M22 storage at St. Louis

[Mike E.]

We have now documented 3 February 1970 M22's on 3 March/April 1971 LS6's. This obviously is outside the 6-month rule, but these have the proper VIN stamp on each, and by that I mean that they are not restamped; they have the characteristic alignment that one would expect from a factory-stamped VIN derivative.
I'm wondering why the excessive elapsed time. I know it wasn't first-in first-out in those days, but any guesses other than they were digging deep in storage? And if they were digging deep, why? By the way, those trannies were built February 2, February 16, and February 27.
To add to the mystery, one of them has a factory X-out on the A suffix, and the proper C stamped next to it.
Where were the transmissions stored in the St. Louis plant?
Your thoughts are welcomed!

[Mark E.]

Re: M22 storage at St. Louis

After 1970, total demand was fewer than 150 LS6 and ZR-1 cars, so maybe Chevy decided to batch build ahead and be done with that supply chain.

[Keith B.]

Re: M22 storage at St. Louis

Did they really keep inventory on any part? Or when a car was scheduled to be built the out side suppliers were notified to send the correct parts for day the car was to be built? I would think the assembly plant would have to have a very large warehouse type staging area to hold everything needed to build them

[Larry E.]

Re: M22 storage at St. Louis

After 1970, total demand was fewer than 150 LS6 and ZR-1 cars, so maybe Chevy decided to batch build ahead and be done with that supply chain.

JMHO>I believe Mark is correct with his assumptions. I also believe that Chevy did this with all super rare options/parts.
Some examples where you can "throw away the date requirements" are>Of course M22's/"FC" (4:56 Ratio Rear Ends)/C48
option Heater Delete Plates and all Hardware/A85 Shoulder Harness(Black In Color) for 1966>and some more for certain years of cars. I
believe they where all batch build as indicated by Mark. Of course JMHO>Larry

P.S. Also believe these parts where sent to the respective assembly plants. Would not require extensive storage
space as there is simply so few of these parts. Again>JMHO>Larry

[Mark E.]

Re: M22 storage at St. Louis

Did they really keep inventory on any part? Or when a car was scheduled to be built the out side suppliers were notified to send the correct parts for day the car was to be built? I would think the assembly plant would have to have a very large warehouse type staging area to hold everything needed to build them

The big 3 were kings of "batch and queue" manufacturing. Long runs of large batches resulting in lots of WIP, space, extra cost. A surperior management system, The Toyota Production System, aka Lean in the west, is one reason the American auto industry struggled to compete with Japan.

With that said, even Toyota probably would have built these few end of life transmissions ahead of time.

[Duke W.]

Re: M22 storage at St. Louis

I'm not surprised that the M-22 option may differ by more than six months from the vehicle production date, and this may also be the case for other very low volume options.

Marketing has to make sales projections before start of production, and since most assemblies like transmissions are built in batches, for a low volume option they may schedule several months supply early on.

A good example is the Cosworth Vega. The '76 model year did not begin production until December of '75, about three months after regular Vega production started. This was because there were still lots of '75 models on dealer lots, and they needed to be cleared before '76 models arrived.

'76 model year sales were also slower than expected, and sometime in the spring the decision was made to drop the Z-09 Special Performance Equipment Package at the end of the '76 model year, meaning total production for the two models years was only 3508. However, Tonawanda engine production got ahead of the game. They produced 5000 engines, leaving about 1500 with nowhere to go.

Eventually 500 were disassembled for parts and the remaining 1000 were scrapped!

The Borg Warner T-50 five-speed transmission was available in 1976, and only 815 CVs were so equipped. The T-50 included a 4.10:1 axle (3.73 for the standard four-speed), open differential, with a Positraction option. Only two production date codes are known for the 4.10 Positraction axle, and I'm sure some axle date codes were six months if not more different that the vehicle date.

The bottom line is that for very low volume items, the "six-month" rule should be taken with a grain of salt.

Duke

[Keith B.]

Re: M22 storage at St. Louis

The big 3 were kings of "batch and queue" manufacturing. Long runs of large batches resulting in lots of WIP, space, extra cost. A surperior management system, The Toyota Production System, aka Lean in the west, is one reason the American auto industry struggled to compete with Japan.

With that said, even Toyota probably would have built these few end of life transmissions ahead of time.

so did they keep all these parts on site in the assembly plant or was there a storage building in the complex

[Mike E.]

[Tim S.]

Re: M22 storage at St. Louis

Mike,

I'd think they were part of a batch. As an example, M22's were used exclusively in manual Trans Am's / Formula's in 71 and 72. I have also seen examples (at least in Pontiac's) where dated items were way out of range from a 6 month window. One of those examples being the starter motor used in RAIV's 455HO's, and Super Duty's. I know of one individual that had go one quite a crusade of documenting starter dates in his 73 SD Formula, just to avoid getting dinged in a judging scenario.

