Well, I got the boy's car out of my way, got the Delta in the garage, did some honey-do's and finally got started.
I was planning on tearing the whole thing apart and go from the ground up, but screw that for now. I'm going to get her running better and drive it around for a few years. The middle boy will be getting a clunker in a year or so, and we'll be needing the garage space to fix it up.
Here's the story with my car. The 16 year old girl I bought it off of lives way out in the boonies in MO. The car overheated on her this summer, and her mechanic told her it has a cracked head. I'm not convinced of this myself. I've had mechanics try to sell my wife on BS before because she's a girl. Luckily, she's not stupid. Anyway, the girl didn't have money for a new head, so she had the guy run liquid glass through the system to seal it up. She didn't trust it not to leave her stranded, so I got to buy it for $800. Before I picked it up, I asked her to check the dipstick for water in the oil. She said she couldn't get the dipstick out. Whatever, I was buying it anyway. So when I got there with the trailer, I went to pull the dipstick out, and she had broken the tube off flush at the block.
So, that was job one yesterday. I've had no way to know if I even had oil, much less if there was water in it. I got that fixed and am pleased to report the oil is very clean. I put some on my wife's salad and she didn't even know! This and the condition of the gas and brake pedals lead me to belive the 69,000 miles on the odometer is original. That's a good thing, but I found something yesterday that makes me wonder.
So listen up experts... I had to pull the starter to get to the dipstick, and on the block, where the starter mounts up between the two tapped holes, was stamped the number 1973. Obviously, if this is a year of manufacture, the 455 is not original to my '68. Either way, I'll still love her in the morning, but I do hope that's not the case.

Steve

 

Today's job... get the exhaust off from the manifold back. Looks like some kid threw a cherry bomb in the muffler. And when I was getting it off the trailer, I had an exhaust clamp catch on the edge of the ramp. Bend it up pretty good. It needed to go anyway. I wonder if I can get off the shelf parts. I can weld it if I can get the pipes.

 

Well off to the standard start I see, LOL. Keep us posted!

 

I doubt very much that that's the year of manufacture. Engine stampings and date codes were more complex than that, and would the "1973" refer to the model year or the calendar year? If the latter, the same engine could have ended up in a '74 Olds as production of those would have started in late 1973.