1967 Camaro assembly line
 

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I don’t know much about Camaros but is that firewall body color? Certainly isn’t anywhere near the same black as the heater box. Inner fenders appear the same . That’s very surprising to me .

Maybe a pilot car?

Might be the Van Nuys plant as the car in front of it does not appear to be a Camaro.

1crossram - Did van nuys have a body color firewall and inner fenders?

Definitely the Van Nuys plant. The firewall was painted a duller black than the heater box and inner fender panels. The firewall was definitely not body color.

Here’s a pic of the 67 bird has similar affect notice one inner fender looks that way other doesn’t quite as much could just be camera angle effect plus the change in gloss making it appear body color

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Here’s a few more ‘67 Assembly pics, others please speak up w/ plant locations etc.
Gotta love the last shot w/ first drive, somehow you can hear the tires screeching over background noises?
:beers:
~ Pete

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:beers:
~ Pete

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Why are the full size cars mixed in with the Camaro's

I think you mean "why are there Camaros mixed in with the full size cars?"

;)

That's how it was done (and how it is done).

Multiple products going down the same line, because one product line alone could not float all of that overhead cost, or to level the production workload between plants.

Fremont was similar in their product mix.

When I started at Hamtramck we had Cadillac CTS, Buick Lucerne and Chevy Volt going down the same line.

K

Yes - you can.

K

I grew up near the Framingham Mass GM plant in the mid sixties through the seventies they built the mid size cars there chevelle skylark cutlass Lemans but no convertibles they were built in Baltimore MD

That's a good point, too: sometimes there are production "monuments" in the plant that would not permit certain combinations to be built there.

In the full size truck world, Flint Assembly could build all combinations (ie, 2wd, 4wd, 10,20,30 series, regular cab and crew cab) but did not have the width to build dual rear wheeled vehicles. Those went to Janesville.

When the dealer orders came into Central Office they were meted out to the final assembly location somewhat based on geography, but also based on which plants could handle which option content.

K

A couple observations here:

1 - see the cars that seem to be going "the wrong way"?

Typically at the end of the final line there is what was called "short line repair". This would be a moving repair line for taking car of small issues that could be handled while the car is still moving (ie, back up lamps don't work, or quick and dirty fitment issues, A/C recharge, etc). For bigger issues the car would be moved to a static stall (aka "Heavy repair") for things like engine R&R, or axle swaps, or frame swaps.

There was typically a similar setup for paint repair: a short moving line for quick and easy stuff, and then a separate are for more major repair up to and including repainting the whole vehicle.

2 - see the flooring. It's those d@mn wood blocks. They were nasty.

They were hardwood, like 4x4 chunks set on end, and coated with something like creosote.

I'm not sure what the motivation for using them was; perhaps because they could be removed easily for assembly line rerouting at model change, or for repairs, or to provide some "cushion" if material (or a vehicle) got dropped.

But they were hard to walk or stand on all day, uneven, slippery, got the sealer all over everything, and made the area dark.

I used to take my shoes off and set them in the truck bed before getting in and wear clean shoes into the house. When I got to work the next day I'd remove my clean shoes, put on my steel toed Redwings and head back in.

K

This is a little off topic but I am reminded the stacks at Flint Assembly used to spit these little pellets of goo, that would float in the air and coat the homes across the street and the vehicles in the parking lot.

After a couple incidences of having GM clean the surface of my vehicle I finally bought a cheap car cover.

So after I grabbed my shop shoes from the bed of the truck, I would cover the truck up and THEN head back in.

K

A couple comments about front end sheet metal install -

There were two ways to do this: "piecemeal", that is, one fender at a time, or "buck build", where the fenders and rad support (and sometimes hood) were assembled as a unit off line and brought to the main line already put together.

The two ways would come and go, depending on what was en vogue at the time or who was in charge and what their favorite was.

When I started at Flint Assembly in 1979 it had two separate lines: Line 1 was full size pickups, at 60 jobs per hour, and Line 2 was Blazer/Suburban, at 36 jobs per hour.

