Q re "BOP" Chev assembly plants

[Verne Frantz]

Re: Q re "BOP" Chev assembly plants

Duke,
The Chevrolet plants were "responsible" for assembling the front sheet metal, but not manufacturing it. Fisher did that, painted the pieces in the same area as the body, then they traveled through that "Chinese" wall to the Chevrolet assembly line in the same order as the bodies.

And not all Fisher body plants had the dies for the front fenders. That would have been cost prohibitive. It's not uncommon for example to find Baltimore fenders on a Framingham car, or similar "mismatches".

There were also 3 Fisher Body plants (at different times between '58 & '64) that had no Chevrolet line under the same roof. Lansing, Flint#1 and Euclid (formally called Cleveland). Those plants rail shipped partially assembled bodies to other Fisher plants where they were painted and finished, then sent to the corresponding Chevrolet line at that location.

And to clarify the VIN issue, all passenger cars, meaning "1000 Series" had sequencial VINs, (at each plant) regardless of Style or Model. Different body styles would follow each other down the line; each would have a VIN "1" higher than the car in front of it. The Fisher Body cowl tag had separate sequence numbers based on the individual body styles (regardless of 6cyl or V-8).
Verne

[John H.]

Re: Q re "BOP" Chev assembly plants

Art -

Both Van Nuys and Lordstown built ""B" and "F"-bodies on the same line; the Firebird was moved from Lordstown to Norwood in April, 1969 prior to the Lordstown changeover from "B/F" to the Vega. Building half-frame and full-frame cars together on the same line wasn't real efficient, but that's the way we did it in those days.

[John H.]

Re: Q re "BOP" Chev assembly plants (long)

Fisher Body built, painted, and trimmed the body shell from the firewall back, and shipped it "through the wall" to the Chevrolet side of the plant; when Chevrolet received it, they paid Fisher Body for it. All of the front end sheet metal (hoods, fenders, rad supports, header panels, inner fenders, etc.) whether it was Chevrolet or any other Car Division, was designed, released, stamped, and fabricated by that Car Division in their own stamping plants, and was shipped to the using assembly plant, where it was painted, subassembled, and installed after Body Drop on the Car Division plant's Final Assembly Line. Fisher body never made any front end sheet metal for any GM car except the Vega/Monza (the first fully-unitized body in GM), as there was a Fisher Body stamping plant on-site at Lordstown that was built to stamp all the Vega metal.

In the case of the Buick, Olds, Pontiac, and Cadillac "home plants" in Flint, Lansing, Pontiac, and Detroit, Fisher built the bodies in separate plants, and in many cases the finished bodies were shipped on dedicated trucks from the Fisher Body plant to the Car Division's final assembly plant; in some cases (like Fisher-Euclid, who built Eldorado/Riviera/Toronado bodies), the finished bodies were trucked up to 200 miles to the Cadillac/Buick/Oldsmobile final assembly plants. All of those four "home plants" were exempted from the assimilation by GMAD of the existing Fisher/Car Division assembly plants in the late 60's/early 70's, and all four have long-since been closed.

The B-O-P Assembly Division was born after GM converted from war production back to car production after WWII, and six assembly plants (Wilmington, Delaware, Linden, New Jersey, Doraville, Georgia, Kansas City, Missouri, Fremont, California, and South Gate, California) were created (from former war production plants) which made no distinction between "Fisher Body" and "Car Divisions" - they built everyone's cars (except Cadillac) under contract, were supplied tooling from Fisher and the Car Divisions, and built the cars in an efficient, sensible sequence regardless of whether the parts came from Fisher or a Car Division, without the cost and redundancies of two separate plants on the same site, dual managment structures, dual Paint Shops, and cost markups, and they built multiple Division's car lines mixed together on the same line at the same time; the Division's name was changed from B-O-P Assembly Division to the GM Assembly Division (GMAD)in the early 60's when they began building Chevrolets in addition to the B-O-P car lines. The efficiency of this arrangement vs. the traditional (and horrendously costly and inefficient Fisher/Car Division arrangement) finally became apparent to GM Management, and GMAD was allocated all of the previous Fisher Body/Chevrolet assembly plants between 1967 and 1971, and became the biggest Division in GM, with 26 assembly plants and over 100,000 employees. I was in charge of the conversion of Lordstown from "B/F" to the Vega in 1970 when it was a Fisher/Chevrolet plant, was a Production Superintendent when the change was made to GMAD in 1971 (with the attendant "War At Lordstown", strikes, sabotage, "60 Minutes" segments, "Blue-Collar Blues" articles, etc.); a truly inspiring portion of my 37-year assembly career

Corvettes and Chevy/GMC trucks were designed and manufactured totally by Chevrolet - Fisher Body had no involvement with those products.

[Verne Frantz]

Re: Q re "BOP" Chev assembly plants (long)

Thanks for the education John. Did Fisher at least paint the front sheet metal, or did Chevrolet do that........hoping the color mix would match?
Verne.

[Clem Z.]

ok john those rusty vegas were your fault. *NM*

[John H.]

