How can you decipher the date code on a Ford Mustang?

Answer 1

That would depend on what the date is on. If it's a cast iron part, like the engine block, intake manifold, etc.. it will be in the format of a number, a letter and a number, like 6M21. The first digit is the year, the second is the month, with M being december, and the last is the day of the month. On the year, they assume that you know the decade. The 6 could be 66, 76, 86. etc.. How to determine the decade is to look at the casting number. If it's like C5AE-6015-E, that's an engine block that was originally intended for a 65 model car. C is 60something 5 makes it 65, A is a galaxie, E means it's an engine part of somesort, 6015 is the group number for some kind of an engine block, and E means that it's the 5th design modification of the original component. If it's a piece of sheet metal, like a fender or something, it will be like a number, a space, another number, another space and then a number, 1 through three and a letter. That's month, day, shift and the letter is the plant that made the part, as in C is Cleveland Ohio, D is Dearborn Michigan. Some of the aluminum parts, like bell housings and some water pumps, have what appears to be a circle with some bumps around the perimeter and a number in the middle. The number is the year, and the number of bumps is the month, as in 3 bumps is march, 6 bumps is june, etc.. If you go to my blog at http://thecareandfeedingofponies.blogspot.com/ there is a section on date codes that explains everything, like distributors, production dates of the car, etc..