Somethings the site does that I don't agree

Swinger 340 said
Body numbers usually don't lie. If you are going to spend a lot of money on a car, do your homework. The word "RESTORED" is overused. A restored car should have all the collect parts or items that came with that car. "REBUILT" may be a better terminology for this car.

"restored" is a very broad category, there are levels to restoration. Concourse restoration, for example, would mean all original/date coded parts in most cases. People will say it's had a "rotisserie restoration", well, that means something different too and I'd expect the bottom of the car to be nicer, right? I would not expect a car that's just been "restored" to be all original or date code correct, that is the most strict sense of the word. Clearly the car in question has not been restored back to factory or concourse levels, but it's pretty far beyond just a rebuild.

OneOfMany said
Yes. The car was restored by cc in 1984. That makes it 15yrs old at the time. The Mecum sale I linked from 2022 lists the VIN and the description also says matching numbers engine.
If the car has it's original engine, the likelihood that during the original restoration someone removed the bracket, even if that area of the pan needed replacing, and did not reuse it when putting the original engine back in is highly suspect.

Further to looking for other items that are unique to 340 cars, with the exception of bolt ons like springs, brakes/rear, dash and fendertag there are only a couple of things. Body numbers, right exhaust bracket, and possibly torque boxes (and being a small block automatic, these were normally not installed). I don't believe a coin was on the k member until 1970, but I stand to be corrected if so.

Right, but in 1984 how many people gave a flip about an original exhaust hanger? Not nearly as many as now, that's for sure. And a magazine restoration? More about the deadlines and the print than making it a gold concourse car. Again, this car was in a condition such that the owner didn't think twice about trading it for a rebuilt Muncie.

The washer/"coin" on the 340 K's appears to have started in '68 sometime, at least according to other 340 owners 69 340 k member? Help

But, the presence of the washer and the torque boxes was not 100%. There are legitimate 340 cars without them. They may be the exceptions, but, my point is there are exceptions. Which is why taking a single item and calling fraud if it's not present is silly on these cars. The factory did not have the level of diligence as some of our purists do now. A single missing thing doesn't make a fraudulent deal. If multiple things were missing then sure, my index of suspicion would go up with each item. But ultimately, if the numbers on the body, engine and transmission match, well, that's a pretty good argument for being a legit 340 car. Better than it not being one just because a 56 year old car that's been rebuilt/restored multiple times came out missing an exhaust hanger at some point. I mean how many cars are missing fender tags because they were lost at the shop or by a previous owner? You'd think that would be more important than an exhaust hanger, and people lose fender tags all the time.