John Hinckley memoir

[Mark F.]

Re: John Hinckley memoir

Duke, Thank you so much for sharing this ! I can't wait to read this memoir in its' entirety...and absorb some of his knowledge and experiences. I sincerely hope the accumulation of his works are preserved in some useful way for all marques he participated in."...He could keep one entertained for an entire evening with tales of the "personalities" he interacted with along with stories about the mindless bureaucracy and foolish politics that would leave you either shaking your head in amazement or laughing until you cried." As an ex-Ford employee, I can attest to your statement above...this was not something unique to GM...Again, thanks much !

Firebird A-Pillars:
From then on, we used hydraulic chain pulls ("come-alongs") on each one to force the top of the windshield pillars rearward on both sides until the internal reinforcement welds broke. This let the pillars move back into design position, and the tops fit fine from then until the end of the model.Vega Production Rate:
in order to maintain 100 average off the Final LineTHE "FISHER BODY PROBLEM" AND G.M.A.D. (GM Assembly Division):

[Mark D.]

Re: John Hinckley memoir

He and I spent a lot of time talking about cars and airplanes. A good Vettehead and all around great human being.

[Terry M.]

Re: John Hinckley memoir

Duke,
Thanks for the post. What a great read!!! So interesting to read stories about what actually happened at the ground floor level. Thoroughly enjoyable! John was special for sure but also just one of us.

[Mark H.]

Re: John Hinckley memoir

Great stuff. Thanks for posting. Back in November 1984 I bought an '84 Z-28 Camaro. The '85s had come out and I got a pretty good deal. After a couple months the transmission started acting up so I took it in to be looked at. They told me I had a first design input shaft and torque converter in a second design transmission and there was NO WAY it left the factory like that, I must have had it worked on by somebody and they weren't going to fix it under warranty. Well, having grown up in the car business, I'd learned a few things about playing hardball myself. After a few "discussions" they finally agreed to fix it. Wish I could find that mechanic now. I'd send him a copy of John's memoir with a note attached: "Don't EVER tell me again what can or can't happen at the factory."

[Mark F.]

Re: John Hinckley memoir

Great stuff..."Don't EVER tell me again what can or can't happen at the factory."

Yep.

A small number of cars were wrecked inside Assembly Plants at the drive-off and roll test areas. Dangerous places to be if you were on foot...

I saw one car (fully trimmed out on its wheels) sanded down thru the top coats; sprayed-on primer and E-coat - all the way to bare metal. Presumably it was getting taped and repainted...but you can't run a trimmed car thru the drying ovens to cure the repaint properly...

Damaged or imperfect cars were fixed most of the time rather than scrapped.

[Terry M.]

Re: John Hinckley memoir

I think the most important take-away from John's stories (at least for me) are the relationships and structure of the assembly plants. The line workers -- Hourly as the are called -- middle managers -- John's positions -- and managers -- the section (chassis, body and so on) -- and palnt manager. Because of John's personality he was able to move comfortably between all levels and knew more of what was actually happening than most people at any level. Everyone had their turf and fiercely protected it -- see Fisher Body stories.

At one of the Michigan events John arranged a tour of the Viper Assembly Plant. He acted as the tour guide. I was extremely impressed that John, even after his retirement, was warmly greeted by all levels of employees at thar plant where he had opened the plant and been plant manager before his retirement. From the operators to the "white shirts" everyone recognized him and positively acknowledged him. Of course John responded in kind. That doesn't happen if one supervises from an Ivory Tower. We are not the only group of people to find John remarkably accommodating welcoming and kind.

[Duke W.]

Re: John Hinckley memoir

While we're on the subject of GM production war stories you might find this one interesting from my short time as a Pontiac production engineer and liaison to the Chevrolet Van Nuys plant for the '69 Firebird pilot line build.

On a Sunday in early August '68, four of us flew out to LA - first class on an American Airlines 707. Of course, we wore coats and ties. That's how respectable businessmen traveled in those days.

We took a cab to the Hollywood zone office and picked up a big Bonneville sedan, then drove up the 405 freeway to the Holiday Inn across the freeway from the Budweiser brewery in the San Fernando valley. The three veterans all had families and the plan was for them to show me the ropes about the pilot build, go home by the end of the week, and I'd stay there for the next couple of weeks. For me it was like a three week vacation in LA, and I was getting paid for it!

I took them back to the airport before week's end and stopped by the zone office to swap the Bonneville for a Firebird 400 convertible. Cool! That weekend I drove out to Riverside to see friends.

On Monday morning I reported to the plant manager, a grizzled 50-something veteran of GM manufacturing who gave me a polite pep talk saying, basically, don't screw up kid and get me a union grievance. I understood that it would be a major violation for me to do anything on the production line, but my primary job was to teach the UAW guys how to off-line assemble the new front grille/bumper assembly on a fixture, which was the primary external change from '68.

I was not even allowed to place parts on the fixture during the scheduled two-hour training session, which I thought was odd, but maybe just a precaution. As the appointed time approached guys began to arrive, mostly between 25 and 35 years old, and I'm sure they recognized me, six weeks past my 22nd birthday, as a rookie.

In the process of some small talk one of the guys pointed to a guy walking around with a very serious nose-in-the-air look on his face and said to watch out, he was a union steward and a real a...hole. I definitely made a note of that.

So the session began, and I asked a couple of guys to volunteer. The assembly process required placing parts and securing clamps in particular order, but as the assembly built up some of the clamps had to be loosened to get later parts in the assembly process installed and clamped. It seemed a little complicated until you did it a couple of times and got the hang of it.