Re: Q re "BOP" Chev assembly plants (long)

Verne -

No, they didn't. Amazing as it seems, Fisher painted the body in their Paint Shop, and the Car Divisions painted their front end sheet metal in their own separate Paint Shops, and you never knew if they'd match (or if the body side molding locations would align) until the sheet metal met up with the body on the Final Line after Body Drop. There were "sprited" discussions several times a week on the Final Line between the Chevrolet and Fisher Body Chief Inspectors (and sometimes the two Plant Managers) arguing over whose paint color/shade/gloss was correct when they didn't match, usually accompanied by their Paint Superintendents carrying armloads of DuPont Master Color Chips. I know its seems comical and ridiculous, but that's the way GM assembly plants operated for over fifty years. After GMAD took over the former Fisher/Chevrolet plants, the first investment money they spent was to consolidate painting operations and expand the most modern of the two Paint Shops at each location so the Car Division-supplied front end sheet metal could be hung on a separate carrier ahead of the body and painted at the same time as the body; after the final oven, the front sheet metal carrier split off on another conveyor and went to the front sheet metal subassembly line, and was then delivered to the Final Line, where it eventually met up with the same body it was painted with.

Since separate body/frame cars have disappeared, all the front sheet metal on unit-body cars is installed and final-fitted in raw metal in the Body Shop, and the car is painted as a complete single unit in the Paint Shop.

[John H.]

Re: ok john those rusty vegas were your fault.

Clem -

Well, not really Fisher Body Engineering developed the (ill-fated) Anodic ELPO body prime system, and I worked for Chevrolet at the time We used to say that Vegas didn't need heaters, as there was a continuous exothermic reaction going on anyway (that was about the time the wiper transmissions dropped into the cowl plenum and the blades flopped around on the windshield like a dying chicken)

[Verne Frantz]

Re: Q re "BOP" Chev assembly plants (long)

John,
Yes, I agree, it does sound ridiculous. In my years of researching these passenger cars, I have had the opportunity to make contact with only a very few people who actually worked those plants. I'm always on a quest to find more memories of first hand experienice. I certainly appreciate yours.

And here, all these years I thought the reason why original paint cars tended to have a slight difference in paint tone between the fenders and doors was because the fenders were hung "nose up" when painted and the doors were on the car when they were painted........resulting in the metallic particles laying differently when they dried. At least that theory explained the differences I saw.....
Thanks again. I hope I can call on you again when other questions come up.
Verne.

[Patrick H.]

Re: ok john those rusty vegas were your fault.

I still like your stories of hanging those silly cars like they were in a meat locker when you shipped them on the train.

Patrick

[John H.]

Re: Q re "BOP" Chev assembly plants (long)

Verne -

The front end sheet metal (in the Fisher/Car Division days) was painted on a conveyor "buck", with the panels mounted in car position, with about two inches between panels to get coverage on the flanges. After the GMAD consolidation the sheet metal was still on a buck in car position, but it was on a separate carrier with about a two-foot gap to the firewall of the body behind it. The only time the front end sheet metal was hung nose-up was in the Car Division's dip-prime or "Flow-Coat" black prime system; all subsequent spray prime/seal/topcoat operations were done with the panels in car position. Metal for Service was shipped raw from the stamping plants to the regional parts depots, which had their own prime systems, and was distributed from the regional depots to the GMPD warehouses for local distribution.

[John H.]

Re: ok john those rusty vegas were your fault.

For those of you who have heard of the Vega "Verti-Pak" shipping method, but haven't seen it, here's a link to a photo of "Verti-Pak" loading in process; hung on four hooks and sockets in the underbody like a side of beef




Vega "Verti-Pak" Rail Shipping Loading

[Art A.]

Re: ok john those rusty vegas were your fault.

I remember the Chevrolet Engineering Lab tests for the "Verti-Pak" shipping method, it was really something to witness. They built a fixture that put the car in the same position that it would be in the rail cars. They put a Vega in the fixture and shook the **** out of it for days----it actually shook the building.
In order to get actuate test setup readings, they had taken censers and installed them in a empty rail car that went thru the complete route that the production vehicle delivery would take. These readings were then converted to computer tapes which controlled hydraulics that shook the hole mess. You would not believe the violence that the contents of a RR car takes!

Art

[Clem Z.]

Re: ok john those rusty vegas were your fault.

if they would have taken the money they spent to develope that feature and put it into the bodies they would have been better off. i understand they even developed a special front crank seal so the oil would not leak during shipping. the only good thing about the vegas was they had a 11 inch automatic transmission convertor that when used in a chevy V-8 raised the stall speed for drag racing. they were cheaper than a custom made convertor. so john they were not a total loss.

[Art A.]

Re: ok john those rusty vegas were your fault.

Actually, on the first tests there was fluids comming from everywhere----they had to go back to the drawing boards on a number of things. It was not a pretty sight.

Art

[Patrick H.]

Re: ok john those rusty vegas were your fault.

So what ever possessed them to think that vertical shipping was going to be a good idea in the first place?

Patrick