Factory paint the back of the engine?

Trying to determine if this engine has been rebuilt & I've never noticed the back of a engine painted, is this typical? This is a '72 360 & I am going to put core plugs in & clean it up just trying to determine if it's been into.

Automatic transmission block applications will have some over spray.

Manual transmission block applications had the bell housing mounted before paint.

That's been my experience too, no paint on the transmission side.
See if it still has stock head gaskets, usually you can see the edge of the gskt.

Looks like the motor was painted with the flex plate & torq converter hooked up.

Would the head gaskets be steel shim gaskets?

The motor is from a 70k mile truck strong running 360, pretty uniform compression & clean plugs.

All I am planning on doing is pulling the oil pan, the timing cover assy. off & checking timing chain slack & putting new water pump/gaskets/core plugs.

Also adding an aluminium intake, someone put a early '80's quadrajet intake/carb & I have a new Holley SA 670 off my '67 Barracuda I only ran a month or so.

Bolt heads is what I look at Grancuda to see if something has been opened up.

I would agree that it looks like factory paint. Any signs of paint on the distributor or clamp?

Back of my 1969 340 block with factory paint still on. It is a 4 speed car.

You can turn the crank counter clockwise with a breaker bar, after taking out the slack in the normal direction. Observe how far the mark on the balancer moves before the rotor starts to turn. Might save you the trouble taking the cover off.
Not sure when the 360s had steel shim gaskets, sorry. My '85 Ram came with a quadrajet, ran well, but carb wasn't made very well and I was constantly messing with it. Good you've got an option.