Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..

Kevin,

Just went out and looked at the car..The Fisher body number is a B 6354xx number so I'm not sure how that works as far as the "1" denoting a series production..The "data processing numbers" are 0111 (B D 0111) so not sure if it relates to that or not..What are yours? I have often wondered how the factory tracked cars that were on the line, and what method they used to keep track of cars with new RPO's (whether tracking for quality or assembly procedure)..Any thought?

Greg

[Verne_Frantz]

Greg,

My research falls 6 years short of when your car was built, but based on many, many cowl tags from Baltimore from earlier cars, I believe these "extra" numbers refer to the body buck # (or "jig") that was used to build the body.
In 1964 Fisher Body at Baltimore built full size cars. They used 32 different bucks to hold the various metal pieces in place for welding, such as cowl, "A" piller, floor pan, rockers, quarters, roof, etc. Based on their expected sales of each body style, ie: 2dr Sedan, 4dr hardtop, sport coupe, convertible, etc, they had one or more bucks set for the right pieces to build those bodies. Each set of 32 bucks was called a "gate" (a gate of 32 cars). Other plants may have had 25 car gates or 20 car gates. By looking at my data on many of these cars, comparing these numbers to the various body styles produced, I've concluded these numbers correspond to the number of the body jig used to build "that" particular body. It would make sense that they would want to be able to document which body jig was used, in case some cars started to have problems later in assembly with things like glass or door fit, etc. The build sheets don't contain that information, and once the gate of 32 bodies was completed, they were banked until they were needed to meet the corresponding chassis on the Chevrolet side of the wall.
It does not surprise me that your pilot car is stamped with a "1".........
After all, pilot cars were built ahead of production launch to test tooling fit and establish assembly methods for the new models.

Verne
Again, I can not speak with certainty about the practices in '70.

Verne,

Very interesting info...Thanks for sharing..That makes sense about the factory wanting to keep track of the body jigs used on various cars, to potentially show any problems. My green 1970 is a "pilot" car, but certainly not the first 1970 Chevelle built at Baltimore..It is perhaps the 1st LS6 built there(an extremely good possibilty), but not sure if that would have made them use "jig" "1" or not..I was speculating that the numbers might have had more to do with quality control (sort of what you are implying as well), but more for the RPO side of things..vs. the actual body assembly. Do you know why this practice only seems to have happened at Baltimore? Any thoughts on what appears to be some correlation between the "B D" codes in the data processing line..ie.."B D 0111" (my green car) and floor shift transmissions at the least?? I am working on trying to gather as many 1970 cowl tags from various Chevelles/Malibus (both "SS" and non-"SS" cars as well as floor and column shift) built at Baltimore. I'm hoping there is a direct relationship between the presence of a "B D," code and the fact a car is a floor shifted car or an "SS". This possibilty was presented by Kevin (musclecarkid on here) earlier. I'd love to chat someday..My work number is 800-669-5834 ext 238. thanks again for sharing some really neat info.

Greg

Here is my cowl tag info on the green car...


ST 70 13637 B635403 BDY

Tr 771 48 48 PNT

12B B D 0111


It is interesting that "Dave70SS," has a L78 that has a build date of 12A, that has a body number that is quite aways apart from my car, yet was built only 1 week earlier.
Also his "B D," numbers are the same..Any thoughts as to if the "B D," numbers might be batch numbers, and that his car and my car were both part of the same batch of bodies?? However Verne's post sort of implys that there was only 1 of each number in each batch, and we (Dave70SS and myself) both have "1" cars, so.......

[Verne_Frantz]

Greg,
First of all, I need to admit to a mistake in my first post. I had completely forgotten that Baltimore stopped building full size passenger cars in '64. But my data is still accurate if I look at '63. In '64, Baltimore switched to Trucks and Chevelles.
Also, (unfortunately) you are definitely asking the wrong guy about '70 Chevelle cowl tags. I haven't studied them at all. I was only trying to offer a possible explanation for those random misc numbers. On the earlier passenger cars, these numbers are, as yours are, placed in odd locations and at various angles, which indicates to me that they were not punched at the same time as the tag was loaded in the "typewriter" tool used to punch all the other information. It suggests to me that these extra numbers were punched separately using another type of simple tool that was only used for those numbers.
I don't know how many jigs comprised a gate at Baltimore in '70, but I would be very surprised of they only had one per body style. I'm sorry if it seemed like that was what I was implying. In '63 the passenger cars had 7 different body styles. They were distributed in various quantities in the 32 car gate. Also, during the model year, some jigs were changed from one body style to another. For instance, there would probably be more orders for convertibles in May than in December, so Fisher had to adjust the percentages of body styles in a gate to satisfy the orders. I've proven this in my data base by sorting these misc numbers by production sequence number and looking at the body styles as they changed, but with the same misc (jig) number.

