1967 Camaro assembly line

[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"....

[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

[Kurt S]

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

[Too Many Projects]

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...

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by Too Many Projects

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...

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

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

K

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by Too Many Projects

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...

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