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.