I'm finding the more I learn about these cars, the less I know.......

Tim

[Mark F.]

Re: M22 storage at St. Louis

Interesting string...

"Inventory" as it were existed in many places:

• Supplier manufacturing facilities
• Supplier warehousing and distribution centers
• on board railcars and trucks in transit
• and yes at the customer's locations

Per John Hinckley's C2 Assembly Process Presentation (available in the Database of Restoration Documents [DoRD] Sticky Post), transmissions were married w/ their engines in the first few steps of the engine dress line at St. Louis as follows:

Schedule correct engine out of shipping rack and hang on engine dress line conveyor, tape broadcast copy to front of engine hook.

Lube and install throwout bearing, install manual transmission to bellhousing. For Powerglide, remove converter shipping strap, install transmission case to block, apply air-powered dummy starter tool to rotate flexplate and drive converter bolts, and install inspection cover. Match gang-stamp holder dies to VIN on broadcast and stamp engine and transmission VIN derivatives.

Install correct speedo gear and adapter sleeve, attach transmission rear mount and side engine mounts (including ground strap on LH mount)....etc.

So, some amount of inventory of transmissions was there in storage at St. Louis on the shipping racks they came in on from Muncie. How many and what flavor ? - who knows ?

What I do know from personal experience is when the assembly line goes down, heads roll and corrective actions are at warp speed !

The most egregious cause for the line going down is running out of parts ! UNFORGIVABLE - NO EXCUSE WORKS

And if you are a small - to medium sized supplier (not like Muncie, etc.) - and the assembly plant screwed up and forgot to order enough parts guess what ? - you Mr. small to medium supplier were put on notice "have the parts here by X o'clock" or your contract is over".

I witnessed that at medium-sized stamping plant up in the thumb of Michigan who manufactured interior door parts for one of the BIG 3. The Assembly Plant called him to say they were running dangerously low on those parts "soon" ?... So, the President of that company called workers in overnight (himself working, too) to do a production run truck load of the parts needed and then he personally drove the truck to that assembly plant west of Detroit. He returned home around 4 AM and was beat to a pulp when I had my 8AM appt. with him.

[Stan F.]

Re: M22 storage at St. Louis

To add to the mystery, one of them has a factory X-out on the A suffix, and the proper C stamped next to it.

Mike,

When I was following these cars, I had documented three cars with this anomaly… 1970 date, A X’d over and C stamped next to it.



Regards,

Stan Falenski

[Duke W.]

Re: M22 storage at St. Louis

I don’t see February 2, February 16, and February 27 as batch built. Am I missing something? Or is each a part of a batch, with the majority going to Chevelles and assorted ones in the back of the storeroom? If so, storeroom in Muncie or St. Louis?

A batch could be 10 or 10,000. Also I believe subassembly plants including suppliers shipped everything they built ASAP unless the assembly plant manager ordered a slowdown due to lack of room, but most assembly plants had lots of room for inventory. I think the biggest problem with low volume options may have been finding them in the plant if they'd been there for some time because they may have been moved around.

Duke

[Mark F.]

Re: M22 storage at St. Louis

Slide 94 in the 2nd file of John Hinckley's C2 Assembly Process Presentation (available in the Database of Restoration Documents [DoRD] Sticky Post), shows a pallet of 32 Muncie transmissions stacked 8 to a layer; back to back (tailpiece to tailpiece). Can't really tell if there's a 5th layer above or not ?

So, I'd guess roughly less than 1/3 of a day's production at St. Louis (excluding powerglides) on that one pallet.
Not a whole lot of space consumed there - maybe 4' x 4' ? (5' x 5' max ?)
Pull the protective spline sleeves off and you could probably find what you were looking for ?

Muncie manual trans pallet.jpg

[Mike E.]

Re: M22 storage at St. Louis

Slide 94 in the 2nd file of John Hinckley's C2 Assembly Process Presentation (available in the Database of Restoration Documents [DoRD] Sticky Post), shows a pallet of 32 Muncie transmissions stacked 8 to a layer; back to back (tailpiece to tailpiece). Can't really tell if there's a 5th layer above or not ?

So, I'd guess roughly less than 1/3 of a day's production at St. Louis (excluding powerglides) on that one pallet.
Not a whole lot of space consumed there - maybe 4' x 4' ? (5' x 5' max ?)
Pull the protective spline sleeves off and you could probably find what you were looking for ?

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[Larry E.]

Re: M22 storage at St. Louis

FWIW>Not sure when this picture was taken at the GM Muncie Plant. Larry