PAUL B., Dave - Funny how topics come up sometmes. Was a conversation going on @ RPM about casting date codes also.
One thing that wasn't mentioned there since most of the castings for a LVL '53 Super M were so much bigger, and also made at FARMALL, was that another number would also appear on the part sometimes. On smaller castings it's real common to make more than one casting in the mold. Knowing the size of castings LVL was able to make I'd say everything on a CC was able to be at least two if not 4, or more castings per mold. Each pattern or impression for a casting would have it's own ID number, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. to help identify which impression on the pattern made the casting so in case something was wrong the correct impression could be inspected.
What's really interesting was that IHC even back in the 1960's was documenting processes, routings, & work instructions in a way TOTALLY compliant to ISO 9001 requirements, and doing it the hard way, without computers!
Think I've mentioned here before IH also was at the "Bleeding Edge" in utilizing technology as it was developed. As always, IH was looking to reduce costs in any way possible, even to the point of deleting the last "E" in the word "employe" in ALL company forms. I heard that alone saved over $200,000/year in 1970 Dollars company-wide!
