More Boring Numbers Info

[Harry Sadlock]

Re: IF, somebody had access to Flint purchasing re

We should always remember---> Chevy was not making show cars or cars to match a future JG. Chevy was making money/profit like any business does. All of us tend to get too serious about 40 year legends.

Harry
38513

[mike cobine]

8 to 5 Production job - not a space shuttle

This is what I consider the heart of the problem. Production cars and some guy whose concern is getting his bonus for the day is not going to spend the time a restorer is going to do.

Michael Hanson has already stated that each task took less than 9 minutes on the line and eventually down to under 6 minutes. As such, the guy doing something did it fast, not sitting there with a set of calipers to measure where something should be by the 1/100th of an inch and didn't use a calibrated arm to swing a hammer. The first time he hit a stamp too light and then had to hit it again, he was running out of time rapidly. That makes it real easy to hit much harder on the next dozen engines, or at least until his arm was tired.

I put in the console side panels in my '79 the other day after getting the new carpet on them. They didn't fit right at all. I spent about two hours getting them in to where they lined up with the console and brake cushion. But if they were doing it on the line at 6 minutes, you can bet the guy probably pried it in place if it wasn't quite right, slapped an air impact screw driver at the right spot, and leaned into it. So the screw didn't go through the hole, the seat would cover it. All he needed was to be sure there was no real gap at the top at the console.

If there are 2000 operations to build a Corvette, and it only takes 6 minutes to do each one, then why aren't all of you kicking out a restored car every 24 days?

Because each of you are spending a lot more time to perfect the imperfections than anyone on the line ever thought about in their wildest dreams.

All they wanted to do was get past the inspector down the line, who also was thinking about getting his boat out on the Meramec at Times Beach or head up the river to Grafton. They weren't thinking "We have to do this right, because in 2005, NCRS is going to be debating how we put ____ on the car."

[Rick S.]

Re: Stamp Character Close Up

Michael,
I am a follower at this time as I am a relative "newbie" to the hobby. I do believe though that your comments and beliefs are right on target. I am hoping to get my car judged for the first time this spring and I am fairly certain it has never been judged before. Therefor I am not certain what is original and correct but checking date codes, casting numbers and VIN deriatives I believe it to be a "correct" 67 small block. Saying all that I feel a little uncomfortable to comment about the font size on my engine block because of my inexperience. Another thing is broach marks on the pad. I don't see any but I'm not sure what is considered correct and when I first got the car and before knowing anything about the subject I used a steel wool pad to clean it up. I appreciate your comment that you want to protect original cars and hope my car is original after having it judged. Thanks to you, John Hinckley, Joe Lucia and a whole lot of others who continue to share your knowledge so others can learn about the greatest car in the world. Hopefully other people will see that everything is not always black and white but also shades of gray and be agreable to change. Keep up the great work, Rick

[mike cobine]

Re: Stamp Character Close Up

My point of all this is simply to protect original cars. If an all original car shows up at a meet and a slightly "over aggressive" judge rejects the characters on the pad because they're a "little too short", that original engine car is marked for life as a restamp. This happens all too often and just a slight correction in the 63-67 JG's can solve the problem but I doubt any of this will ever actually change anything.

I think there should be a “rule” somewhere that anything deducted on a judging sheet cannot be changed on the car until you have had it judged two more times at other locations with different judges. Fat chance that would happen, but it saves the original car with the anomaly (which may not really be an anomaly) from being changed to fit the standard.

For all we know, there could have been 100’s of the same anomaly changed to fit the standard over the years because NCRS or Bloomington Gold said that XXX should be like xxx.

I believe the majority of todays owners really don't care about what's actually correct on their cars but are only concerned with what the JG states is correct so they can get their top flight and go impress their neighbors. I suppose I'm part of an ever shrinking group of old geezers that still care enough to try and make things right but it's not working.

If you have an original car with too many quirks, you could miss the Top Flight or the Bloomington Gold. This translates into dollars, and lots of them, regardless of the NCRS “we don’t determine value” line so often tossed about.

And too many owners are after investment. “Investment in Excitement”. “Drive an Investment”. We are to blame, or at least some of us are. We have made the world believe these cars have a value that exceeds anything you can really derive from them. As such, prices have gone out of sight, and finding truth and history has taken a seat at the very back of the bus as compared to making a few million bucks.

I really miss the days when these were $2500 cars. Not because of the price, because relatively they were just as expensive, but because the only ones who where interested and who were buying were car people who loved them, drove them, enjoyed them, and didn't treat them like a stock option or a retirement plan.

[John H.]

Re: 8 to 5 Production job - not a space shuttle

And the guy whacking the pad at Flint Engine on Line #1 was doing them at 180 engines per hour (one every 20 seconds); the guy on Line #2 was only whacking them at 120 per hour (one every 30 seconds). They weren't real concerned about alignment or position - just that they were legible.

Read the grease-pencil suffix on the side of the next block (which was upside-down with the block right-side-up at his station), grab the corresponding gang holder from his rack, position and whack it with a sledge, put the holder back in the rack, check the suffix on the next block, etc.... how'd you like to do that 1500-1600 times per shift?

[mike cobine]

Re: 8 to 5 Production job - not a space shuttle

I hope he had someone loading the stamp holder.

[mike cobine]

Re: 8 to 5 Production job - not a space shuttle

At one every 20 seconds, a mistake could be a problem. Loading the wrong number or letter could cost so much time percentage wise that I bet many took the chance it would slide through rather than take the time to change the stamp to the right one.

[John H.]

Re: 8 to 5 Production job - not a space shuttle

Mike -

No loading required - all the gang holders were made up before the start of first shift by the setup man, one holder with that day's date for each suffix scheduled to be produced that day (i.e., 50 different suffix engines scheduled, 50 different suffix holders set up with the same date).

Loading/changing at least one die character WAS required for every unit at the VIN derivative stamping operation at St. Louis, but that was one engine every seven minutes or so.

[mike cobine]

Re: 8 to 5 Production job - not a space shuttle

That makes it much more livable. Otherwise, I'd wonder who the UAW had do that time study.

Does anyone have a picture of the gang holder?