1966 rocker panel birdcage brackets; when did it change from 6 to 3 per side?

[Scott G.]

Re: 1966 rocker panel birdcage brackets; when did it change from 6 to 3 per side?

Convertible

[Gary B.]

Re: 1966 rocker panel birdcage brackets; when did it change from 6 to 3 per side?

Thanks Scott. - Gary

[Douglas M.]

Re: 1966 rocker panel birdcage brackets; when did it change from 6 to 3 per side?

Preparing for an upcoming (summer) judging and the issue of the 3 or 6 rocker panel brackets is bugging me. My car, S110191, is A.O. Smith, build date Jan 14,1966. My question is, am I possibly in the 6 bracket range for the rocker panels? And is it possible the even if I have the 3 brackets and not 6 could I have 6 hole rocker panels? Maybe there were both 6 and 3 hole panels used for a while? I have 6 holers but they may not be the originals.

[Gary B.]

Re: 1966 rocker panel birdcage brackets; when did it change from 6 to 3 per side?

Douglas,

Just to be clear, does your Jan 14 build date AO Smith car have 3 or 6 rocker panel brackets per side?

Gary

[Douglas M.]

Re: 1966 rocker panel birdcage brackets; when did it change from 6 to 3 per side?

Wow! You're quick. Likely it had 6 and they were cut off for side pipes. given the degree of difficulty in getting some brackets back on I was hoping to do just 3. But I have 4 rocker panels with 6.

[Douglas M.]

Re: 1966 rocker panel birdcage brackets; when did it change from 6 to 3 per side?

It occurs to me that I did make quite an assumption..... That they used 3 out of 6 of the existing holes. If that's not the case I'll have to get the pattern for the 3 holes.

[Donald H.]

Re: 1966 rocker panel birdcage brackets; when did it change from 6 to 3 per side?

Douglas,

If you found the "stubs" of 6 brackets/tabs on your car now then it is highly likely that's how the birdcage was originaly built. When Gary and I did the research some of what we found is as follows.

AIM page UPC 1 sheet A4 has a revision record dated 11-11-65 stating that brackets were removed. So I assumed that for at least St Louis cars, that change would have been implemented shortly after this engineering change. I further assume it would be somewhat later that the change would have been implemented at AO Smith.

We were able to survey 50+cars (not a very large sample size), but what we found in this sampling is that the St Louis cars mostly changed mid November 1965. The AO Smith cars changed Mid December 1965, or about a month later.

With that said, we found a few AO Smith cars that still had 6 brackets much later in the build year.

As for the rocker moldings, I would assume that all the 66 rocker molding were manufactured to fit the cars with 6 brackets. When I was restoring my 66, I purchased a set of NOS molding still in the GM packaging and they had holes for 6 brackets. Remember, even after the cars went to 3 brackets, the molding would have needed to be backward compatible for over-the-counter sales for early 66s.

[Douglas M.]

Re: 1966 rocker panel birdcage brackets; when did it change from 6 to 3 per side?

Perfect! That's what I expected. Thanks for the quick response.

[Gary B.]

Re: 1966 rocker panel birdcage brackets; when did it change from 6 to 3 per side?

Douglas,

My reason for asking if your car really did come from the factory with 6 brackets per side is that if it did, it would be a great additional data point for Don's and my research database.

Gary

[Douglas M.]

Re: 1966 rocker panel birdcage brackets; when did it change from 6 to 3 per side?

Understood. I believe 6 but I'll verify for you. Another question. What is the desired finish on the clips? I've seen body color, rust......

[Gary B.]

Re: 1966 rocker panel birdcage brackets; when did it change from 6 to 3 per side?

Douglas,

The outer facing 4" or so portion of my brackets had body color overspray with a flat sheen, since it was never rubbed out of course.

Gary

[Edward D.]

Re: 1966 rocker panel birdcage brackets; when did it change from 6 to 3 per side?

My personal April 66 convertible with AO Smith body date I20 sequence # A-6446 has 3 per side. Also, currently in the shop is a customers Feb 65 St Louis built coupe with 6 per side. Hope this helps.

[Douglas M.]

Re: 1966 rocker panel birdcage brackets; when did it change from 6 to 3 per side?

For your data: My January 14,1966 A.O. Smith build shows evidence of only 3 clips per side.

And a question from my other thread..... Both sets of the rocker panels I have have 12 holes in the bottom flange. Is this because they are asymmetrical and each is usable on both sides? Does this necessarily mean they are repro's?

Doug

[Mike B.]

Re: 1966 rocker panel birdcage brackets; when did it change from 6 to 3 per side?

Hi Gary,

Think I may have sent you info on my '66 before, but not in this thread.

My '66 came with 3 brackets per side. St. Louis body build date November 30th, 1965 (C30). You can see in this shot that "Bubbuh" cut halfway through the rear bracket on each side to attach those ever so awesome Hooker Header leg pipes to that rear frame hole. That's the least damage he did. But I gotta admit, those pipes sounded great when the girl's 427 opened up!

[Gary B.]

Re: 1966 rocker panel birdcage brackets; when did it change from 6 to 3 per side?

Hi Gary,

Think I may have sent you info on my '66 before, but not in this thread.

My '66 came with 3 brackets per side. St. Louis body build date November 30th, 1965 (C30). You can see in this shot that "Bubbuh" cut halfway through the rear bracket on each side to attach those ever so awesome Hooker Header leg pipes to that rear frame hole. That's the least damage he did. But I gotta admit, those pipes sounded great when the girl's 427 opened up!

Mike,

I already have your can in the database with a 12/1/65 Trim Tag date. Should that be 11/30/65 instead?

Gary