Have been tearing down the 383 in my 70 Cuda recently. I've owned this car for about 22 years and had always assumed that motor had not been rebuilt previously.

While removing pistons and rods today I noticed that rod bearings are marked Clevite 77 on one side and 10 71 on the other. Is the 10 71 marking a date code? Did factory use Clevite bearings or would you expect factor original rod bearings to have Pentastar markings?

Not like it matters, but just curious about whether this is evidence of a previous rebuild.

Here is pic of other side with numbers I thought could be date code.

Pic of journal side of bearing.

Does this look like normal wear?

Yes, the 10-71 is the date code.

Yeah, the bearings were replaced probably in '72... And the bearing wear looks normal, but you need to have the crank measured (no plastigage) because I think it needs some attention.

Thanks for the replies

It probably got a crank kit under warranty - these cars were beat hard back then, My Dad's '69 Bee was on its 4th 383 and had the warranty voided when he bought it in '73 with 42k miles.

So would factory rod bearings have Pentastar stampings?

I've never seen pentastars on bearings, I've seen clevite's but not clevite 77's.

The last motor I tore down of that vintage was a '70 318 and it had 8-69 clevite bearings in it.