The B D numbers are totally greek to me. I can verify however that the earlier cars used cryptic codes for an SS option, as well as for a floor shift car.

The last thing I want to do is confuse things even more, but I noticed your body build date is December, well into full production. So, if your car is a pilot car, then it must have been the first to be built in some new way, or with some new equipment which required new tooling or assembly methods for this mid '70 production release. Was there something "new" released in '70 Chevelle production in the January time frame? Most pilot cars were built 4-5 months prior to production launch, or as close as 2 months before if the model change-over did not incorporate major changes. At least one pilot car needed to be built in each different body style to test the proper fit and alignment of the tooling, and most were built with many options, in order to test their assembly and fit. The "order" to build these cars came from the plant itself, rather than through normal ordering channels. When these cars were completed (and met spec) they were assigned the first VINs. Some were given to plant execs to drive until production launch, then wholesaled to dealers. So, in reality, when the whistle blew and full scale production began, the very first car off the end of the line was not VIN 100001. It was more likely something like 100008.

Oh, and back in the era from where I've collected my data, the Baltimore plant was not the only plant to use these jig numbers. Out of the 12 assembly plants producing full size cars, several of them used this practice.

Just trying to help by comparison to other years that I am familiar with.

Verne.

[Belair62]

Fascinating stuff Verne...I remember years ago at Late Great when you guys started that project. You have accumulated a lot of info since then.

[Pantera]

Hmmmm that brings a question to mind on a car of mine. If you don't mind I would like to know if that first few cars starting out of sequence with S/numbers was also true at the St Louis Vette plant??

I have a '65 Vette roadster with S/N 000011 and have been told it may be the first car off the line with disk brakes and now if what you say is true then my car may be only the 2nd or third car off the start of the line with that early of a S/N and not the actual 11'th car off..?

I understand the first few cars off, had drum brakes because the 4 wheel disk set ups were not ready in time. This info came from a respected source by the name of Bill Moock in Bartlesville, OKLA.

Thanks
Larry

[Verne_Frantz]

Larry,

First of all, I haven't tracked the Corvettes at all. All my data is strictly focused on the full size cars. At any rate, it's my understanding that the pre-production pilot cars were built at only the one or two "lead" Fisher Body plants. Once the tooling was verified, I'm not quite sure how that information was transfered to the other plants. However, in the case of the Vettes, since they were only built at St. Louis that year, I would feel pretty confident that St. Louis did the pilot car Vettes.
Aside from paper work to validate that, I would encourage you to seek out other low VIN '65 Vettes (probably not an easy task) and compare equipment and date codes. Let's say Vette #15 had parts with dates about 2 weeks prior to the calculated final assembly, but your car had parts with dates 2 months prior, then I'd say you have a pretty strong case that your car might have been one of the pilots.
Since Corvettes only had two body styles, I doubt they built that many pilots, even if they needed to test assemble a variety of options. Strictly educated speculation on my part, but I doubt St. Louis built 11 pilot Vettes. I'd hate to think it took them that many to get it right!?! At any rate, I feel confident that your car was not the 11th to roll off the line.
You might also want to check to see if there are any "'64" parts on your '65. I recently had the fortunate opportunity to thoroughly go over a '64 Impala Super Sport convertible which was a pilot car. Body number 2 (perhaps #1 didn't quite meet spec?), VIN#6. This car had a '63 steering box, wiper motor and tach harness. The car was built two months prior to production launch. This car was originally built as a 4-speed car, verified by the original engine number, cowl tag and paper work - then dismantled and reassembled as a Powerglide car. Original owner history has verified the car was delivered new with the automatic, and I've found many traces left behind of the original 4-speed set-up that the plant didn't bother to remove. So, in that case, they saved the time and cost of building an additional pilot car only to establish the assembly methods of an automatic SS.

Larry, your Vette might still hold some undiscovered secrets.................!

Verne.

Verne,

My green Chevelle is a "pilot car," LS6. It isn't a "pilot car," for the 1970 Chevelle, but instaed the LS6 option. As of now it is the earleist LS6 with a verifiable buildsheet. On both buildsheets are the words.."pilot job 454 CI," and the paperwork has been looked over by leading Chevrolet/Chevelle historians. Thanks for sharing your info..I'd love to chat on the phone..Is there a way to contact you?

Greg

[Verne_Frantz]

Greg,

I never doubted your car was a pilot, I just didn't know what might have been "new" that far into production.
As for getting in touch with me.......easy, I'm in the book. ....But to make it easier, you have a PM.

Verne.