VIN on a Powerglide

[upscope757]

All, trying to deduce the year of my Powerglide.  The pan stamp indicates it is a 1970 (C0R03N).  I am trying to find a partial VIN somewhere on the tranny to determine if the pan was just replaced.

I can find no VIN on the driver's side upper portion or the passenger side lower portion, no evidence whatsoever.

I found out that the tranny had been worked on at some point as a manual valve body was noted upon the most recent rebuild.

Since there is no VIN, can I deduce that this likely could have been a '66 Powerglide that had a later model pan installed when work was done on the tranny?

I read also that it was common to have no VIN stamped on Powerglides then.  Would '70 Powerglides have VIN for sure as they did get more meticulous about this sort of thing as time went on. If '70 Powerglides had partial VINs any idea where they would be?

Thanks.

[Everett#2390]

Most Powerglides had the VIN stamped on the pass side pan, I believe.

[JohnZ]

Most Powerglides had the VIN stamped on the pass side pan, I believe.

That's the Cleveland (or Toledo) transmission assembly date code stamping.

[upscope757]

Yup.  I have a pan stamped for a '70 Powerglide, but can find no partial VIN anywhere on the rest of the transmission.  Holding out for the small chance that it was only the pan that was changed out.  If I can find a partial VIN I would be able to determine if it is with this car or at least not a '70.

[MyRed67]

What year are you referring to?  And what for Engine was originally bolted in front of your Trans.?  Lower Performance Engines would not have had a partial Vin. and thus neither would the Trans. as the same #'s stamp was used on both Engine and Trans.

[upscope757]

I have an original 67 RS/SS car that came without the original engine as it was blown in the '70s.  On the engine that I did get  though, I still had the correct intake manifold, valve covers, oil fill tube and air cleaner.  I pulled the car out of an old shed/barn when I bought it a couple of years ago.  It had been off the streets since 1987.  The car had the original 12-bolt and what was thought to be the original tranny.

We have found a correctly coded engine for it at least (MV) and when I pulled the tranny found the date stamp on the side of the tranny to be "C0R03N", indicating that the tranny was a '70 powerglide.

Others that told me that back then if a pan needed to be replaced, potentially it was just the pan off of a 70 that was replaced, meaning the tranny might be the original. Work had been done on this tranny as a manual valve body was found.

I have heard that tranny's on occasion had partial VIN from the car stamped on them.  I looked at the two places where partial VINs for a 67 tranny would be (top left and bottom right) and can find nothing.

If one can say definitively where a VIN would be on a 70 tranny and it isn't on this tranny (not the date stamp, but partial VIN for the car) then I can deduce it is not a '70 tranny despite what the date stamp is on the pan.

Strengthening this logic, it has been said that some 67 trannys did not get a VIN stamp at all.  Is that the same for a 70 tranny or did they come with partial VINs regardless?

[vtfb68]

Seems like all you need to do is replace the pan with a properly stamped one.
   VT

[upscope757]

Brilliant solution, I hadn't thought of that. Thank you.  Any thoughts on how one finds parts like this?  What is a reasonable difference in time from tranny date stamp to car build date?  I am a little pressed for time as I am getting close to putting the engine/tranny back in the car.  Thanks again.  Really appreciate it.

[tmodel66]

 The expected time of the transmission and engine are within 2 weeks of the build date of the car and most are alot closer than that. It has been noted on a few up to a month but that is not the norm. My car for example is 07A and transmission was built on the June 24 and engine was built on June 26 so just a few days to a week. Mind you my car has a Muncie so your powerglide might be different but I wouldn't think so and it's never been mentioned that auto transmissions were any different.

[upscope757]

Awesome.  Thank you.  Any thoughts beside ebay or craig's list for finding these treasures?

[tmodel66]

Awesome.  Thank you.  Any thoughts beside ebay or craig's list for finding these treasures?

Might try this guy.    http://www.camaro-restorations.com/Parts.html

[tom]

If you cant find the right pan quickly, you can always replace it later, when you do find one.

[Petes L48]

There may be date and plant codes in the powerglide case castings along the lines of how an engine or rear is coded.  One of our experts here may know.  Seems GM wanted a method to track any parts that might fail, bad runs, etc.  That said, it seems there is more attention or concern paid to manual than automatic transmissions.  If you're showing the car it may be a different story.  I've no idea how close they would look at a trans case.       

[upscope757]

Thanks all.  I appreciate it.  I think loosely looking for a pan is what I will end up doing. There is a circular stamp in the side of the casing similar to a clock or something with the number '66' in the middle of it.

[upscope757]

All,

Thanks for all the help.  In the end, I needed to open up the tranny to replace the valve body and found an exact good date on the valve body, 'J276', indicating 27 Oct '66, for that build date.  The other side of the Valve Body shows a date of 24 Oct '66.  Looks like this is confirmed to be the original tranny.  The new valve body has a date of '64 on it.  I will maintain the original valve body and keep looking for that tranny pan.  Thanks again.

Matt