1963 Coupe Early or Late

[Joel T.]

Hi all,

I have a 1963 SWC, Vin# 30837S110573. The build date is G3 which would be March of 1963. The question is, is this an "early" or "late" 1963?? I'm looking to replace the exhause and other parts which can be either or. Before I make a mistake, I thought that I would ask. Any input (and pointers!) will be greately appreciated!!

Joel

[Jerry C.]

Re: 1963 Coupe Early or Late

Late

[Harry Sadlock]

Re: 1963 Coupe Early or Late

Joel, it also depends on the part not just the build date. For example, your car should/could have the early gas lid design. I've seen the early lids on April cars.

Harry

38513

[Loren L.]

Harry's absolutely correct - in truth,

your car is virtually "middle". "Early" and "late" get to be terms used because the author knows there was a change but doesn't want to try and find out when it occurred, or can't. The multitude of running changes in the '63 only heightens the problem with floors, instument panels, gas lid doors, radios, etc.

[Edward M.]

Re: Harry's absolutely correct - in truth,

Sounds a lot like the 68 running changes.

[Duke W.]

Re: 1963 Coupe Early or Late

"Early" and "late" have to be called in the context of each change, and there were probably hundreds, though many are minor.

For example "early" frosted hubcaps only apply to the first couple of thousand cars, but "early" four-speeds (BW T-10 vs. Muncie) refer to nearly the first 20,000.

If you want a clue as to when a change occurred, look at the applicable AIM sheet engineering change record. Though the annotated date for a part number change is the date the sheet was changed, the actual change on the production line was probably reasonably close in most cases. The NCRS Judging Guides also have information on when visually detectable changes occurred.

It's also possible that both "old" and "new" parts were used interchangeably until the "old" parts supply was consumed. Depending on shipping time and staging "old" parts can show up after "new" parts were already installed on the line.

Unless there was a significant safety or reliabililty issue, GM did not scrap "old" parts. They were typically used until the supply was exhausted.

Duke

[Art A.]

Re: 1963 Coupe Early or Late

Duke, I agree with most of what you have said, with exception of the following:

"If you want a clue as to when a change occurred, look at the applicable AIM sheet engineering change record."

The AVAILABLE AIMs are not complete as they were copied from a GM file copy that was NOT a MASTER set and do not have all of the revision record date sheets. Therefore using the, engineering change record, as you call it could be VERY misleading. The date that is recorded is only the date that the item was posted in the aim----and could be very far off from the actual change and could actually be after the change was physically made. The ONLY way to really tell when a change occurred would be to look at the AUTH (authorization) document which was usually an ECR (Engineering Change Recommendation) noted in the AUTH space. And unfortunately the chances of getting ECRs is slim to none.

Art

[Duke W.]

Re: 1963 Coupe Early or Late

I did point out that the AIM change record revision date is the date that the change was added to the AIM sheet and does not correspond to the date the change went into production, but that's all we've got to go on other than JG information, which is purely anecdotal. Most parts or configuration changes implemented on the line can only be approximated based on "best available" evidence, which is far from complete without the entire ECR package and production records, which as you indicate are probably long gone.

Some AIM sheets were "revised and redrawn" and this wiped out the previous change record history, which is unfortunate.

I think the AIM change record is overlooked as a resource to determine what your car's original configuration may have been. In many cases I've been able to determine approximate date changes by using the AIM change date along with other corroborative evidence, like TSBs. In some cases the AIM sheet change date is the only thing available to indicate when a change might have occured other than JG comments, if any.

The bottom line is that we will never be able to definitively document when many changes occurred with great accuracy. The available surviving evidence is just too scanty, and it's unlikely that more documentatio will ever show up.

Duke

[Duke W.]

Further...

The NCRS JGs are not the final answer and have plenty of errors.

For example the '63 JG says that the clutch cross shaft has a plastic plug, not a zerk fitting. Every original '63 owner I know of (including me) claims that their car has a zerk, and this is backed up by the AIMs, which don't show the plastic plug until the beginning of '64 production.

So now it's established myth certified as correct by NCRS.

If the JG editors would at least cross check information with the AIMs as a sanity check there would be fewer errors.

