One other thought relative to moving all these vehicles around:

For those of you familiar with the UAW and the plant structure you know there are multiple jobs and job classifications. For example, there is an "assembler" classification with an associated rate of pay, and then maybe a "utility assembler" classification for a few pennies more an hour, on up through repair and skilled trades. Advancement through these non-skilled designations is based solely upon seniority.

One of those classifications is "driver". So - there are a particular set of people (and pay rate) whose sole function is to drive the vehicle off the end of the line, perform the roll test, shuttle the vehicle to the various short repair lines inside the building, and/or shuttle vehicle between locations outside the plant.

The assembly line would be scheduled to run a particular time period in advance (say 8 hours, or 10 hours, or 11 hours) but could spontaneously be increased (or decreased) to meet the immediate need. For example, final might go "8.0" but trim might go "8.2" or "8.5" in order to re-fill any buffers that had been depleted throughout the shift. Cab shop might go "9.0" that day for the same reason. The change would be communicated through shouts up and down the line, often before the foreman would receive the official news by phone.

After running all day teams would be assigned to work overtime, after the line shut down, to work the repair down. Often times it felt like a punitive measure, especially if it had been a tough day with a lot of repair. Hourly volunteers would be solicited to drive out back, for overtime pay and at the (typically higher) driver pay rate, and foremen would take turns in an attempt to spread the load out.

I say all this to say: you might work a scheduled 11 hour day, then get tapped to work another hour or two out back working repair. Then go home, sleep, and come back in the next day to do it all again.

K

One tenth of an hour = 6 minutes. Everything was done in 6 minute increments.

Line 1 first shift would eat lunch from 10:12 to 10:42 am.

Line 2 first shift would eat lunch from 10:54 to 11:24.

Meanwhile, these days, I cannot remember if I ate lunch or not.

K

Keith,First,thanks for all your knowledge & details about this process.
Second,What could one do if you didn't want to eat Lunch in that 30 Min period back then?
Could you drive to a FF restaurant nearby,or read the Newspaper in an open area outside to pass the time,or did you have to stay inside?

Can't speak for Keith's situation, but the Ford plant allowed us to go out of the building and off the grounds, as long as we were "on station" when the line started. MANY of the jobs could be worked ahead and that happened nearly every day, as the entire plant shut down for 30 minutes, EXACTLY. The line workers would start working back down the line about 2 cars before they entered that persons designated area and it seemed half the plant was mobbing the exit doors 3 minutes before the line even stopped. When the people got back, if the next car they needed to work on was in the next station, they would start a few minutes before the line and get caught up.
As an aside, there were 3 bars conveniently located immediately across the street that served "lunch"... and cashed the patrons pay checks right inside the door on Friday's. Checks were always distributed before lunch. I went over there for a quick burger a few times and it was a chore to get there, wolf down food and run back 1/4 mile thru the huge parking lot to the plant and sometimes another 1/4 mile to my station. The bar I went to had a large, horseshoe shaped serving area and most of the chairs were "owned" by an employee that had sat there every day for years and there would be 2 drinks of that persons choice sitting in front of those chairs....every day. None of them had beer bottles set up... The bartender, servers and cooks knew exactly what and how much to make for those people and they would sit down, slam the first drink and a plate was dropped in front of them. Some drank the second while eating and the tender would have a 3rd waiting for when they got done. Then, they got up and left and we plebes could sit for about 5-6 minutes. I never saw them pay and later learned they ran a weekly tab that was deducted from their cash at the window on Friday. The whole place ran as efficiently as the assembly line.

This is absolutely correct. There was always a little shop bar across the street from any assembly plant.

If you didn't want to eat during your designated lunch time you could snack while you worked. There was usually enough time between vehicles to take a bite, read a bit of the newspaper and then get the next one. There were some guys that ate nonstop.

There was always a picnic table in the area so you could spread out, or for meetings with the shop committeeman.

K

It was like that at the beginning of the shift, too.