With me trying to talk the two volunteers through the process we weren't getting anywhere, so we all started looking around, couldn't see the union steward, and I started the assembly process while the guys watched intently. Once done I disassembled it and asked for a couple of volunteers to step forward. I recall we did this three or four times so nearly everyone got a shot.

We were done in about 20 minutes. I thanked them, they thanked me and went off to do other jobs they were assigned during changeover.

My impression of these rank and file UAW guys is that they knew what they were doing, wanted to get the job done as best as they could, and could care less about the nit-picky union rules, but the union stewards were always on the lookout to file a grievance for even the most minor violations of the contract rules.

As John discussed the Chevrolet plant-Fisher Body relationship was bizarre to say the least. F-body was a half-frame car. The body from the cowl back came over from the Fisher side and was mated to the half-frame that contained the front suspension, engine and transmission. Then the fenders, grill/bumper assembly and hood were installed.

Fortunately, there were no issues, but if there had been, even something as minor as a drilled hole slightly too small, I would have to call the home office to explain the problem. Then the Production Engineer (Norm Cheal) who reported to the general manager (John DeLorean) would have to contact his counterpart at Fisher headquarters and then down the Fisher food chain to the plant. Even as a rookie engineer I though this arrangement was nuts.

One other thing I recalled is the way the front end sheet metal was installed. Following installation of the fenders and grille/bumper assembly the last item was the hood. With two guys on each side, the hood was bolted on to the hinges that were attached to the cowl, and then they lowered it to see how it engaged the hood latch. It usually needed some "adjustment", so they used what I can only describe as hard rubber crowbars to pry the hood one way or another to bend the hood hinges enough to get it to latch properly.

To the guys who spend hours lavishly detailing their cars I always say: "You don't want to watch one being built".

Duke

[Patrick H.]

Re: John Hinckley memoir

To the guys who spend hours lavishly detailing their cars I always say: "You don't want to watch one being built".

Duke

That reminds me of stories of the St Louis build line where they used large hammers to line up fenders.

[Duke W.]

Re: John Hinckley memoir

I don't remember that one, but I do remember the one about a couple of big guys bending the top of C2 coupe doors inward so the top of the door was better aligned with the roof contour line because the large roof panel (IIRC the second largest molded part behind the floor pan) was improperly manufactured. The bottom contour on the drawing ended up as the top contour of the panel, so the roof was too low by the thickness of the panel, and since the actual error was not discovered until late in C2 production, the molds were never retooled.

It was probably John who related this story.

Duke

[Terry M.]

Re: John Hinckley memoir

Which brings us to the two legendary stories about St Louis

The 2x4 in the door jamb to bend the hinges for better alignment.

And the color blind painter whose supply hoses were switched so that cars were exiting the paint booth with different colors on each side.

Truth?? Who knows, but it makes for good stories -- especially over adult beverages.

[Leif A.]

Re: John Hinckley memoir

Which brings us to the two legendary stories about St Louis

The 2x4 in the door jamb to bend the hinges for better alignment.

And the color blind painter whose supply hoses were switched so that cars were exiting the paint booth with different colors on each side.

Truth?? Who knows, but it makes for good stories -- especially over adult beverages.

Terry,
If memory serves me correctly, John referred to that process as "reefing". Sure miss his hands-on insight.

[Tom D.]

Re: John Hinckley memoir

Here is a small section of the "Biographies" listing for John on NCRS.org: We sure do miss him here in MI...

John is a former Chairman of the NCRS (National Corvette Restorers Society) Michigan Chapter (2001-2006), is a veteran Bloomington Gold Certification Judge and Corvette Restoration Workshop Instructor. He was a Core Member of the Camaro Research Group (www.camaros.org), and is a member of the Solid Axle Corvette Club, the Eastern Michigan Camaro Club, and the Society of Automotive Engineers. John wrote numerous technical articles for internal GM and Chrysler publications, many SAE presentations, OEM automotive trade journal articles, many technical articles published in the NCRS “Corvette Restorer” magazine, and was named Vintage Technical Editor of the nationally-renowned “Corvette Enthusiast” magazine in 2003, which has published over 110 of his Corvette technical articles and columns.

[George J.]

Re: John Hinckley memoir

I think the most important take-away from John's stories (at least for me) are the relationships and structure of the assembly plants. The line workers -- Hourly as the are called -- middle managers -- John's positions -- and managers -- the section (chassis, body and so on) -- and palnt manager. Because of John's personality he was able to move comfortably between all levels and knew more of what was actually happening than most people at any level. Everyone had their turf and fiercely protected it -- see Fisher Body stories.

At one of the Michigan events John arranged a tour of the Viper Assembly Plant. He acted as the tour guide. I was extremely impressed that John, even after his retirement, was warmly greeted by all levels of employees at thar plant where he had opened the plant and been plant manager before his retirement. From the operators to the "white shirts" everyone recognized him and positively acknowledged him. Of course John responded in kind. That doesn't happen if one supervises from an Ivory Tower. We are not the only group of people to find John remarkably accommodating welcoming and kind.

If I remember correctly, John told me he was working on memoir that included much more than we see in this document. He was going to include his drag racing days, time in Vietnam, and family history. He said he had a lot of photos. I was able to get bits and pieces over the years, and especially during a dinner that was just the two of us at Bayview Yacht Club, which his family had belonged to when he was younger. I will tell more of that dinner in person, if interested.

George