The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot '60-'66 Trucks VIN number added to motor

My 61 Apache does not have the VIN # on the six cylinder pad. Does anyone know what is the first year they first stamped the VIN on the motor.
Also, I can you determine what is the assembly date of your pickup or in my case 1961?
Thanks
John

I have never seen a vin on an engine other than maybe on brand new 1990 plus stuff with the paper bar code decal.
And besides there was no vin on these trucks till the 1981.
Wikepedia is off the mark as far as 1950's trucks as it was not a
vin and more of a serial number with a series designation. There was nothing to id the engine cu in or paint color or anything else like that. Series designated capacity, frame length etc as shown in the operator manual specs or truck spec sheets. And the numbers/letters represented originating factory and manufacture date.

Thanks for your reply.
I know Chevy cars beginning in 1961 started adding the cars 2nd half of it's VIN number to the pad to six and eight cylinders. That keyed the motor to the car. Its strange to me that they did not do the same with trucks. My motor does have the factory, assembly date and application code (JC in the case of my motor) but no VIN. It doesn't make sense.

John

It makes no sense to put a vin on an engine ever, its not a vehicle.
There were and are many other uses for automotive type engines other than vehicle usage. Such as marine, pumps, equipment, welders etc. It makes more sense to serialize them in production and add things like date point of origin etc. But then lots of that sort of info is usually included with the casting numbers.
In those days especially you just wouldn't want to stamp the same number the body was supposed to have, why??? Huge nightmare making sure that same engine was going into the proper numbered car or truck. I'm not sure about what your saying about 61 plus cars, unless an owner decided to do that at rebuild time.?? I don't know.

FWIW:
It is my understanding that the Partial VIN's were stamped on the Hi Performance and Special High Performance engines only, and that it was an an effort to deter people from stealing the HiPo cars for their Factory Hot Rod motors and to aid Law Enforcement when these engines were found.

Both of my 1965's original 300 and 350 hp 327 engines have the partial VIN's stamped next to the assembly date on the pad. The 275 hp 327 from a 1966 Impala? does not have a VIN, nor have any of my truck 283's.

Remember that those days were a Far,Far different time. Engine swaps were a quick dozen or so bolts and a couple hoses and built in anti-theft measures primitive compared to today...

John,

What code you have on your 1961 6 (235) cylinder pad?
If you have no code on the pad, you most likely have a factory replacement engine or a swapped engine (that has the code ground off).

If the engine is a 1961 engine, here is information about the engine code.

If you want to know the year your engine was cast, the locations of the 235 head date casting code and the block date casting code code are shown here.

Tim,
Thanks for the info. The pad says F0202JC which tells me Flint, MI Feb 2, 4 speed w/heavy duty clutch.

The block casting date is A311 which I believe is Jan 31, 1961. Hsrrison radiator has a 60M which I believe is Dec 1960.

The frame has that partial VIN number that matches the VIN.

This is the only truck I've owned but on at least cars I thought starting 1962 that the motor was keyed to the car by stamping a partial VIN on the pad. Every car I've owned had this. I'll have to check out cars at the next cruise night to see if that's true.

John

If the motor was assembled on Feb 2, what is the average amount of time until the truck is completed.?

thanks
john

John, the date on the motor doesn't necessarily bear any relation to the date the truck was assembled, motors were separately assembled and waiting as vehicles were assembled, they came from different lines - see these pics of Tarrytown in '59, with both car and truck lines, note hundreds of engines waiting

Bill

There only one relationship between the casting date on the motor and the date the truck was assembled: the truck would have been assembled on a date after the engine block and engine head were cast.

Tim
How do you determine the date when the truck was assembled.

It depends on the year of the truck - the Vehicle ID (Vehicle Serial Number) usually has the year and might have the month (but, not always), and usually does not have a day-of-month. So, you cannot determine the exact date but you can be sure that the truck was assembled later than the date of the engine casting.

In 1961, no date is on the VSN - just a year.

Thank you Tim

I 'm making the assumption that I have the original 235 motor as the block
cast date is Jan 31 '61 and head is Jan 30 '61 and the radiator is dated
60M which I believe is Dec '60 and motor assembly date is Feb 2 '61.

The various Chevelle and Corvette sites have info on casting to build dates.

Some folks might not know that virtually every component of the vehicle has a date cast or stamped on it.. Alternators, Distributors, Radiators, Carburetors, Radios, Heaters, Transmission Cases and Covers, Axle Housings, Water Pumps, Spark Plug Wires,Intake and Exhaust manifolds, Wiper Motors, Bell Housings, Wheels, Beds, Steering Boxes to name a few are all dated.

Part of my enjoyment is checking these out to see what is probably original to my vehicle and like jb66ss396 is doing , trying to figure when it all came together.