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Wouldn't mid a peek at that trim tag too..

Ive seen  several L78 cars in auctions and web that claim to be legit L78. I have seen both curved and straight neck radiators on them. Since the L78 could not be had with AC, what was the determining factor on how a car got a curved or straight neck on the assembly line?

William, can you send me a link to that correct pitman? I cant seem to find any 5 3/4 inches. All are 5 7/8 or 5 1/4 or manual versions only

Is that pitman measured center hole to center hole?

So I got my steering wheel all put back together after changing out ignition key switch. Upon reassembly I found that PO put steering wheel on 180 out. So now its back together correct,  as it only goes one way. (sport wheel). Anyways I cant get steering wheel to point straight without the front wheels being turned slightly to the left. I tried putting tires straight and pulling pitman arm off and indexing steering wheel to straight but the splines wouldnt match up. Its a power steering car BTW. Weird thing is that I get 3.5 turns of the steering wheel lock to lock. Is this something that can be corrected with an alignment? Perhaps a longer or shorter pitman arm? I dont think it is a quick ratio box for what its worth. 69 SS BB

That is a May built car according to TT. I thought VINS were stamped on oil filter housing at that point? LOS cars were hit and miss I guess..

I see the new pic of the cowl VIN stamp. Curious as to how this car came together. With todays craftsman anything is possible to recreate an expensive muscle car. I agree on the block having a re-stamp. Upside down seals are common on real Z cars and the fakes though.

Why do you guys think engine stamp is a re-stamp?

Ill start with pulling rag joint. Ill report back at findings for others who may have same issue in future..

Yes this is correct. The steering wheel was put on by PO 180 out and I didnt notice when I took it off. Now that everything is back together, the wheel is 180 out when I put it on correctly.

The only fixes for this that I can think of (not sure if any of these shafts and spines are keyed to go in only one way)

1) Pulling the column shaft out of the rag joint, re-aligning steering wheel and reinstall shaft into rag joint
2) Pulling pitman arm of power steering box, re-aligning steering wheel then put pitman back on box

Neither.. just removed steering wheel and horn mechanism to replace ignition key switch. Didnt do anything to column.

Ok so here's what I have going on. Ill start by saying my car is a 396 with power steering and has the comfort grip wheel with center horn button. Prior to disassembly, I marked the wheel, hub, and column with tape just to make sure I put all back together and aligned the way it came off. I dove into the steering  column to change out my ignition switch and took pictures as I went along. All went as expected and the new switch works. I put the turn signal plate back in as well as the horn contact assembly in exactly as it came apart. Made sure tape marks all lined up which they did. All good to this point.

So here's the issue, The back of the steering wheel has a lip where one of the spokes overlaps the other two. That is normal. The hub has a notch in it that accepts that lip. Normal there too. So when I went to put the wheel back I put the wheel lip into the hub notch and saw that the wheel was now 180 degrees out. Rather than the wheel spokes being correctly positioned like a "Y" its now is like an inverted Y which is incorrect. I must not have noticed that the previous owner positioned the wheel correctly visually wise, but it was not in the corresponding notch in the hub. Its obvious that the splines on the steering shaft only permit the hub to go on one way which makes the wheel only go on one way. They cannot be clocked.
So my question here is.. what was installed incorrectly? Rag joint out 180? Spline coupler on box out 180? Just from researching, it appeares that the rag joint and coupler on end of engine side of shaft are splined only to go on one way so I cant clock it correctly from there. Any thoughts on how to correct this?

Sorry for long post..

I cleaned off my stamping to get better look at it to determine if its a re-stamp or not. To me it appears legit but wanted some others input. First letter is T which I missed with picture. So its T0516JH (5/16/69 assembly). Wondering what others think. I cant find any stamping or evidence of one at the oil filter housing. Block has casting date of E 5 9 (5/5/69) with casting code 3955272

69 SS
06A
X66

My pad is stamped T0516JH and cast date code E 5 9 but there is no stamp on oil filter boss. It hasnt been removed from there as the casting area where that would have been is still rough. This is a complete, running L78. Car is   06A Norwood.

Car is a 69 X66 with L78 motor and M22 with 12 bolt posi

Axle is stamped BU 1126 G1
                                 E

Which translates to 3.73 assembled 11/26 1968 Detroit Gear 1st shift with Eaton Posi

Casting date code on housing is K 22 8 which is Nov 11 1968
Casting Code on housing is 3894860NF

My trim tag is 06A with NCRS shipping date of 6/16/69

Is it safe to assume my axle is not original due to the lapse in time from body date and axle build dates?

Thanks in advance.

Good catch. In looking at it and studying them, the characters seem to be spaced too close together. 4 seems a bit off too.