It can be pretty lonely standing there at 5:58 am with just you, your quality man and one or two of your best guys hanging around. But - if you are patient - the line will chug at 6:00 am and move about one job length before someone else chickens out and shuts 'er down. By then you can see the rest of your workers, quick stepping down the aisle, tying their aprons and putting their gloves on while in motion. They can catch the job they missed, the one in front of them, and the next job, and be sitting reading the newpaper before the line starts back up in earnest.

Having said all that: I honestly don't think I ever pushed the button myself to shut the line down, even as a "wet behind the ears" 19 yr old production supervisor. Somebody else would always shut it down first.

K

Most plants these days don't want repairs waiting. Build it once. But that depends on management and has changed over the years. JohnZ's book talks about 6000 cars outside of Lordstown, waiting on repairs.
JohnZ's book - The Automobile Business - from the Bottom Up

Not sure if you remember the Ford Expedition seat shortage. One of the top $ makers for Ford and no rear seats. So they just built them and stored them anywhere they could lease within 10 miles of the plant. They were literally everywhere around Wayne MI. Can't imagine the logistics of keys and moving vehicles and people around.

A friend ordered a '73 GMC short/wide, 454 with pretty much every option.
It was delivered to him with interior door panels Sierra Grande drivers side and Cheyenne Super pass side.

You guys have heard the story of the C3 Corvette painted blue on one side and green on the other??....

No. Due tell please!!:dunno:

In 2019 I was at a St Louis Chapter NCRS judging meet. Three or four Corvette plant retirees were telling stories.

Corvette bodies were painted with a painter on each side, they sprayed from the bottom up meeting top center.

Story goes that a painter was color blind, but he knew which paint tank had which color, so no problem switching to the appropriate color as bodies came through.
Well, while he was on break the tanks were refilled, but the color order was mixed up, so after break he connected to the wrong tank resulting in a body green on one side and blue on the other. - Bill W

Oh my.

Seems like the kind of thing one would take into consideration when passing out job assignments.

But - far be it from me to judge.

I had a little lady who put the LH fender grille trim on. The only problem was every 12th job was a military vehicle (aka "CUCV") and she was supposed to put the battery in on those.

She was so tiny, couldn't heft the battery and couldn't get it up over the fender. Guess who put every one of those batteries in?

I don't know why we didn't move her to a different job. I didn't even think of it until just a couple months ago when telling this story.

K

When I first started working at the Ford plant, workers would put cans of soup and such just inside the paint bake ovens to warm for lunch. The seasoned workers knew where to put the cans so they didn't overheat....see where this is going ?? One day a car came down the final checkout line I was working that day and the entire side looked like it had projectile vomit on it. Yep, a newbie put a can of chili too close to the heat and it exploded. Word went around the plant very quickly that the practice was to be stopped immediately. As most things like that go, the workers started sneaking cans back in after a couple months.

[QUOTE=67since67;1639457]A friend ordered a '73 GMC short/wide, 454 with pretty much every option.
It was delivered to him with interior door panels Sierra Grande drivers side and Cheyenne Super pass side.[/

In the late 1970's I did the towing for Harry Schmerler's "Singing Ford" dealership. One day I'm in the show room and I pass by a Loaded Crown Victoria Brougham that had "Crown Victoria Brougham on the left C pillar and Grand Marquis on the right C pillar and it was a padded half roof so it happened at Ford / Mercury plants as well. Bill

Yep; we'd warm our pasties in the paint oven.

We also used K05 block heaters to heat our coffee/tea water.

K

"Rock-a-bye your baby"....

Boy, does that bring me back to my childhood. I remember that jingle. Now I can’t get it out of my head!

----When Jan and I were living in Hinsdale she had a route sales job. They gave her a new Chrysler product. It was an Omni on one side and a Horizon on the other. She fondly called it her Horomni. It fit the car well....Bill S

Could have also called it the "Chrymouth" lol

Exactly what I was thinking.............

https://i.postimg.cc/rsDBP2vb/3a.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/HnFqGPmL/3b.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/7Pc8Tbzy/3c.jpg

Nice car, A/C, dual exhaust, power windows, rs. Wonder if it is an SS L48/L35 or L30 RS ? Very interesting to look at.

