How to tell a 348 or 409 car. Need input for our FAQ page

[gearhead409]

Ronnie

if that 4dr with the 409 in it was any where close to being an original car ( and it sure did look like it was ) i would have broke my neck to restore it no matter how bad the body was. a few years ago there was a 62 4dr impala sedan with a 409-409 in it with three speed on the columm at super chevy indy. i think it was original. that car has impressed me more than about any i have seen. just because it was an oddball.

 

[gearhead409]

Ronnie and Richard

i have been around these 62s a very long time. have bought and sold alot of them. i have 8 of them that are keepers. i think you are both right. gray areas? yes!

 

[gearhead409]

Dave

i don't know if all 58 and 59s did but the 60,61 and 62s all did. also the voltage regulator was mounted differantly.

 

[MK IISS]

gearhead409: At least we all can rule out the tach issue. There has to be other things to help determine an original W and/or 409 car.

 

[gearhead409]

Richard

well it looks like all 63,64 and 65 409s had a return fuel line and a non resistor coil wire with ballast resistor. all 62 409s had a non resistor coil wire with ballast resistor and the votage regulator is mounted with a rubber bumper at the bottom mounting hole. all the solid lifter 61,60 348-409 cars are the same as the 62s. what i don't know is how the 58 and 59 348s were. one more point, i'am not sure all std. 348 cars came with a non resistor coil wire and ballast resistor.

 

[real61ss]

Richard and others,
I always like these discussions, I have the original invoice for my 61SS and the prices that you posted for the 62 tach and 4 speed options are exactly the same as they were in 61. I would have thought there would have been a small price increase from 61 to 62.

 

[MK IISS]

Tommy: I was thinking the same thing when I looked up the option prices. I expected them to go up. On the other hand, look how less expensive a '62 SS was compared to a '61 because you didn't have to order all the 61's required options.

 

[SteveD409]

This seems to be an appropriate place to discuss this item: Mid '63 model year and after 409 cars got a reenforcement bracket where the rear upper control arm attaches to the frame. Torque was ripping them off. Anyway thats the way I know it. Aubrey has stated that ALL 4 speed cars got the modification. My very late 63 300/327/4 speed car does NOT have one. Anyone?

SteveD

 

[chevymusclecars]

Motorbooks puts out a "Red Book" for SS cars and it gives the same option price as you guys are coming up with. Under the four speed option it says the tach is included when a four speed is ordered with the 300 and higher horsepower engines.

Bill

 

[gearhead409]

SteveD

i have seen alot of 4speed cars with this bracket broken or cracked. it would stand to reason that chevy improved this med year 63 on all performance stick shift cars but just 409 cars, could be i don't know. there should be a factory bulletin on this somewhere.

 

[wrench]

lookin'

I wish Wrench would have driven over to look at it since he is "in the neighborhood"

Sure wish I could have done that. I would have made the time had I known (I wasn't paying attention). A four door hardtop? Now that's a strange combo.

 

[Bubbletop Bel-Air]

One item no one has mentioned so far is the top radiator tank. It is my understanding that the top tank on the 409 cars were slanted forward slightly while the rest of them were flat. My Bel-Air has the slanted tank, and a racer buddy of mine told me that was one the quirks to look for when I originally purchased the car. All his other advise has been covered like size and routing of fuel line, resistors, deep pulleys, etc..

 

[gearhead409]

Larry

the things that i would be looking at would be the little clues that are hidden or over looked when there's no engine and the major 348-409 parts are gone or the engine has been replaced. this works pretty well with parts cars or an amateur restoration. i will be the first to admit that a full on #1 restored car is next to impossible to detect whether it was an original 348-409 car or not.

 

[bobs409]

Thanks for all the great info everyone. I'll have to try and sort this out and add it to the FAQ page.

Could we now discuss the different tach's these cars had? What engines got what redline tachs for 61-65?

 

[gearhead409]

Bob

the 61 tac didn't have a red line. all the rest, it depended on the camshaft. if the engine had solid lifters, it had the 6000 red line tac. if it didn't have solid lifters, the 5000 red line tac was used. here's a good question, in 62 if the tac was to be ordered separately, was there two options or one? 5000rpm or 6000rpm? looks like the tac had to be tied into the engine option somehow.

 

[MK IISS]

In my opinion we can't put the tach issue on the '62 409s to rest yet. That is....did the tach come standard with the 4-spd on 409s or not ? Yesterday I saw the double issue of the CHEVY RUMBLE magazine that covered the convention. There is a photo of a '62 409 window sticker which shows the tach as a separate option from the 4-spd. I think this may the one Ronnie was talking about when we were having our discussion on this. The window sticker appears to be a reproduction, not an original... and this could be a problem.

I go to a lot of car shows here in Florida during the winter and have seen reproduction window stickers that do not match the car. For example.... I recently saw a '63 Impala with an original 327/250 but the reproduction window sticker had the engine as a 327/300. The owner had the window sticker made on how he wanted the car to be.... but not how it actually was.

So... in other words the window sticker in CHEVY RUMBLE magazine may not have been re-printed correctly.......that is.... how they were in 1962. I'm not saying the car is intentionally mis-represented, just the possibilty, because there is a separate tach listing, that the '62s were not built the way the sticker reads.

 

[Ronnie Russell]

Gearhead 409 makes a good point, If an owner goes to enough effort, it would be impossible to tell the real thing from a clone. Richard is right about the window sticker being repo. Did the owner have it copied from original or copy something else? The 5,000 or 6,000 redline is a good point. Someone pointed outthe SS option with 4 sp. included tach. What about Impala sans SS? It is still my opinion that in late 61 and early 62, G M was unsure how to option out the cars. Even if "head brass" had protocol, it doesn mean assembly line workers carried out instructions. Would gm trash several thousand 61 tachs, because they had no redline or would they use them on early 62s? If the crews at St. Louis did it one way , does this mean a crew in Atlanta did it the same way? Were the "numbers books" printed over the years accurate or was there mis_information printed by mistake? Sorry guys, I am afraid these questions will never be answered to the satisfaction of all.

 

[gearhead409]

Richard Ronnie

in the 62 assembly manual it does shown the tac with the 4speed option but is not clear about it. judging from this manual i would have to say all 62 4speeds came with a tac but i don't think that's true with the 250hp 327? i agree with ronnie the start-up of production when the new super sports, 327s, 409s and this tac thing ramped up for 1962. things probably didn't go as planned in each plant. remember in 61 chevy only built a handful of ss cars, start of 62 their building thousands of them.

 

[SteveD409]

My 4 speed 300/327 '63 may not have the bracket because it wasn't ordered with posi. Maybe that has something to do with it. Just a thought.

SteveD

 

[MK IISS]

409s with tachs

A good friend of mine just emailed me. He has a September 1961 printing of the 1962 Chevy option codes. The #685 4-spd option for the 327/300, 409/380, and the 409/409 includes the tach. The #685 4-spd option with the 327/250 does not include the tach.

So I guess we have to conclude that a factory built 1962 4-spd 409 should have a factory installed tach.