this is the first original OW transmission i have seen with a factory stamping still visible. i assume that they used a stencil and had mine upside down? reads OM. i always thought it was a rubber stamp but after seeing this i don't think so. this is the original OW trans to my W-30 and also a picture of one that inline tube did.

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Good detail. Even the color is different

 

Someday, I wish I had the funds, time, and patience to do a restoration like that. Looks great! The chassis is cleaner than the OUTSIDE of my car!

 

i wish the chassis were mine. that was on display at the olds homecoming at the inline tube booth to display there products.

 

I don't have a guess as to what they used, but a stencil seems less likely, as there are no "supports" to hold the center of the "O" showing as lines through the "O". Stencils always have those little lines or legs going to the "floating" parts of the characters.

By the way, that's pretty darned cool.

- Eric

 

Wouldn't it read WO if right side up?
Maybe it was Friday at 3 pm

 

My DELCO stamp on my Original brake booster is upside down.Or maybe they punched the vacume line hole in the wrong place. I can see an ink stamp wrong but how do you place a part in a metal stamping machine wrong
Gary

 

Not sure why the letters are backwards or upside-down,but it either reads OM or WO. Regardless,I would keep it on there.If you have your transmission rebuilt,just make sure they don't beadblast or remove that from the case.It could possibly be some type of ink stamp,with a runy ink.The ones from inline are actually too neat & crisp.
Does your transmission still have the OW aluminum tag,and is there any color left on the tag?I have seen blue and black for 1970.They had blue in 71,and yellow in 72.

 

I suspect that there is no "upside down" or "backwards."

These stamps were not there for aesthetic reasons, and were not supposed to look any certain way.
They were so that the workers on the line could pull the right parts out of the right bins and put them on the car quickly.
So long as the stamp was on the side facing the workers, it was right.

- Eric

 

the OW tag only has a small amount of paint left. it is a black one. car was built week 2 of november 69, not sure when the trans was made. where is the date stamp on the transmission?

 

I think the tag will also have the date code on it.

 

Mine looks like this on a 69 W30!!

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Mayhap the repro chap got it wong

 

Your aluminum tag should read 70 - OW - xxxxxx(sequential number). The casting date is located on the main housing,just in front of where the tail housing is bolted on.It is on the top,a small circle about the size of a dime.

 

here is a picture of the tag
70 OW 1317

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Could it be that there really was no "OW" stamp but a separate "O" and "W"? That is the only way I could see there being an "OM" instead of "OW"...otherwise and upside down "OW" would be "MO".

 

aha! Pilot's on to something here...

 

Trans is 10 69. car body is 11B

 

I have only seen black on 70 W30s. I have only looked at 10 or so tags, so it is not a very large sample. Did you notice a pattern to the blue and black tags? Maybe blue late in the model year?