Caculating True C-2 Birthday's

[Dave B.]

Re: Caculating True C-2 Birthday's

Rick,
I have a '66 with an AO Smith body build date of G 22 (Monday, February 22, 1966) and a estimated assembly date of March 3th. That's about an seven day spread, which I believe is logical.
Dave

[Wayne M.]

What about that Dow-Smith photo of '65 convert

on page 40 of Noland's Vol 2 ? Purportedly shows '65 which has been painted, about to get its windshield installed, no interior dash, but trim tag is already installed. Caption says "AO Smith cars had their trim tags installed early in the assembly process".

[Richard S.]

Re: Caculating True C-2 Birthday's

Dave,

February 22, 1966 was a Tuesday. With what Noland says in several places in his book, I would think it would be at least 10 to 14 or more days before an AOS body got up on to the assembly line in St.Louis. ( wait for load, wait for train to depart and travel days to arrive, wait untill unload, wait on dock, banking in basement, finally being moved on conveyor upstairs to assembly line, and then one day at least on line.) What is your VIN.?

[Jack H.]

There's no conflict...

John said the first station on the St. Louis trim line installed the trim tag AND the VIN tag for St. Louis bodies and just the VIN tag for AO Smith bodies running through...

[Dave B.]

Re: Caculating True C-2 Birthday's

Rick,
My error, it was indeed a Tuesday, in fact Washington's birthday. Upon closer examination of the Birthday book (5th Edition)for my VIN 15679, the actual assembly date figures out to March 4th, '66. I base that by using the last number listed for that day's production, which is 15771. This is assuming they did at least 92 units that day. If one counts the weekend for the shipping process, it works out to ten days total from body build to assembly line.

Someone mentioned that the number of the last car built in Feb was 15405. I believe that the number 15405 reflects the calculated last car built at the end of the day on March 1st. I base this by looking at Sept 2, 1965, where the book lists 97, the estimated total units built for that first day of 1966 production.
What do you think?
Regards,
Dave

[Richard S.]

Re: Caculating True C-2 Birthday's

Dave,

I think your car was assembled around or after March 4th. That being said, I don't think anyone can pinpoint the exact St.Louis assembly date of AOS built bodies. According to The Corvette Birthday Book the last car assembled on February 28th,1966 was 15283. They assembled 122 cars on March 4th.

[Michael H.]

Re: Caculating True C-2 Birthday's

Rick,

Quite possible it was seven per hour but that's only roughly 8.5 minutes per job and I seem to remember something more like 9.5 per job. Could be that I'm comfusing this with the 63-64 run as I know things were a bit slower at that time.

The fastest that plant ever ran was near the end in 1982 and that was just a tick over six minutes per job. That obviously included the chassis and body line as they ran at the same speed. Incredible that no operation in that entire line ever took longer than six minutes to complete, including installing the complete under dash A/C system.

I have a lot of doc's on Smith cars and there are a lot that are close to one week between trim code date and final assy date, although I also have many that are as far apart as two weeks or more.

[Richard S.]

Re: Caculating True C-2 Birthday's

Michael,

I see where they loaded 15 cars on to each rail car. I wonder if anyone knows how many rail cars were filled before the train left for St.Louis.....and how long the train trip took.

[Michael H.]

Re: Caculating True C-2 Birthday's

Lyle,

The trim tag was, as John Hinckley mentioned, attached just as the body was headed out of final color and headed to the trim line but that was the first trim, called "hard trim", not the trim that we visualize, such as door panels, seats etc. Hard trim would include window regulators, heater/AC assy., all glass and mouldings, instrument panel etc etc.

The body was almost completely naked as it rolled out of the paint booth. There was a lot of hardware to add at that point and it was several hours before the body even came close to body drop. I don't have the exact time/position on the line but guessing, I would say that the trim/VIN tags were installed when the body was somewhere around half way through it's process. That doesn't include the time AFTER body drop.

The reason the tags were held until after final paint was to make sure all went well throughout the entire body build and paint process. If there were severe problems with either operation, the body could have been pulled "off line" for some major repair. At that point, the engine and chassis lines would not begin assembly of that particular job's components until it was back on line and scheduled again.

Once the body passed the trim/VIN station, there was no turning back. It went on through the rest of assembly and any body/paint problems found after that point were repaired in a "repair area" after the job was complete.

[Michael H.]

Re: Caculating True C-2 Birthday's

Rick,

Not sure how many were shipped at a time but I do know that the area where the rail cars were backed into the building was only about 275' long. I suppose there could have been more rail cars waiting outside of the building but that would have been a lot of extra work as there was only one single track leading to that part of the building.

By the way, the Smith bodies were unloaded on the ground floor of the plant, not the basement as is commonly heard.

I recall a pic of several loaded rail cars sitting at the
smith plant but I don't remember how many were in the row. I've never been to that plant.

I suppose it's possible to make the actual rail trip from Smith to the Mill in one day but I'm not exactly sure where Smith was.

[John H.]

Re: Caculating True C-2 Birthday's

A.O. Smith (Dow-Smith) was in Ionia, Michigan, between Grand Rapids and Lansing (about a 3-hour drive from Detroit - made that run many times). The actual rail time was about a day, but it took several days to make up each train at Ionia and get it switched for the main line run, and another day or so to get it un-switched and diverted to the Mill once it got to St. Louis. Could be anywhere from five to fifteen days or so from the Ionia trim tag build date to the St. Louis off-line date; my June-built '67 has a May 24th A.O. Smith date and came off the line at St. Louis on June 8th.

[Michael H.]

Re: Caculating True C-2 Birthday's

Thanks John, I was hoping you would see this thread ans get involved because you were close to Ionia. I've never been there and wasn't even sure what part of the state it was in.

I agree with your estimated average shipping time of 5 to 15 days. I'm sure there are some that were much longer but I believe most were within that 5-15 range.

Do you have any idea where the "basement" part of the story came from? I know I've read that the bodies were delivered to the basement at the mill many times over the years but....

[Richard S.]

Re: Caculating True C-2 Birthday's

John,

Thanks very much for joining in the discussion. May 24th to June 8th makes a lot more sense to me than 5 or 6 days. Like Michael, I'm interested in the so called "basement" at the St.Louis plant. According to Noland, the AOS bodies were unloaded on to a dock and then "banked" via conveyor in the basement from wence they were called up to the line as needed. Did they stay on the conveyor the whole time or were they taken off in the basement and loaded back on again when required.

[John H.]

Re: Caculating True C-2 Birthday's

I think the "basement" thing is just confused semantics - they were off-loaded from the rail cars on the main level (Joe Trybulec has posted photos of that, about two months ago), then queued-up in the lower level, adjacent to the birdcage line.

[John H.]

Re: Caculating True C-2 Birthday's

Rick -

I never spent much time in the body conveyor area, as the assembly tooling was our group's responsibility. However, I'm sure the sequence of the AOS bodies queued-up for transfer upstairs was managed by the Production Control folks (not just queued-up as they were unloaded from the rail cars), as the AOS body numbers had to be matched up first against the corresponding dealer orders and ident numbers to ensure that the material required to build them was indeed on hand and on the line; once a body was loaded on the Trim Line, there was no turning back - it was physically locked in sequence from there to the end of the line, and the parts to complete it had to be there.