A similar situation exists in the '63 JG on coil utilization. In addition to the utilization specified in the AIM, it is clearly spelled out in a TSB, but the JG says otherwise!

Duke

[Michael H.]

Re: 1963 Coupe Early or Late

Art,

I agree, the currently available reprint AIM's are not near complete or accurate. I have an original 63 AIM and it's much different than the reprint. It contains all of the original sheets that would be missing in the reprint, as well as the revised sheets that replaced them.

As far as the time span between the listed change in the AIM and the actual change in production, it would depend on the importance of the change. If, for example, it had to do with any safety issue, the change could/would have occured at almost the same time as the date of change on the AIM if it were a plant procedure issue. If a change in a part was required, it obviously would have taken more time for the change to come in to effect. If the change only had to do with efficiency of assembly or cost reduction, the time between the ECR and the actual change on the line could have been several weeks or months and most often the existing supply of 1st design parts would be consumed before the new design went into production.

As stated in a previous post, the AIM's can only give a ball park estimate of the actual time of change and in some cases, the newly listed change never actually made it to production. (off road exhaust for 63 could be a good example of this)

Another method of determining the actual point in time/production that a change was made would be the inspection of original unrestored cars. However, those days are nearly gone now as most have been totally restored and few owners are willing to tell the real story about which parts are original on their car and which parts are not.

Michael

[Loren L.]

The other variable, as I was told by

Phil Passon, the Resident Professional Engineer at St Louis 1959-61, was that some changes started at the plant (when somebody saw a better/cheaper/more effiecient way), they could be agreed to verbally over the phone and the change implemented before the paperwork could be done and the Graphics processed.

[Michael H.]

Re: Further...

Duke,

I agree. Thankfully, that's why the JG is now just that, a GUIDE, and not intended to be that last word Judging Manual that it was previously called. Hopefully, most of the experienced judges have their own well documented information and are not using the JG at 100%. Don't wanna get started on the JG again but I have to wonder how 63 water pump casting numbers and FI "S" tube color have been judged lately.

[Michael H.]

Re: The other variable, as I was told by

Loren, you are absolutely correct. There were also many procedure and part changes in actual production that never made it to the manual and were never officially approved by engineering. Happened all the time and I can think of several "unapproved" changes. Bet John Hinckley can add some good stories to this.

[Duke W.]

Re: The other variable, as I was told by

Based on my experience as a Pontiac production engineer phone discussions/approvals were always followed up with a TWX from Production Engineering to document the transaction.

Duke

[John H.]

Re: The other variable, as I was told by

There were myriad reasons for deviating from released specs on the line, from material shortages to defective parts to "this one works better" to field feedback on warranty failures, Proving Ground problems, etc. The Resident Engineer was empowered to issue "Local Deviations" to make changes on the fly when necessary, after phone consultation with the responsible releasing engineer at the Tech Center, which could be temporary or permanent, depending on the situation, and deviations were literally written every day. If they were temporary in nature, they never showed up in the A.I.M. - only in the local files for material inventory control reasons, with a copy to the release engineer for his desk-drawer files. If they were permanent, the release engineer eventually wrote an ECR authorizing the change - that eventually generated a change to the A.I.M. sheet in Engineering Graphics, and the release notice that followed the approval of the ECR triggered the NPC (Notice of Production Change) system that actually got the new material into the plant, changed the Bill of Material, established the effective point for the change and disposition of existing stock (scrap, rework, or exhaust stock), made any required change to the Broadcast system, and required the plant to document the last serial number of the car with old stock and the serial number of the first car with the new stock.

Every Engineering change followed the same ECR/approval/release/NPC sequence outlined above; the key to actual production implementation of every single change, by part number (right down to the dates and serial numbers) that we'd LOVE to have for JG accuracy were in the NPC system records at the plant and at Engineering; the plant records are long-gone, and the NPC records at Engineering have never been available to the public.

This, of course, ignores the many fastener mis-usages that occurred daily due to operators "preferring" a different screw they "borrowed" from another operation, fasteners used in repair stations that were "handy and really worked great". Production guys will always find "a better way", and material control guys will always hate them for putting them through panic when production mis-usages result in "we're out of P/N XXXXX screws"; that's the way it was, and it went on every single day.