That device is called a "wheel lug multiple".

As you might guess - it runs all the wheel lug nuts down at the same time.

In a truck plant, building multiple series, you'd have to have several of those hanging lineside: one for 1/2 ton 2wd (ie, 5 lug), 1/2 ton 4wd (6 lug) and then 3/4 ton and 1 ton (8 lug) [plus backups in case the primary tool goes down].

They were suspended on a tool rail from a "balancer" which offsets the weight of the device. If it was set up correctly you could move it up and down with just one finger.

K

Also - you can see that the work takes place at waist height.

The idea is that, ergonomically, you would grab the tire from the delivery system (probably at waist height) and then carry it over and install it on the car without having to bend over.

Most of the guys wouldn't do that. They would let the tire drop off the delivery conveyor, bounce it once like a basketball and let it hop right up into place.

There was an interesting guy in the St Louis truck plant, with a handlebar moustache. When he notice a crowd of visiting dignitaries he'd start showing off, letting the tire bounce while doing a flip, or bouncing them behind his back before popping them on.

It only reinforced my opinion: if you see a guy with a handlebar moustache you better keep an eye on him.

K

No A/C on L35 cars.

How did painting cars on the line work?

Would there be a grouping of cars by color, paint them in a series, clean the guns and then spray the next group?

Depends.

There could be groupings of cars (ie, several red cars in a row), but it kind of depended on the plant management philosophy, and union appetite.

That is, some plants would not allow too many cars of one color in a row. There may have been a work load leveling aspect, as you could not run too many A/C cars in a row, or too many manual trans cars, or too many tripowers, or too many sunroofs in a row. Certainly you couldn't have too many two tones, or vinyl tops in a row. Or maybe they just didn't like seeing them all the same.

In any case, when spraying manually there were separate guns and systems for the different colors. So after spraying a series of red cars you would hang that gun up and pick up the gun for the next vehicle. Separate gun, lines and paint vats for each.

Mechanized spray guns, on a reciprocating arm or gantry, would turn away and purge as you have suggested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYgxgGlN8CM&t=1192s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5kqXN0gIb0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbTsvPSr_2M

For low volume or special colors (like John Deere green, or Mary Kay pink) there was usually a smaller separate system, with a smaller pot. That way you could load the unusual color for small runs and then clean the system when done with less waste.

I would remind the reader that the operator didn't worry about any of this. He could have been sweeping floors one day and painting cars the next. He just showed up and pulled the trigger, hopefully without screwing too much up. Skilled tradesmen (millwrights I suspect or maybe pipefitters) took car of all the setup, maintenance and cleaning.

K

We went to robotics in the mid to late 80's at truck, both reciprocating arm sprayers and then, slightly later, a "turbine bell".

The "Mini bell", as it was called, was a Behr product. It was a small cone shaped head, like a shower head, that spun at a high rate of speed (ie, 20,000 rpm) and slung the paint towards the car. The car was electrically charged so that the paint particles were "drawn" to it. In fact, you could stand next to the car and see the paint going around corners to attach to the back side.

The only problem was....the electrical charge would cause all the metallic particles in the paint to line up in an orderly fashion. This, of course, meant they didn't match the paint chip - or the front clip. We ended up spraying a top coat on those metallic colors manually in the paint repair both so that everything would match like it was supposed to. Non metallic color cars could just pass right through.

K

In the background of the guy painting the rally wheels you can see water flowing down the back wall of the booth.

The vacuum from this waterfall would suck in the paint overspray so that it could be collected as a sludge, dried out and discarded in a manner befitting hazardous waste.

Ford Motor Company would collect the sludge to polish and sell/reuse as a commerical product (aka "Fordite").

https://fordite.com/

K

Amazing, the amount of organization.

Thanks again for your insight Keith!