We have all heard of "pink" rods, high performance parts were marked with a dab of pink paint. I do believe this is the "pink" guage cluster as indicated by the paint.
Now that I think of it, a little trivia question. Pink was the color used for HP parts used in the manufacture of HP SBC engines. Which SBC engine parts were marked with green paint during the manufacture and assembly process?? By the way this paint was applied by an inspector after he had inspected the parts during the machining process.
-- Edited by forespeed on Friday 17th of December 2010 12:47:46 AM
I'm talking about engine components. They were all dabbed with a paint brush as they went through the inspection process following every machining job. As inspectors we all had about 5 or 6 different color open paint cans in front of us with brushes in them. After inspecting the part, we dabbed some paint on them, i.e. cams were painted on the very end of what would be the rear end. The end was not completely painted, just a dab of color. That color was them used in the assembly process to identify which parts to install in which blocks. Some of the componets such as the intake, block, maybe heads were painted Chevy engine orange during the process of painting the assemblied engine and that paint covered the inspection paint. Other internal componets, such as rods, pistons, cranks and cams were not painted so when you take a SBC apart they may still retain some of the original inspection paint. We all know that pink was reserved for only the HP engines but what SBC received the color green. Have you ever noticed a paint mark on the internal components of a SBC during the disassembly process?
I guess I'm not explaining the question very well. Anyway the answer I was looking for was 283. Any internal or external engine parts that were for use in a 283 motor received a dab of green paint after the inspection process. If I was later working one of the jobs on the assembly line and a block came down the line with green paint on it, I would install a cam that had a dab of green paint on it. Any and all parts used to assemble a 283 motor would have been marked with green paint after the inspection process. When I installed cams on the assembly line, the cams were above my head hanging vertically from a moving conveyor. As the block came to you on the rollers, you identified the color on the block and then looked up at the cams passing by and grabbed one with the same color paint on the end. Without the dab of paint you could not identify an L79 cam from a stock 283. The same when for rods, pistons, cranks, heads.
