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Gotcha, that'd make more sense.  Depending on weather, traffic, etc. it could easily take 5-10 minutes to reach operating temperature before the stat begins to open and allow coolant flow.  The 'sudden' rush of coolant might cause the temp to drop a bit below the stat's setting as cooler coolant from the radiator initially hits the temp sensor. 

Tailfins & Bowties shows 4,991 (3,480 V8 models and 1,511 L6 models) for export (no country mentioned) - a few more than the 1,200 in question.  If, in reality, only 1,200 of the 4,991 were exported to Belgium for assembly there, that would leave 3,791 that are listed as export really weren't or were assembled at one or both of the U.S. plants (and their VINs counted) before being exported.  That sound feasible?

It should begin rising as soon as minimal registering temp is reached and climb to just above 'normal' (for your stat's degree setting) then drop to 'normal' as the stat begins to open to allow coolant flow - but it shouldn't be taking 5-10 minutes to drop to normal after stat opens.  I have an Autometer mechanical water temp in my 67 El Camino and mine only takes a few seconds after the stat begins to open (180 in my case) for the temp to drop back to 180.  If I happen to be in the middle of traffic at the time and air flow is reduced, it may stay at 200 or so until there's enough air flow to bring it back down.

[219,706]

Was reading some info at http://camaros.org/geninfo.shtml#HowMany concerning production numbers for 1967 model year.  Page says 220,906 Camaros produced in 1967 but when one looks at the VIN chart, LA shows 65,008 and Norwood 154,698 as last reported sequence numbers.  These add up to only 219,706 - 1,200 units short of the reported total.  I realize the ending sequence numbers for a given plant and month are not 100% accurate but shouldn't the last reported sequence numbers (when totaled) come closer to the total produced?

The 220,906 figure is also reported in Tailfins & Bowties and that includes all marked for export and for Canada ... so what happened to the other 1200 units?   

Well, that's certainly disheartening news.  So when anyone like Team Chevelle, Team Camaro, CRG, Colvin's various 'by the numbers' books or any other decoding sites states that "A" is the first week, "B" is the second, etc. they're just parroting something that is essentially worthless information?

Worthless?  All Kurt is saying is that you can't put specific dates to the letters.  It does tell you that a car built 11C was after a car built 11B.  You just don't know what dates.

By worthless I simply mean that when some person or some site says a car was made the first week, "A" for example, it doesn't mean anything if you can't pin down what dates that first week consisted of, regardles of the month or the plant.  Apparently, a 'week' could be any number of days according to the whim of the plant and whether it's a Fisher Body/Chevrolet or GMAD plant makes no difference.  If that's the case, as it appears to be, then saying "A" is the first week is inconclusive to attempt to match the week letter to any specific dates when other data that are common to all plants, such as trim numbers, paint numbers, and body numbers on Chevelles at least up to 1968, are uniform in meaning.

I guess, to be accurate, every site or publication that says 01A is the first week in January should include a caveat that nobody knows what that means, as far as a date range the first week consists of, but it is known it's dated before 01B.  Not really the answer I was looking for but if that's the case, so be it. Kind of like saying one's birthday is in the Spring.  Don't know when but it's sometime after Winter and sometime before Summer. I appreciate your help. 

Well, that's certainly disheartening news.  So when anyone like Team Chevelle, Team Camaro, CRG, Colvin's various 'by the numbers' books or any other decoding sites states that "A" is the first week, "B" is the second, etc. they're just parroting something that is essentially worthless information?

First post here so if this has been answered before I apologize and I'm not looking to decode a cowl tag but gather information on how the date is determined.  I'm in a Chevelle thread at Team Chevelle discussing body dates on trim/cowl tags vs. the date appearing on the build sheet and I assume the same would apply to the Camaro.  My questions concern the month/week date on a Fisher Body plate, a.k.a., trim or cowl tag  and the flow of the paperwork.  I know the date represents a month and week and have a specific question on how the 'week' is arrived at.

First, what physically constitutes a week of A, B, C, D, or E? 
1. I initially thought it was the physical week of a month.  If the 1st of the month started on a Wednesday, then Wednesday thru Saturday (1-4) were week A, 5-11, week B, etc.  But, some months would have 6 'weeks' using this method. 

2. My second thought is that week "A" are dates 1-7, week "B" are dates 8-14, up through week "E" dates of 29-31 where applicable regardless of the day of the week.  Using this second method, every month except Feb (except a leap year) would have weeks A..E.  It seems logical (therefore probably wrong) that the procedure for stamping the cowl tag would be simplified if a physical calendar was not required to convert a day's date into a week letter.  These had to be automated and stamped by the hundreds so what logic, program or human, determined when the date should change from 01A to 01B?  Whatever the logic involved this dating systems seems to hold true for the majority of cowl tag dates when compared to build sheet dates, but there are exceptions.  One example I know of, on a 1970 Chevelle, has a cowl tag date of 01A but a build sheet date of 01-09.

Second, reading the excellent "Assembly Process" page the cowl tag was installed on the Fisher Body side fairly early during the body framing stage.  The cowl tag obviously had not only the assembly date but other information that indicates (to me anyway) the car was locked into production even though a VIN hadn't been assigned yet by Chevrolet. 

Can I assume the initial paperwork to build the car would come from Chevrolet and note what colors, options, etc. are to be used and the date on the build sheet would be the date the car is initiated?  Assuming the body numbers and other groups of data from the build sheet are coded onto the cowl tag for tracking and when completed at Fisher and sent to Chevrolet for final assembly, the final sequence number (last 6 digits of the VIN) is then put on the build sheet; at least on Chevelles, this sequence number looks like it's stamped after the sheet was initially printed and in a different font and often at an angle in the upper right.

Question #2 is how does the date on the build sheet correlate to the body assembly date on the cowl tag?  Using the 01A/01-09 example above, how would a car who's conception date of January 9, 1970 get a body assembly date of the first week (01A) of January?  Assuming my theory of A=1-7, B=8-14, etc. I can see where a conception date of say 09-20 might get a "D" week (22-28) instead of a "C" week (15-21) coding if the car wasn't physically started for a day or two but not the other way around as in the case of the 01-09 car with an "A" week.

I guess the first thing to establish is how is the 'week' letter determined.  Second is the relationship between the build sheet date and the beginning of the car's build cycle.  Hopefully then the relationship between the two can be determined.  I'm looking forward to the discussion, thank you.