Vin stamp whoops?

[70 copo]

Keith,

Yes that's the way I understood the description. The entire vin range affected by the missing element was subject to repair. For repair purposes the vin gang was supposed to be arranged by hand taped, positioned by hand and then struck. Two man operation.

Hi seniority guys got the repair jobs... and those characters are small to begin with so an arrangement error like OP's question does not seem to be inconsistent with the guys that did this who said that they would take turns covering for each other so they could take "long lunches" at the corner BAR.

[muscle_collector]

i have seen quite a few "mis" "incorrectly" "double" "none" stamped vins on pontiacs over the years and these are on cars that appear to have never been messed with, ones that were original owners that had never had it back for any warranty work etc...

[Rfish]

When these stamps were set up were they done singly or would they have had multiple units in sequence ready to go? If in advance, I would think it would have been easy to grab wrong one and get off sequence once in a while?

[70 copo]

Originally Posted by Rfish

When these stamps were set up were they done singly or would they have had multiple units in sequence ready to go? If in advance, I would think it would have been easy to grab wrong one and get off sequence once in a while?

One to two character switch at a time.

1967-April 1969 one gang Stamper at station.

April 1969 -- one gang stamper for Camaros one for Firebirds.

Repair stamper arrangement consisted of gang stamper stamps completely hand arranged, taped then held in place while the other guy struck the bar with the hammer.

[Formula455SD]

Originally Posted by muscle_collector

i have seen quite a few "mis" "incorrectly" "double" "none" stamped vins on pontiacs over the years and these are on cars that appear to have never been messed with, ones that were original owners that had never had it back for any warranty work etc...

My '73 SD455 is double stamped. My recently purchased '70 trans Am does not have a vin stamp but appears original to the car.

[Kurt S]

The engines were not going down the engine dress line in VIN order, so they were often changing the last 2 digits.
I'd have to see a picture of the pad to comment further....

[bergy]

That’s interesting Kurt. I know that John Z must have explained the process sequence of vin stamp on the engine & Trans. - but I can’t find it at the moment. What was the sequence? One station stamping engine & Trans by a single employee on the dress line with a single stamp?

My experience in production (not at Norwood) is that employees would “double up” by one person covering 2 jobs while the other employee took a break. If an employee just walked off and left his work totally omitted, it would bring rain from the foreman. When I was a foreman, another employee in the area (usually a relief or utility man) would jump in & let me know right away. Letting people “double up” on line jobs was never officially authorized, but it was recognized that it happened. If a foreman really clamped down and didn’t allow any of it, the line workers wouldn't automatically fill in for each other at start of shift if several employees were absent. The relief men and utility men were there at startup to help also, but on Monday mornings, if I didn’t allow any doubling up during the shift - the line would be a mess. One hand washed the other within reason.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by bergy

My experience in production (not at Norwood) is that employees would “double up” by one person covering 2 jobs while the other employee took a break. If an employee just walked off and left his work totally omitted, it would bring rain from the foreman. When I was a foreman, another employee in the area (usually a relief or utility man) would jump in & let me know right away. Letting people “double up” on line jobs was never officially authorized, but it was recognized that it happened. If a foreman really clamped down and didn’t allow any of it, the line workers wouldn't automatically fill in for each other at start of shift if several employees were absent. The relief men and utility men were there at startup to help also, but on Monday mornings, if I didn’t allow any doubling up during the shift - the line would be a mess. One hand washed the other within reason.

This is absolutely correct.

I had 27 or so production operations with about 35 hourly employees. I could do every one of those jobs, and could do more than one for a short period of time, so if things were really (really!) desperate I could hop on and keep the line going.

I do not recall stopping the line myself in 40 years, even though it was pretty lonely at 5:55 am. Often it was me, my quality man and a couple of your "good" guys waiting around with me wringing my hands. When the line started at 6am it would chug about one job length and stop (somebody else would have pulled the cord because they were short staffed). Usually while everybody was getting situated I'd see the rest of my guys quick stepping down the aisle, tying their aprons on and catching up.

By the time the line started back up my guys had done the vehicle they missed, the one directly in front of them, plus one more, and were sitting on their stool reading the newspaper.

This was in the late 1970's/early 80's and I would have been about 19 or 20 years old at the time.

K

[Kurt S]

Originally Posted by bergy

That’s interesting Kurt. I know that John Z must have explained the process sequence of vin stamp on the engine & Trans. - but I can’t find it at the moment. What was the sequence? One station stamping engine & Trans by a single employee on the dress line with a single stamp?

The process is here - http://www.camaros.org/assemblyprocess.shtml#engine. But the engine dress line was resequenced during the 69 MY with the revised front end accessory drive (FEAD), i.e. the alternator over top of the engine pad. They were moving the alternator and then stamping. They changed the process and stamped the VIN by the oil filter. This somehow resulted in two stampers for some powertrains...

[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.