Cleveland casting date code

[FOMOCOHO 882]

What happens if someone should have a Clevo block with a late 73 casting date,

but no engine number?

 

And normal un-marked rough casting, where an engine number would normally be?

 

What happens if someone should have a Clevo block with a late 73 casting date,

but no engine number?

 

And normal un-marked rough casting, where an engine number would normally be?

 

That's entirely possible. The Cleveland Casting Plant (CCP) had to fill an order for 60 000 blocks for Ford-Aust. before packing up the tooling in late '73. It could well have been one of them if it's here but never made it to production for some reason. Whatever the case CHESTNUT is right, it is of CCP origin.

 

The cast-tooling and machining-tooling was shipped in '74. The first blocks were cast here in mid '75. Damage to the machining-tooling meant they couldn't be machined until '76. After the machining-tooling was sent back, 30x raw Oz-cast blocks had to be air-freighted back to CCP to re-qualify the machine-tooling before it was all sent back here a second time. Don't know what became of those 30x blocks either! May have come back, may be still there... some-one knows!

 

Edit: If they did come back, it would have been with the tooling... bet they didn't air-freight them again! 

[gerg 10,871]

I've read that originally, the tooling was pretty useless due to the hardness of the Aussie iron, sent everything blunt in no time and they couldn't get the tolerances they needed. That whole line needed a complete revamp before production was feasible.

[FOMOCOHO 882]

I've read that originally, the tooling was pretty useless due to the hardness of the Aussie iron, sent everything blunt in no time and they couldn't get the tolerances they needed. That whole line needed a complete revamp before production was feasible.

 

The higher nickel content gave the Australian Blocks better wear resistance than their American predecessor. Be careful Gerg when comparing hardness to wear resistance, if you think back to your metallurgy days… hardness is a measure of impact resistance only and doesn’t take into account the whole micro-structure of the material so "superior wear resistance" is the term used to be more accurate. Hence shorter tool life.

 

Basically when the 30x blocks were sent over to re-qualify the tools it was found life expectancy of the boring-tools was much less than they had encountered previously with the American Iron. They tested the iron and found the Australian iron, although with-in spec. was superior by far for wear resistance. I'm sure hardness would have been part of that testing and determined to be higher too. They upgraded to tungsten carbide tooling and that fixed the problem, prior to sending the tooling back here.

 

A different casting process was used in Geelong than CCP too; which is much more stable.

 

The drama with the tooling being damaged & having to be sent back initially was a totally unrelated event that happened during shipping.  

[CHESTNUTXE 7,299]

The arrow block is available now for about $3800 i am considering one of these ,titus make one in the states in alloy,and tod buttermore has his own version as well.

[SPArKy_Dave 8,863]

The Arrow block is chinese cast. I don't know that I trust their steel.

 

Look up the TMeyer Inc. Track Boss Cleveland block.

That's the Tod Buttermore block, finally being put into production.

 

[Thom 6,650]

What happens if someone should have a Clevo block with a late 73 casting date,

but no engine number?

 

And normal un-marked rough casting, where an engine number would normally be?

 

The original clevo from my old man's a model was a crate engine from Ford in the early 70's it was exactly like that

[FOMOCOHO 882]

The Arrow block is chinese cast. I don't know that I trust their steel.

 

Look up the TMeyer Inc. Track Boss Cleveland block.

That's the Tod Buttermore block, finally being put into production.

 

 

Yeah, I saw news of the two versions some time ago. I thought the Buttermore version was more trustworthy being made here too.

 

 

Cast is cheaper than machining out of a solid billet too!  

 

 

I think this differential billet was about $6000 from memory, but was some time ago now, scanned from Sandvik propaganda lol.

 

 

[CHESTNUTXE 7,299]

I sold a clevo block to bloke yesterday from brisbane who only wanted it for piston moulds for his arrow block,he sounded like a he was on another level of inteligence and says yes they are poured in china but are of very good quality,he uses his in a 700hp app he says.

[SPArKy_Dave 8,863]

The Track Boss Clevo is 100% made (cast) and machined in the USA.

 

Yeah, I guess it's also the stigma.

I hate what the chinese are doing to our country, with a passion - buying everything up, inflating housing costs etc.

Call it a moral standing.

 

It's also cool that the Track Boss Clevo is the same price,

if not a little bit cheaper, than the chinese Arrow Block.

[CHESTNUTXE 7,299]

where can you buy one dave ?

[SPArKy_Dave 8,863]

You have to go on their waiting list.

email TMeyer direct.

They're doing the aluminum ones atm, then the iron blocks next yr.

 

You get to choose whatever casting date you want your block to have, too -

for concours purposes.

 

I believe they have an Aussie distributor already earmarked, but can't remember who it is.

[CHESTNUTXE 7,299]

yes i just looked,he even does 400c stroker kits

[bear351c 10,269]

So, does that mean I can rebirth my GT mock-up with a genuine JG33 engine..? 

[gerg 10,871]

I'd buy an American Dart over anything Chinese, any day of the week. There are so many manufacturers in China that subbie out their work that nobody gives a rat's about reputation, there's no chain of responsibility, it's a cut-throat, race to the bottom world compared to quality manufacturers in the States that would suffer dearly should a bad word be spread about their work. You only need to look at a certain brand of cheaply made parts sold here and you get an idea of the mentality.

[CHESTNUTXE 7,299]

On e bay they list a dart ford smallblock as a cleveland and you can see by the pictures its a windsor ? why ?

[gerg 10,871]

<br />The higher nickel content gave the Australian Blocks better wear resistance than their American predecessor. Be careful Gerg when comparing hardness to wear resistance, if you think back to your metallurgy days… hardness is a measure of impact resistance only and doesn’t take into account the whole micro-structure of the material so "superior wear resistance" is the term used to be more accurate. Hence shorter tool life.<br />

<br />Sorry yeah we only touched on metallurgy in my mech eng diploma and HV mechanic cert, but I know that my brother had a hell of a time milling out my 76DA manifold and reckons he'd never encountered such a difficult bit of iron to machine.<br /><br />EDIT: I it also didn't look that shiny once machined, didn't look like other high-nickel iron I've seen in the past.

[gerg 10,871]

On e bay they list a dart ford smallblock as a cleveland and you can see by the pictures its a windsor ? why ?

 

You don't really have to know what you're doing to sell shit on fleaBay. Windsor is Windsor and Clevo is Clevo, no two ways about it. The closest you'll get to a Windsor being a clevo is if you build your own Boss or "Clevor".

[Free.51 2,717]

^^^^^ i knew this was gonna happen

 

 

Windsor block with clevo heads

[Thom 6,650]

On e bay they list a dart ford smallblock as a cleveland and you can see by the pictures its a windsor ? why ?

 

They are a 9.2" deck height like a clevo (221/260/289/302 are 8.5 inch 351 windsor are 9.5 inch deck height) but they are a windsor block, used to be the only option if you wanted an aftermarket block for a clevo then the end up being a clevor

[Free.51 2,717]

351W has clevo firing order too

[Thom 6,650]

351W has clevo firing order too

 

So does roller efi 302

[SPArKy_Dave 8,863]

So does roller efi 302

 

They don't sound the same though...

[CHESTNUTXE 7,299]

so what is the titus cleveland block then ? or is that the buttermore block ? the alloy blocks would be a fair bit lighter than the iron ones.