Line 1 fenders were installed piecemeal (an area I actually supervised as my first "real job") and Line 2 front ends were buck built.

Same product, same building, two different techniques under the same roof.

K

You can see the build sheet hanging here, telling the operator(s) which parts to put on.

People like to talk about "finding THE build sheet" (which is remarkable, no doubt) but there wasn't just ONE build sheet: there would have been several.

Any area where parts were built up remotely and then conveyed to the main line would have had it's own build sheet: front end sheet metal, motor line, chassis line, seat room, axle line, etc.

The build sheets were supposed to be gathered up and thrown away along with all the other debris in the vehicle (extra screws, paper cups, love notes, numbers lists for your bookie, inspection tickets) but sometimes they got built right into the vehicle (in the seats, or behind the headliner, or under the carpet, or in the doors, or on top of the fuel tank) and it was easier to just leave them where they lay, sometimes embedded in goo or with a screw shot through them.

It must be a pretty good system; 60 years later we still build vehicles with a piece of paper hanging off the front end.

Speaking of inspection tickets - they had an additional informal function beyond just tracking repairs and completion. The tickets could indicate, based on where they were placed, what repairs were required. That is, rolled up and placed inside the coils near the master cylinder could indicate that the brakes failed the pressure test and needed a repair or to be re-bled. Smashed in the door opening might mean one thing, under the windshield wiper something else, and coiled and placed in the door handle yet a third thing.

Pity the poor young engineering student who pulls the ticket to look at it and then puts it back in the wrong spot.

K

Here's the build sequence number on this one: Number "62".

The full build sequence number would be much longer, like six digits, but the last two or three digits would be written in a form of shorthand. I would expect any other component built up remotely (front end sheet metal, rear axle, seats) to have a "62" scribbled on it somewhere.

This was intended to keep everything in sequence. It goes pretty easy as long as nothing gets disrupted, but get out of sequence and all hell breaks loose. You start seeing wrong color fenders (or bodies that don't match the frame) and you have to assess what went wrong and what has to be done to fix it, typically while the line continues to move.

At Flint, we had 1/2 ton 2wd (5 lug axles), 1/2 4wd (6 lug axles) and 3/4 and 1 ton axles (8 lugs). We used to keep a library of "wrong" tire/wheel assemblies at the tire install job so that if you had a wrong axle come down you could install the corresponding "wrong" tire/wheel assembly in order to keep the line moving. The vehicle would complete the process and then head out back to heavy repair to have the correct axle (and tire/wheels) installed.

Back to the sequence number - my red truck was apparently "number 87".

K

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...9.jpg~original

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...0.jpg~original

http://i1016.photobucket.com/albums/...0.jpg~original

You guys remember “pocket protectors”?

I don’t think I have any of mine, but I do have this one of dad’s on display.

Part of our daily arsenal, including these VIN cards we carried everywhere (for some reason; I guess in case we had to de-code a nasty VIN while we were in the bathroom or something) and a folded piece of paper with our notes for the day. Our nerd uniform would not be complete without it.

Also – the shirts for the foremen were provided by GM. Available in the lovely pastels of the time (coral, blue, green, yellow) and, of course, white, they were emblazoned with the person’s name and the Chevrolet bowtie.

I used to wear dad’s to school. I thought I was so cool.

K

Working in "the pit" was not great.

If you were very tall at all you had to be perennially hunched over, or you would bang your head on every sharp corner passing by (perhaps I should have said "...and you would bang your head..."). Stuff gets dripped or dropped on you all day and, truth be told, not all of it is accidental.

Since it is deer season I am reminded of a story:

I used to have a pit repairman by the name of Garfield Hardy. He was a small black man that had to have a step stool to reach the bottom of the truck.

For everybody else's benefit: When deer season rolls around in Michigan the high rate of absenteeism (both excused and unexcused) very nearly shuts the plant down. In order to combat that we would solicit volunteers from those of us who were left to work double shifts to keep the plant running. Garfield was one of those guys who would work every extra minute of overtime that he could get. I swear he would have killed a man on my behalf if I would have paid him through lunch.

