69 COPO Camaro inspection marks
 

I'm a detail nerd, but I know better than to replicate marks unless they were there originally -so I was in for a treat when I cleaned the steering components on a customer's COPO car today. I thought I'd share because I'm sure that there are guys out there that are bigger nerds for this than I am who are taking on the noble task of documenting this stuff. Does anyone maybe have any pics of an original car with the same or similar markings so that I can get a better idea of how they looked originally? mostly the tie rod ends...the rest is pretty obvious....
another thing worth mentioning -the cotter pins for the pitman arm and idler arm to the center link were copper. as far as i know, this was never messed with. It seems like I can remember working on a camaro or chevelle with my dad when i was a kid (maybe 30 years ago) and him mentioning something about having noticed this on other cars but I may be misremembering. anyone got any insight?

Car is an 03D 427/M22 X11 VE3 car with manual steering and is remarkably intact and original despite having had a rough life

More pics

More pics

I was encouraged when I saw the pink paint on your pitman arm. Mine had pink paint on the pitman arm and the drag link. I want ahead and replicated what was on the drag link, but had previously cleaned the pitman arm (put on power steering and then changed it back to manual) years earlier.

I did not document mine like you have. I can tell you that mine had white paint on one spindle and red (almost orange) paint on the other. I think this is something that may have changed a lot over the course of a year.

yes, Lynn! they certainly did change a lot....I doubt anyone will ever decipher any rhyme or reason to them -at least not with any level of certainty.

I found orange, pink, and white on my steering components. Did my best to replicate what I found. Will definitely go back and look at mine again and compare to what you have documented here. I know for sure I found white on my center link like you did.

In the 80's BMWs got yellow paint on all the suspension nuts that were tightened. It was always my understanding that on the line, the guy responsible for checking torque, put the torque wrench on each nut, then immediately daubed some yellow paint.

Do you suppose it was the same thing on these Camaros, but they just used whatever color they had in front of them? Seems to be no rhyme or reason. My center link had pink for sure. Don't know why there would be different colors. Anyone ever try to rub a little paint off with lacquer thinner? If it comes off easily, it is lacquer. If not, then it is enamel.

IIRC, the vehicle assembly plant did not use paint marks like this.
It was done at the supplier plant.

Interesting, but makes sense. The assembly line would likely not have time to connect/torque all these steering components. Kurt, when you say supplier, I assume you don't mean the individual component manufacturer but rather the supplier who built the sub-assembly and shipped to GM assembly? If so, do we know who the supplier is for the front steering/suspension sub-assembly?

Kurt is correct.

I will expand a bit. Most of the colors were right vs left designations or QA/QC colors/marks applied by the manufacturing plants that were owned by GM (e.g. saganaw gear) and also paper tags/stickers to insure the correct part was installed to match the build manifest.

Other marks were simple assembly aids. A mark on top to designate "top or front" to prevent a worker from attempting the assembly task in the wrong orientation or non official build designation abbreviations mostly found on select front sheet metal components in the dog house build area. Another example was the radiator line where the metal designation tag would get dressed with crayon to highlight the letters on the tag. This was done to simply prevent post production rework and classed discrepancy on the line which could drag down the entire plant's quality score.

Finally class A defect marking: When a Class A discrepancy was encountered in production a 100% check was implemented as near as possible to the operation where the defect was first encountered. Typically the check was a mark or a daub of paint indicating that the assembly operation was performed correctly. When the defect was no longer present the requirement for the mark or daub was discontinued as the operation was then considered again "in control". (Ref: Echoes of Norwood Pages 127-128)

My 69Z, being a dry desert car had a bunch of these markings preserved.

When I took the suspension apart and cleaned everything I found pretty much all the same colors all over mine. White on the center link, pink and orange on most of the other parts. One spindle had so much orange on it, it looked like they just poured the can on it. Orange on the tie rods as well. It's also a factory manual steer car by the way.

I believe Saginaw Gear did the subassembly.