Date Codes For Camaro Restoration Question
 

Hey everyone,

How far out should parts range in date from the body tag production date for a 69 Camaro? Im looking to put factory equipment back on the car during restoration that’s went missing and have heard a rule of 3 months for stamped and 6 for cast? Any merit to that?

Thanks for the help

No

Welcome, Those figures seem way far out. It's best to ask people on their experiences for a particular part. For my car built on 2/13, It has a December voltage regulator (6 weeks older) and brake booster is 2/8, rear end is 2/6. So mine are super close on most parts.

Building 912 cars per day, they use up parts quick so fresh stock is needed to be replenished.

A month or 2 would be a good bet. JMHO

Scott

Depends on the assembly plant, assembly timeframe within the (extended) model year, and RPOs on the car.

Thanks guys.

Cars a Copo car built with a body tag build date of the 1st week of July.

For the stuff the car isn’t missing, most of it is dated in May so May/June is probably the right window I should be looking for.

Not to jump in here but i have a 69 camaro that i have had since 1975 its is a june built norwood car , car has never been a part but when i did take it a part to restore it here is what i found the radiator was a january of 69 date the distrubutor was a oct of 68 dated & the door panels where nov of 68 dated the rest of the parts where dated close to the build date of the car wonder way those parts where dated so far back ??

----What interior color is your COPO

Car has black interior.

Have you looked at your vin # for a better idea of when it was actually built ? Compare your's with the vin totals for July .
Being a COPO It may have spent time in the body bank waiting to be scheduled. That could make the assy weeks ? Later than the TT date.
Date codes are not always X amount of time ahead of assembly. The driver mirror on my Malibu is 6 mo. ahead of assy.

Mike

In all honesty the car is more than just a COPO but is actually the fathom green Yenko found in Indiana last year. I’m helping in trying to track down what pieces the car is missing. NCRS documents showed an official production date of 7/10/69 before being shipped off to Yenko.

I have a friend who has a 944 (April/ 4th Week / 1969) 4346 carb and before setting out and buying one, if this one would technically be correct for the date code I’d just roll with it.

Your COPO official production date has the same exact date as my X77 HO Z/28 (07A July 10th) according to my NCRS report. I have a lot of original born with assembly line parts still on the car and many are dated May. My 302 engine assembly date, heads, distributor, alternator, and carb for example are all May. The Muncie and BU rear are June. I think April would not be out of the question as they were about to wind down for the one month shutdown and were using up all available left over inventory. July 11th was the last day of production before the one month shutdown. I hope this helps.

That's not how the body bank worked. All 6 of the lines in the body bank were always feeding the main line. A given car left the bank within minutes, not hours, of arriving.
http://www.camaros.org/assemblyprocess.shtml#chev
"There were usually six lines in the schedule bank - one for RS, one for A/C, one for SS and Z/28, and three for high-volume standard cars, so cars could be scheduled without having situations like three A/C's in a row, three consoles in a row, three RS's in a row, etc., as these had higher work content vs. the standard cars and scheduling two or three of them in a row would over-cycle certain line operations."

April is too far out, IMO. Could happen but most parts are mid to end of May or later.
Your alt was 9E23, right?

Yes it is.

The other option for a date code I found is the 3rd week of June. Would that be too close to build date?

No

Thanks everyone for the help. These are the parts I’m trying to track for the restoration are these

4346 Carburetor
1111499 Distributor - heard these weren’t made pass the 28th of April in 69?
178 / 879 Smog Exhaust Manifolds
CX TH400 - this is proving difficult to locate to say the least
Smog System

Been able to find most of everything but just want to make sure it works with the date codes. Don’t mean to be too much of a newb to all this so I appreciate all the info you guys have shared.