After about a week of 16 or 20 hour days they would begin to take their toll. After one particularly long day (or so it seemed) I looked down in the pit to see Garfield, sitting on his stool, nodding off - barely able to shake himself awake.

Taking pity on the man, I shouted, mostly to wake him up without embarrassment: "Garfield, what does your wife think about you working all this overtime?".

He shot back, without hesitation and without opening his eyes: "She jus say: 'see ya lata, honey - Ahm goin' shoppin'!".



It's become sort of a standard chorus around my house, especially among my daughters...

K

Love the stories and the info, Keith! :headbang:

X2!!

Good stuff Keith - you're a wealth of information! I remember working in the pit at the St Louis assembly plant. Working each job down the line until you could keep up. The line workers were great. We (students) would give them a break from the routine. Seems like there were always some nuts and bolts flying around though :-)

Love these stories and pics!!! Sounds like many of our wives agree with Garfield's wife!

My '80 Blazer still has some of those crayon marks visible. I always thought that they had something to do with the model number.

Nope; nothing to do with the model number.

1980 Blazer model number would be K10516 btw.

And - would have been built in Flint. I might have seen it go by ;)

K

https://www.gm.com/content/dam/compa...let-Blazer.pdf
CC10516 = Chevrolet, 2wd Blazer
CK10516 = Chevrolet, 4wd Blazer
TC10516 = GMC, 2wd Jimmy
TK10516 = GMC, 4wd Jimmy

Re Woodblock Flooring
 

Quote
"2 - see the flooring. It's those d@mn wood blocks. They were nasty.

They were hardwood, like 4x4 chunks set on end, and coated with something like creosote.

I'm not sure what the motivation for using them was; perhaps because they could be removed easily for assembly line rerouting at model change, or for repairs, or to provide some "cushion" if material (or a vehicle) got dropped.
But they were hard to walk or stand on all day, uneven, slippery, got the sealer all over everything, and made the area dark.
I used to take my shoes off and set them in the truck bed before getting in and wear clean shoes into the house. When I got to work the next day I'd remove my clean shoes, put on my steel toed Redwings and head back in.
K"

You are SO! correct. FWIW You Taxpayers continue to employ these floors continuously since 1930 at your Four Public Naval Shipyards. (*Talk about getting your monies worth.) The wood blocks allow for easy access to utilities and modifications to IPE industrial plant equipment "Floor plans". They are interlocked by a rabbet cut into the blocks making a stable surface for protection of precision parts unintended gravity drops and recoveries. They floors Stink forever! The Buckle when roof or inside gutter-downspouts leak.

Keith thanks for the stories from the line.

So how messed up would the line get if you pulled a car early on, or are so many cars getting pulled it's a frequent occurrence?

Thanks Keith!

Our plant converted from block floor to cement. Some millwright decided they would be great firewood for his cabin up north. A few months later, the plant is in deep shit with the EPA. Turns out the blocks were leaching chromium and other nasties into one of Michigan's pristine rivers. Took a while to chase down the pile, and work it back to the plant. You can bet that they made sure those blocks were properly disposed of from then on!

I remember a purple short-bed truck coming down the line with a purple long-bed on it. Turns out the long bed truck with the short bed had come down the line about 20 minutes before. They blocked up the bed so it would go down the line and attached what they could, the rest went into the bed to be shorted out at the repair station.
Didn't happen often - there's not enough room to in the plant for that!

