1967 Camaro assembly line

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by Pro Stock John

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?

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

[67since67]

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

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

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.

[Big Block Bill]

[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

[Mr70]

Originally Posted by 67since67

In the late 1970's I did the towing for Harry Schmerler's "Singing Ford" dealership.

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

[dykstra]

Originally Posted by Mr70

"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!

[RPOLS3]

Originally Posted by dykstra

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

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

[67since67]

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

Most frequent would be fenders/hoods that get painted wrong (either wrong color or two tone wrong)

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

[dykstra]

Originally Posted by 67since67

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

No. Due tell please!!

[67since67]

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

[Keith Seymore]

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