964? I know they build cars a year before... but the casting is in May... would that make my car a very early production 65?
I also found the answer to all my #7 spark plug wiring questions I posted a few months back. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to route that wire. Most '65 383 valve covers route over the top, from the back and have two wire clips. My valve covers do not have them and they are original. I know this by the oil charring on the inside of the cover when I changed the gaskets. When I removed the starter... bam... there it was. On the 64 block, there is a wire clip behind the starter that safely routes the wire around the exhaust manifold and links up with the rest of the wires down low.
So... why do I have a 64 block in my car? I also noted I have an un-silenced air cleaner with no breather hook-up, and my oil/pcv were painted blue. My carb spring bracket was unlike other 383's I looked at as well. Just little odd things that I noticed that were very different that other same year cars.
I have since swapped air cleaner (cleaned, painted and stored the original) to a dual snorkel, replaced the bracket with a normal looking 383 bracket, and painted everything black as it should look from what I have seen from other Fury's of the same year.
Thanks for reading... lol.
So into the grease I went... and behold.. 5.13.64 came out from under all the crap, crud and road **** built on there from 55 years of driving.
Now this is great! I was very happy to see this.. .two fold reasons. #1 and most important... it's my mother's birth date, year being 1936. I lost my mom this past January to Dementia, and a month prior to that, my father to blood cancer. Heavy right... yeah. So in that moment "Josephine" just became invaluable to me for obvious sentimental reasons. I fun family side note... my Mom actually drove the family car... which was a 73 Fury Custom Suburban wagon.
And #2. I know now my car is all original. But why the early date in 1964? I know they build cars a year before... but the casting is in May... would that make my car a very early production 65?
I also found the answer to all my #7 spark plug wiring questions I posted a few months back. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to route that wire. Most '65 383 valve covers route over the top, from the back and have two wire clips. My valve covers do not have them and they are original. I know this by the oil charring on the inside of the cover when I changed the gaskets. When I removed the starter... bam... there it was. On the 64 block, there is a wire clip behind the starter that safely routes the wire around the exhaust manifold and links up with the rest of the wires down low.
So... why do I have a 64 block in my car? I also noted I have an un-silenced air cleaner with no breather hook-up, and my oil/pcv were painted blue. My carb spring bracket was unlike other 383's I looked at as well. Just little odd things that I noticed that were very different that other same year cars.
I have since swapped air cleaner (cleaned, painted and stored the original) to a dual snorkel, replaced the bracket with a normal looking 383 bracket, and painted everything black as it should look from what I have seen from other Fury's of the same year.
Thanks for reading... lol.