I'll add that much of this is discussed in JohnZ's article, including the difference between LOS and NOR front sheet metal. http://www.camaros.org/assemblyprocess.shtml

In October, 1972, I started working at the St. Paul Ford plant. As the low man on the seniority list, I got moved all over the plant. I, eventually, got settled starting on the F line in the morning and was lucky if I got to stay there all day. We were working Saturdays and on one, I was pulled from the truck line very soon after starting and sent to the car line, where I had to thread the trunk light in and a couple other jobs AND tear a build sheet off a printer and get it taped to the correct vehicle. It was a very fast paced I was having difficulty keeping up and told the line foreman I either needed more time with the trainer or he needed to get someone with more experience to do the job. I even told the relief man that when it was time for my break. Nope, you stay right here. Wasn't long after that, I heard a loud, angry discussion from the line foreman and someone from the office and they came back to me. I had missed a build sheet and they had 3 bodies on the floor at the marriage line with the chassis... both the guys were shouting at me and I reminded the foreman that I had told him I wasn't able to do the job and he insisted I stay on it. The guy from the office blew a gasket at that and off they went. I had a trainer next to me in a matter of minutes, but lunch break came and I was just so pissed and frustrated, I went out to my car and went home. Monday is a whole 'nuther story...:grin:

That's one of the good things about building pickup trucks (I guess) - you just throw all the loose parts in the bed and kick that can on down the road.

We had a truck one time that didn't get the hole cut out for the floor shifter. Didn't realize it until body drop, when the cab wouldn't sit down on the mounts.

The repair man rode that one down the final line, cutting the hole with a hammer and chisel, while the cab was teetering on the trans tower. The fenders, hood, batteries, etc all went in the pickup box to get installed in heavy repair.

K

I feel your pain; been on both sides of that equation.

Folks get mighty touchy when you start shutting the line down.

K

See Mitch's post above ;)

Pulling a whole build (either body or chassis) is pretty rare; like a body would have to get dropped out of the clamshell, or speared with a forklift. Sometimes build sheets get mis-installed, or blown away by a random man cooling fan. Maybe once or twice in forty years.

Pulling a whole build due to scheduling, like parts shortage, or during new model introduction, was a bit more frequent. Like a couple times during model launch.

Even then you try to "cheat it" to keep yourself on track, like maybe running an empty carrier where that car would have been, or taping a sign to the windshield to let everybody down stream know what was going on.

Most frequent would be fenders/hoods that get painted wrong (either wrong color or two tone wrong), or wrong emblems. It's not obvious when you are putting those parts on in the extreme boonies of the plant and you don't have any frame of reference other than the build sheet.

It becomes more obvious when those parts make it to the final line, when you are putting red fenders on a tan truck, but even then it can be pretty discreet. I know of trucks that were built Chevy on one side and GMC on the other, that made it past several on line inspectors, a couple post line inspectors, shipping and receiving, dealer prep and into customer hands. That's a whole lotta people not paying very good attention to what they were supposed to be doing.

K

I was just thinking the other day about an incident we had on the Volt program.

In the Hamtramck plant the first place the new content would hit would be the IP line, where the dash assembly was built up and the instrument cluster, radio, HVAC controls, etc, would be installed. We would hang out there in order to get an early look at how the options were broadcasting.

One time I was standing there with my plant host, the plant planner, and the line stopped. Having grown up on the assembly line I’m a bit sensitive to when it goes down so I cut into our conversation abruptly and asked “why are we down?”

“Uh – we’re on break” he said, looking around nervously.

“Good” I said. “I wanted to make sure it wasn’t my fault”.

HA HA, right?

In about two minutes one of the other engineers comes running over, all in a huff. “SEYMORE!” he says. “We’re not on break; we're down on the IP line and IT’S YOUR FAULT!”.

A bit surprised at this sudden change of status I sauntered over and there was a crowd of neckties around the radio install. The line superintendent (the foreman's boss) was there and took the opportunity to show boat a bit by ripping me a new one about engineering changes, and how stupid engineers are, and how disruptive temporary changes are, etc. It was in that supportive environment I had to figure out what was going on. It seemed that one of the inspection features had the line shut down, the symptom being that as the operator tried to scan one of the bar codes the reader didn’t recognize it as the right part and stopped the line. After a couple minutes I asked her to show me what she was doing.

“I’m scanning this” she said “but it won’t go.”

