Cleveland engines part 7

Originally in the U.S. this number was on a metal tag that was attached to an ancilliary bracket or more usually sandwiched under the coil mounting bracket, but later in life they were reduced to a white paper sticker on the front of the right hand valve cover. For some reason, which is still a bit of a mystery, the 351C’s built in the U.S. and shipped for export acquired the letter ‘C’ in front of the ‘K’ and became CK601, CK604, CK608, CK609, CK614, CK616 and CK617, and this is what appeared on the paper tag on engines fitted in Australia. There is a some credence to the thought that the ‘C’ stood for ‘Canada’ as they initially received non-emission export engines, and for simplicity, the ‘CK’ then applied to all export engines. It is also worth mentioning that in the US the switch from using a metal tag to a paper decal took place in February, 1973, yet the paper decals were appearing on Australian engines before that.
Here is an example of a coil tag that was fitted to an XA GT RPO83.


What is interesting about this tag is that XA GT RPO’s were built in August, 1973. The tag decodes as - ‘351C’, the engine; ‘72’, the model year; ‘5’, the change level or version; ‘G26’, 26th of July assembly date; and ‘CK617J1’, the engine code. On U.S. tags there is usually a digit in front of the ‘G26’ which signifies the year of production. The year is missing on this Australian or export tag which may have been a a deliberate policy to allow Ford to stockpile export engines, either in the U.S. or at their destination.
It is also worth mentioning that the equivalent paper tag for this engine reads ‘CK617J1-W’ and it signifies a special order, manual transmission only square block import engine with big port heads. Some more of what this means is explained below.
Here is an example of the paper tag for a ‘CK608’ engine, showing its location.

As these paper tags appear in several of the pictures I'll use over the next few days, here is a breakdown of their significance:
CK608 A1 70-1 - manual D block 4 heads (XW-XA)
CK609 A1 70-1 - auto D block 4 heads (XW-XA)
CK616 J1 71-3 - auto D block 4 dot heads
CK616 J3 72-5 - auto D block 4 dot heads (1971 casting
CK616 J3 72-5 - auto square block 4 dot heads (1972 casting)
CK617 J1 71-1 - manual D block 4 dot heads
CK617 J1 72-5 - manual square block 4 dot heads
CK617 J1W 72-5 - manual square block 4 dot heads