How to tell years on Ford blocks

[Capri306]

Check the boss by the starter mounting place. There should be a cast-in tag that has a whole bunch of letters and numbers in it. This will easily and quickly tell you the year of the block. For example, if the casting tag starts out with "D8CS-xxxx-xx", the first letter is the decade. "C" is for 1960's, "D" is for 1970's, etc. The second character is the year in the decade. So in the example I just gave, the year would be 1978. The "D" corresponds to the 1970's, and "8" is the exact year in the 70's. Very simple, no? BTW, if you find older than 1974, email me ASAP!!!