Engine stamping...comments ?

[1969L78Nova]

Must have been a MONDAY car. Remember the days when they gave you the build date of the car when it was ordered. You dreaded that it wasn't a Monday car.

[olredalert]

-------Funny you mention that, Lynn. My wife once went to pick up her new company car and recieved a half Horizon half Omni, but split front (Hotizon) to rear (Omni). We always called that car the Horomni. It may have had a dual personality but it actually was a good little car.........Bill S

[Enoch]

There's no plant designation. and the first 6 is should be a 9 it's upside down. The first 8 should be an L because I think by 2-20 of 69 norwood cars had the vin by the oil rail.

[Mr70]

It also looks like Flint used the number 0 & the letter o,as well as two different type set number 2's.

[Zedder]

The deck surface and engine assembly date and code look OK to me. I'm seeing more and more "deep" broach marks in '69 and '70 cars than I usually see in '67 cars...not sure why that would be, but it is definitely very noticeable on many Tonawanda BB's. I can't comment on the VIN derivative as I don't follow '69 Camaros.

I also think that improvements in digital cameras are giving us much more definition than years past and this is raising concerns unnecessarily in some cases.

[TimG]

Here's what I've heard about broach marks. As the broach machine lost its sharpness, the cutting edge or edges were sharpened. When the broach was sharpened, they would surface the hi performance blocks first, this could mean that they would surface the four bolt main blocks first since they were going to have a higher compression.
I don't know if this is true or not, but the broach certainly would wear down leaving different types of broach marks. I've always noticed more of a pattern on big blocks than small blocks.