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I was told that the intake lift hook on a 70 W30 should be bare metal in color with washers mounted underneath (between the hook and intake). This is not what I am finding on many original untouched cars. So far I've found a 12-3-69 car with no paint but i've seen quite a few... 1-10-70 all the way into 1971 with paint.
Is there a changeover date or any rhyme or reason to this? I'm told what I found on my car and duplicated in restoration is incorrect.
I am looking for more info to back my position.
Where are the supporting pics? I have pics of survivors with blue paint on the loop and so did my car which was untouched. There's got to be more info on this topic as it seems to be seen both ways.
In 70 the water neck was not painted and there will always be debate about the hook. I have seen original cars with no washers and I do not believe these hooks were ever painted. The assembly manual shows washers but not all of them got them.
Different story on 72 W-30, I know what was on at least one when new. I had a 16,000 mile W-30 for 5 years and the water neck WAS painted. The hook was not and did not have washers.
I'm not an expert in minutiae. I'm giving you a logical view that may provide an explanation:
The hook was provided to move the engine in the factory; it was on the engine at the paint station. If the engine had aluminum intake manifold, the manifold was masked to keep engine paint off it. Therefore the hook didn't get painted. Other engines had no mask and the hook would have gotten paint with the rest of the engine.
Restoration experts are mostly focused on high performance engines and when they say the hook is not painted, they would be correct within their frame of reference.
