1966 Big Block 3872702 Cylinder Head

[Vincent D.]

I have a 1966 472/390 with an incorrect cylinder head on the passenger side...it doesn't have the screw holes for the spark plug heat shields. So I removed the valve cover on the driver's side, which has the heat shied holes, so I could check the date as I would like to replace the incorrect one with a correctly dated one. I found a date code of A3 with no year digit; it has the correct 3872702 part number. Could it be that they omitted the year digit since it was just after the new year? Also, the passenger side has an incorrect valve cover; no indentation and a label with Tonawanda on it. I suspect it is a 67 cover. Body tag build date is E28 (Dec 28, 1965); engine stamp date is T0104IL (Jan 4, 1966); birthday from NCRS dealer is Jan 7, 1966. Thanks!

[Joe L.]

Re: 1966 Big Block 3872702 Cylinder Head

I have a 1966 472/390 with an incorrect cylinder head on the passenger side...it doesn't have the screw holes for the spark plug heat shields. So I removed the valve cover on the driver's side, which has the heat shied holes, so I could check the date as I would like to replace the incorrect one with a correctly dated one. I found a date code of A3 with no year digit; it has the correct 3872702 part number. Could it be that they omitted the year digit since it was just after the new year? Also, the passenger side has an incorrect valve cover; no indentation and a label with Tonawanda on it. I suspect it is a 67 cover. Body tag build date is E28 (Dec 28, 1965); engine stamp date is T0104IL (Jan 4, 1966); birthday from NCRS dealer is Jan 7, 1966. Thanks!

Vincent-----


I highly doubt that the year was omitted from the date code because it was so early in the calendar year. If it was omitted I would guess it was just a mistake. Either way, it doesn't matter.