That’s when I noticed she was scanning the wrong bar code; Operator error. I showed her the uplevel part number and code and when she hit that with the laser reader “…whirrrrrr” everything spun back to life. The crowd quietly disbursed and everybody went back to whatever they were doing.

I just thought it was funny that it was "wasn’t my fault/was my fault/wasn’t my fault".

Do you suppose I ever got an apology from the superintendent for improperly, inappropriately and incorrectly dressing me down in front of a whole passel of plant and engineering personnel?

Of course not.

K

I always enjoy reading John Z's write up at CRG.

I went back just now to read about the front end sheet metal and noticed a couple things:

1 - about shimming:

What we used to do for fender shims is tape a packet together, like 3 shims, ahead of time and we would run those all day whether the truck we were currently building needed it or not.

Eventually the final repair supervisor would call back and say something encouraging, like "SEYMORE!! YOU IDIOT!! WTH ARE YOU THINKING?!?! ALL THESE FENDERS ARE RUNNING HIGH!! ARE YOU EVEN LOOKING AT THESE TRUCKS?!? TAKE A SHIM OUT BEFORE I COME BACK THERE AND SHOW YOU HOW TO DO THIS!!" I can just imagine the spittle flying into the phone mouthpiece.

So we would start running a new shim pack, like 2 shims, until he called again with his latest observation.

Basically it was to address "macro trends". You had about 45 seconds to complete the truck in front of you and move to the next one; that's not enough time to fit and re-fit each individual truck.

This technique would get you close on the majority of vehicles. There was a repair station at the end of my area. There was also a short moving repair line (two, actually) at the end of final line. If they could fix them there while on the move then they would; otherwise it would be out to a stationary repair stall in "heavy repair" for the really bad ones.

I should add that some of the repairs did not consist of removing the bolt or adding/deleting shims. Often the repair consisted of bending, twisting or hammering while the line was moving.

I had four guys hanging fenders, btw. One at the front and one at the rear of the LH fender; one at the front and one at the rear of the RH fender. They could do the job by themselves if properly motivated, like if their buddy wanted to punch out a couple jobs early, or to help move one or two jobs when the line first started and there weren't enough operators - but I would never ask them to do that.

2- squaring fixtures:

We never had much luck with fixtures of any kind. Usually what would happen is the guys would use them whenever there was management or any other spectators around, but when not being directly observed they wouldn't use them, especially if they were big/bulky/hanging overhead on balancers.

K

KS...love to read those stories!!

This photo is from Fremont but it reminded me of something.

Flint Assembly has an unusual arrangement, in that the two final lines come together in the middle of the plant to form a “main aisle”, with assembly action on either side.

As I student I used to host the factory tours, when Boy Scouts or Rotary Club or the DAR or whomever would come in for a plant visit. The tour was very high level and consisted of a run down the main aisle to the end of final and then back.

Flint’s second story is very high as you can see in the second photo. The body drop clamshell operators would show off a bit for the tours, letting the cab and box essentially free fall and then stop abruptly mere inches above the chassis.

It was, admittedly, pretty impressive and the groups were fascinated. They would stand and watch for as long as I would let them.

K

Fortunately - you don't have to keep them all inside!

Here's a picture of Flint Assembly's back yard. These are all vehicles awaiting repair of some kind or to be driven over to the shipping yard.

Flint Assembly, Flint Metal Fab and the V8 Engine plant are all co-located on the same piece of property bounded by I-75, I-69, Van Slyke and Bristol Roads. I've seen them completely fill the back yard and flow over into the adjacent parking lots with repair jobs*.

In fact - some times we would lose vehicles back there. They would usually turn up during model changeover when the repair back log would get worked down. Often by then we had already built and shipped a replacement vehicle made to those same specifications.

K

*During the chip shortage vehicles were also stored at a defunct horse race track (Sports Creek) in nearby Swartz Creek Michigan. That is pretty typical, as Ford used to store vehicles at the Cedar Point amusement park, for example (they ended up losing quite a few from there as well - stolen).

Love these stories - thanks