Local St Charles find for p/n 375834

[Geoff C.]

A local St Charles, IL resident showed me this piece of Corvette history. He admitted removing it from a set of dies in the bankrupt Applied Composites plant in St Charles Illinois just a few year ago. He related they had two other local plant sites besides St Charles and that he had made “fiberglass” parts for Corvettes while he worked for them. Also Ram Air Pontiac hoods and parts for those parcel vans with extended head room. About 40 different Corvette die set he was aware of, including fenders, hoods and surrounds. The 1976 date on the tag told me yhey were SMC parts, but he stated they called it FRP (fiber reinforced plastic). This die was around 35,000 pounds and the plants had their own steam plants necessary besides the huge presses forming these parts. This one made the outer hood skin only (part number 375834). He related cutting the plastic sheets smaller for smaller pieces like fenders and mentioned adding sheets together when the part was a top surround. One of his jobs was to dispose of the blems, and the top surround blems were just too large for the dumpster and thus needed to be cut in half. An alternative solution was to take them home after giving the shift foreman $5 a piece. Said he could could walk to work and axtually see the plant from his apartment. He claimed in 2001 to showing a stack of 30 to vendor from Florida who gave him $100 each. Two years after Applied Composites allowed a Far Eastern trade delegation to examine, tour and photograph their plant, they could no longer compete and liquidated in bankrupcy. The tooling was moved elsewhere and the machinery was ironically auctioned for salvage to the same Far Eastern trade delegation. The presses were so big they left the USA via the Great Lakes.

He asked me my opinion on this tags value and I estimated $100 to perhaps a $1000 but only to the right buyer.

Geoffrey Coenen

[Chuck S.]

Re: Local St Charles find for p/n 375834

Interesting find, Geoffrey.

How naive they were in retrospect. You will hear people wondering today why General Motors won't allow you to take cameras on a tour of Bowling Green plant. They might not know there are parts of that plant you deliberately aren't shownw on the tour. In my career, I worked for three companies in the Fortune 10...none would allow any cameras past the fence.

The last job I had before moving to happy retirement pasture was a plant that made the corrugated plastic tubing that covers electrical harnesses. Our plant and others were taking market share from AC Delco who could no longer compete, not even for GM's business.

We were contacted by an engineer at local Yazake(?) plant that wanted to talk about maybe buying some conduit. Yazake is a Japanese company that operates in the US to supply plastic parts for import, and American, cars. Technically, it's US content, so it meets legal scrutiny, but the money it brings in is headed straight to the land of the rising sun.

My plant manager suspected they wanted to get into the conduit business and didn't want to help them cut our throat. He told me to handle the visit as I saw fit, but of course, no cameras; and if I showed him around the floor, to not dwell long enough in one spot to allow him to do any cycle timing.

We had our meeting vaguely discussing plastic conduit, but professional courtesies didn't include a plant tour...he only got as close as the view from my second floor office window. If they ever got into the conduit business, I never heard about it.

[Joe L.]

Re: Local St Charles find for p/n 375834

Geoffrey-----

EXTREMELY interesting! It's the sort of "nitty-gritty" manufacturing information I always crave.

As far as GM #375834 goes, it was never a SERVICE-available part. However, I strongly suspect that it was the major component of GM #375833 which was the hood used in PRODUCTION and once available in SERVICE for 1977 Corvettes.

[Geoff C.]

Re: Local St Charles find for p/n 375834

Chuck,

This fellow was a humble hourly plant worker, and could not even afford a Corvette. Even he understood that tour was a factor in their eventual demise. Especially after the equipment was dismantled for shipment to the Far West. We talked at length about the process and procedures and thus I learned about the steam plant as well as the presses. Ecklers supposedly has the rights to reissue these particular SMC parts from the late 1970’s using these GM dies – where ever they may be today.

Geoffrey

PS Sometimes when you teach a man to fish, he takes your pond.
Thanks, I oweya Chuckster.

[Geoff C.]

Re: Local St Charles find for p/n 375834

Joe,

He did not even know the year of the Corvette this part fitted, but guessed it was 1977. And your help shows this was part of most likely that assembly. I knew that 6 digit 3 series p/n were late 1970’s. It was a charm to hold. And now that I think of it: A 30th anniverasary of its release.

I should have copied all the info stamped in this “trim tag” like aluminum plate measuring about 5x9 inches. I have his address so I did not copy it all down. I apologize for this dumb ass error.

But for all note the following.
CUSTOMER: CHEVROLET
BUILDER: ROCKWELL INT. TOOL & DIE
BUILD DATE: ? - ? – 1976

TOOL NO. (BLANK)
PART NAME: HOOD OUTER COVER
PART NO. 375834
L.E.C. ???????????????????

MOLD WEIGHT
CAVITY WGT. 16,000 LBS
CORE WGT. 21,000 LBS
TOTAL WGT. 37,000 LBS

MOLD SIZE (I missed these) L
LENGTH
WIDTH
SHUT HEIGHT

MOLD DATA (I missed these too) L
EJECTION INCHES
SHRINKAGE
PRESS TONNAGE

I wrote his name, address and phone number on the top sheet of a pack of heart shaped 3M Post It Notes that was stuck in the seat of my C6 dinette. I’ll see if Deb moved them and get the rest of the info. We had a ball and it really was an oh so easy event inside, even though outside it was typical blast furnace BG temp and humidity.

Geoffrey

PS Remind me to tell you the rest of his experiences in August at ‘lisle.

[Joe L.]

Re: Local St Charles find for p/n 375834

Geoffrey-----

Yes, the 6 digit part numbers first appeared about for the 1973 model year. The first ones were of the series 3XXXXX. Later, 6 digit part numbers of the series 4XXXXX were used. These were all "salvaged" part numbers from much earlier in GM history. Beginning about 1972, GM began running out of 7 digit part numbers. The system was not ready yet to deal with 8 digit numbers. So, large, unused blocks of part numbers were sought out. The major blocks found were the above-described and they were assigned to Chevrolet. The supply of part numbers thus obtained lasted Chevrolet through about 1978.

They finally got their parts information systems capable of handling 8 digit numbers and these were first used by Chevrolet about 1979. However, Rochester Products began using 8 digit numbers much earlier. The first Chevrolet 8 digit numbers were of the series 14XXXXXX. Chevrolet's 7 digit numbers had ended at 3999999. So, their new 8 digit number series started with 1 followed by 4000000 (they could not have been assigned 4000000 in the old 7 digit system because that series had already been assigned to another GM entity).

[Geoff C.]

LET THE TRUTH BE KNOWN

The fellow who showed me this die set name plate was a thief. He also lied about the current status of Applied Composites which is apparently alive and well. Their website mentions their Corvette SMC products.

Geoffrey Coenen

Good read on Applied Composites

http://appliedcompositescorp.birkey.com/history.asp

Good read on Applied Composites Corvette Parts

http://appliedcompositescorp.birkey.com/product.asp?prod_id=30

Good read on SMC

http://appliedcompositescorp.birkey.com/overview.asp

[Chuck S.]

Re: LET THE TRUTH BE KNOWN...

I'm reminded of what Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, said in light of the premature publishing of his obituary:

"Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

Good stuff on the SMC...it seems like nobody ever knows what it is, or how it's made. I bookmarked the site.

[Jeremy D.]

Re: LET THE TRUTH BE KNOWN...

It's embarrassing that I was born & raised in St. Charles, lived there for nearly 30 years and knew nothing of this plant. If I had only known, I'd be raiding their dumpsters back in the day like crazy.