Vin stamp whoops?

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by TimG

The 1967 Corvettes have a series of consecutive VIN errors in the thousands position (four digits in) for about 50 cars.
This is an embedded error that has ONLY that digit ground and corrected. It's a very unusual error as they typically grind the entire VIN and make the correction. This error may have been found well after the stamp was hit and they did a quick fix.

We never used a grinder to fix a stamp; only the "x" stamp. (For one thing, there was not a grinder present; my recollection is that it was a requirement to use the stamp, so the repairs would be distinct from VINs ground off in the field).

Here's how it worked when I was the foreman in the brake area of the truck plant, where the VINs were stamped on the frame:

The VIN stamper was a large hydraulic "press" hanging from a tool rail and with the weight offset by a "balancer" (imagine a Harley-Davidson hanging from the ceiling that you are supposed to maneuver into position and press a button). It is supposed to index to the next digit automatically -but - if you mis hit or get out of sequence for some reason then you have to make a repair. Chevy and GMC have different VIN sequence numbers, requiring different stampers hanging there, so if the operator stamps a Chevy VIN on a GMC, for example, then not only is that particular truck wrong but you are out of sequence on every truck after that.

The assembly line repair person and/or the "quality man" (the foreman's right hand man) follow the vehicles down the line with an "X" stamp and a 5 lb hammer and correct the VIN sequence number as required.

Usually it's not just one truck. It normally takes several trucks before somebody notices, so you'll have five or six trucks that have to be fixed - all without the line stopping - so it's quite a scramble for a few minutes while you figure out what went wrong and what has to happen to make it right. You pray nothing else goes to crap while you've got your two best guys otherwise unavailable.

I normally try to suppress any memories of that time.

K