440 Engine ID Question?

1968rt said:

1972 440 built Oct 7 1971. From a C body car. Sometimes the factory used what was in the pile. The block could have been on the bottom for a while.

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#41 said:

It's not super common, but just like in your fridge the stuff that gets put in first ends up in the back and sometimes gets overlooked and not used until later.

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R413 said:

The 2 in the partial VIN is the year of the car.
The C is Jefferson, MI plant and they only made C-bodies there.

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#41 said:

It's not super common, but just like in your fridge the stuff that gets put in first ends up in the back and sometimes gets overlooked and not used until later.

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SeabeckRedneck said:

Does that mean they've gone bad? Or can we just strain the chunks out of the milk, er, I mean block?

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NoGM4me said:

I know Mopar's have a lot of weird issues with VIN and serial numbers. Here's one I would like to understand. I have a 440 that has the VIN and the ID pad both marked 72 but the block casting is dated 7-3-69. What could be the story on this?

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Vaanth said:

Quoting Mr. Tom V. Kelly, retired Facilities Engineer & Manufacturing Engineering Supervisor from Chrysler:

Now to the discussion on Casting Date versus Machine/Assy dates on blocks: When Engine Plant orders exceeded in-process production output of a specific part number block or an order came in for a casting not coming off the line at the time, the blocks would be pulled from the warehouse if available. If none in the warehouse, castings were pulled from the outdoor storage yard. We had two production casting lines at the time and one was generally dedicated to 318s due to demand and the second line could be “A”, “B” or “RB” blocks so yard pulls could be fairly random based on engine plant requirements. When required, ‘yard blocks’ were moved from yard (last in-first out based on the long rows in the yard), removed from their wood pallets, hung on conveyor hooks & sent through one of two huge shot blast machines (Wheelabrator & Pangborn equipment manufacturers) to clean off surface rust. After blocks were shot blasted & tumbled on vibratory conveyors (the reason you have metal shot in some of your water jackets!), they were put back on wooden pallets, banded and shipped. So of note, depending on demand, older cast date blocks could have set in the yard for a long time before being pulled out randomly for blasting & shipment. That helps explain old casting dates with much later machine/assembled stamped dates at the Machine Plants.

For the entire contents of his discourse about the foundry process and including Chrysler's "Foundry Installations & Processes" document, see Chrysler Foundries Engine Block Casting Processes.

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