I have no knowledge of this car and not wanting to upset the apple cart, but I personally do not believe that this is an assembly line hose. A couple of things to note on the hose is as follows:
1. The date code, just like us for our reproduction hoses, we use a date code of 01019 for a January 1, 1969. Yours was a 01029 for a January 2, 1969. I would personally believe that it would be something like 03289, for March 28, 1969.
2. Look at the stenciling, the hose is pulled through a reel that places that lettering at a prescribed distance. If you look at a factory hose, the lettering is generally more consistent. The stencil on each strike is usually consistent as it fits the profile of the hose precisely and supplies the same amount of ink on each strike. If you look at the "SAE40R3L", you will see areas typically associated with hand stamps. It is very difficult to hand stamp the hose as it is round and most hand stamps are flat which leads to the rocking motion which leaves areas not covered uniformly.
3. The actual date code is a different Font size than the other lettering on the hose. From what I have seen and been around, the lettering was the same font size. I have seen some of the Ford applications that used the same hose that used as I recall a smaller font for the date code.
4. I have looked at the "Butter Bee" and the 5600 mile R4 Bee and only on the Butter Bee is there a very short section of hose with the "SAE 40R3L" still visible on the hose. This section was at the nipple to the carb.
I know for the hose stenciling that we do, we are able to purchase either Gates or Goodyear hose in bulk with no stenciling and ribs. Depending upon the application, we have the tooling to duplicate the ribs in the various hoses and similar stenciling machines which can have the stenciling head swapped out to allow different date codes. Back in the day, manufactures would have a series of "blanks" which would represent the different characters to do the desired date code. Different plants from the same manufacture will often times have a distinguishing way to identify the product from a particular vendor. That is the reason for the ribbing or the different number of dots on rubber bumpers.
Again, I am not hear trying to throw stones, but just expressing my views and hopefully help others to learn more about the cars. You can never say never as Mopar was not quite as bad as American Motors as doing the absurd, but we in the Mopar world are still way behind in the GM and Ford restoration field. But through the efforts of people digging and searching for answers, we are quickly catching them and bringing highly restored cars to shows that can compete heads up with the best of the GM and Ford marquees.
Please continue to post pictures and questions as this is the way that we all learn and improve upon what we currently know.
