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So all sheet metal was stamped at one plant and shipped out to the difference factory's
Yes each piece or almost every piece is stamped with a date code during the stamping process, cast parts are cast with some form of date code also most of the time. This process is carried out at dozens of different stamping and casting plants as well as sometimes contractors locations. Once finished they are shipped to the car assembly plants for use on building cars or shipped to a location that distributes the parts to dealerships for use in repairing or selling to the public or businesses like body shops
So would the date codes be all over the place
The location of the stamping/casting dates was pretty standardized since they often used ingots that dropped in a prepared holder that designated the date for that run of parts being made that day. When they remade the large dies they could and sometimes did relocate the location of these holders based on the design and choices made by the workers in charge of designing them
So let say his car January'built how close would the dates be on the sheet metal or is it like engines where the date codes can be up to 3 months prior to build date of car
There can often be oddities where dates are have a greater spread than others. Often IMO those larger spreads do not reflect random factors but are the results of things we don't know or are unaware of. Supply of material, transportation or union issues at both Ford and suppliers plants. As far as dates I believe there are ranges where currently few if any are going to question the date while at the same time I believe that commonly the dates are much tighter given the patterns we see after collecting the data.
Getting into the tall grass for those interested. If not shot reading here
Hope this helped expain
May choose to cut and paste the description below into another thread on date coding for more eyes
Often it appears that if you can gather enough data you can sometimes identify shipments of stamped sheet metal sent to a specific car assembly plant and relate that to cars being assembled during a period or range. Having the real completion date for the 67 and up cars helps a lot
To illustrate at one car plant the fastback passenger side trunk hinge support had dates of
- 12R5 C2 Also seen during this time period 12R4 C2 and 12R6 C2. IMO likely all shipped in the same shipment
Decoded- Dec 5th - for right hand side - Cleveland Stamping plant - second shift
- Take notice that all were stamped on the same shift so possibly they were collected and all loaded into the same shipment to the car plant.
- And we have found them on cars being completed from Dec 12 to Dec 21 and Jan 24th to Feb 2nd
- Prior to this period we find a group of fastbacks. Same hinge support with a stamping code of 5C3. Since this is a different pattern it may suggest that a second panel stamper was used to produce more of these panels to fill the order for that specific car assembly plant and also take note that these panels were stamped on the third shift. Because of that I would speculate that they were placed in another container or strapped to a different pallet and include in the shipment with the second shifts panels. Once at the car plant a group of panels from the second shift was used on the line then when those ran low the shipment produced by the third shift was moved forward and when those were close to being used the third batch - again panels from the second shift was used to build new Mustang fastbacks.
