435 sequential vin engine pads-comments?

[Monte M.]

Re: 435 sequential vin engine pads-comments?

Ken,

I agree that it is so strange the there are so many numbers matching F.I. cars too. I have had my 63 (original F.I.) for over twenty five years. When I decided to restore it back to a nice car, but not to go too over board. I had to pay extra back then to buy an F.I. car. If I knew then what I know now, I just would have bought a base car. My F.I unit was gone. So, I had to buy that anyway. Then I could have just made it an F.I. car like everybody else has. I myself know of over ten cars that have been make into fuel cars from lower horse power cars. I have decided to just enjoy my 63 and not worry about it and spend most of my time on a later car that I have the paperwork on. Maybe I'll just make my 63 a 435. LOL What do you think?

Yes Jim! The 435'S are like the FI Corvettes the tended to multiply like the loves & fishes after a few years of being released from the factory & all have MATCHING #'S & THE REAL DEAL

[Dick W.]

Re: 435 sequential vin engine pads-comments?

Dick,

I think it was closer to around seven jobs per hour for the late C2/early C3 cars.

Agreed, based on the Hinckster's post that they ran two shifts.

[Roy S.]

Re: 435 sequential vin engine pads-comments?

Roy --- a little further on the subject of racks. GM Canada shipping records for 1969 MY show 4 consecutive BB VINs: 9S706395 thru #6398, then a gap (ie. a non-Canada car), then #6400. Allows us a rare snapshot of the production line at a particular moment.

#6395 is L68; # 6396 is L68 w/K66; #6397 is L89; #6398 is L36 w/K66; [skip #6399]; #6400 is an L71. So were these 5 different 427's on 5 different racks, because of the assembly stamp suffix ?

Did I mention that Canadians were suckers for big blocks that year ?

In 1969 was St. Louis running 2 shifts to accomodate the demand for almost 39,000 cars with an extended production year ? Five minutes per completed car, or ?

Agree with you on the wide spread on engine assembly dates, but three L71's in a row ?? Personally, I'd never say never.

[Tim G.]

Re: 435 sequential vin engine pads-comments?

[Roy S.]

Re: 435 sequential vin engine pads-comments?

The L88 is significantly more unique than the 435, and I would guess the engine trim line requirement for the L88 was not as time consuming as the L71. The bodies are different, the suspension is different, why not build them together.

[Kenneth B.]

Re: 435 sequential vin engine pads-comments?

This is a good topic.
We do know that they built consecutive L88's in '68 and '69. I know that two consecutive L88’s that were built in ’68 had an unusual characteristic and when another showed up with the same characteristic they more or less verified each other.

The 68 L-88 I owned had a engine build date of 02-29-68 which is a leap year date. Talking to Steve H & others & a lot of 68 L-88's motors were built that day,

[Terry M.]

Re: 435 sequential vin engine pads-comments?

The 68 L-88 I owned had a engine build date of 02-29-68 which is a leap year date. Talking to Steve H & others & a lot of 68 L-88's motors were built that day,

Be quiet Ken. You are letting one of the cats out of the bag.

[Kenneth B.]

Re: 435 sequential vin engine pads-comments?

Be quiet Ken. You are letting one of the cats out of the bag.

OK Terry I wont talk about parts dates on 70/72 ZR-1S

[Steve B.]

Re: 435 sequential vin engine pads-comments?

Be quiet Ken. You are letting one of the cats out of the bag.

I have several photos of 2 29 68 IT motors. Some real and some not. I think that cat is out of the bag unfortunetly.

[Kenneth B.]

Re: 435 sequential vin engine pads-comments?

I have several photos of 2 29 68 IT motors. Some real and some not. I think that cat is out of the bag unfortunetly.

Mine was a original motor & even had the original tranny. Motor had been out of the car for 20 some years when I bought it. it was a Blue/blue coupe & was a basket case.

[John H.]

Re: 435 sequential vin engine pads-comments?

From the conversations I had with both Flint and Tonawanda workers the different engine types (ei: suffix codes) were built in batches at both plants. Thus I would expect each suffix code to have its own rack, but John Hinckley could tell us more.

Terry -

Each engine rack contained three engines, and it's safe to say that all three engines in each rack had the same part number/suffix; at least in all my years in Chevrolet assembly plants I never saw them mixed in the same rack, except for extremely low-volume units. My Engine Dress Line at Willow Run in 1964-66 (Chevy II and Corvair) had 126 different engines, and if the production scheduling guys didn't stay on top of their game, it drove the forklift drivers crazy shuffling engine racks within reach of the overhead hoists the operators used to yank engines out of the racks to hang them on the line.

That production mix resulted in I-4's, I-6's, many 283 and 327 V-8's in manual and automatic versions, with and without K-19, plus all the different configurations of the Corvair engine (2x1 and 4x1 and Turbo in manual and automatic versions, with and without K-19). If that wasn't enough, there were several high-altitude low-compression export I-6 and 283 V-8 versions for Brazilian taxicabs; those were REALLY low-volume, and we "lost" (mis-used) those engines occasionally, so the Material folks didn't know we didn't have the engines until the Chassis Broadcast sheet for one of those oddball units rolled out of the teletype printer and my engine-hang guys couldn't find that one lonely, dusty old engine.

[Terry M.]

Re: 435 sequential vin engine pads-comments?

Thanks John. I have been waiting for your confirmation of what i thought I heard years ago. I saw that kind of operation in the 1980s, but it is a big mistake to assUme the 1980s was the same as the 1960s. But, as you pointed out to us at the Connor Ave plant, -- there are only so many ways to build a car.

[Michael J.]

Re: 435 sequential vin engine pads-comments?

And then beyond all these things, I have to recall the things old St. Louis plant and current Bowling Green plant workers tell me about how far apart in the manufacturing sequence VIN number that are sequential get. Sometimes several days or more, so sequential VINs are not sequentially assembled off the line anyway. Lots of chance for "randomness" of engines off the rack to be mated with the "randomness" of VINs, which are also not sequential....and so it goes....

[Kenneth B.]

Re: 435 sequential vin engine pads-comments?

And then beyond all these things, I have to recall the things old St. Louis plant and current Bowling Green plant workers tell me about how far apart in the manufacturing sequence VIN number that are sequential get. Sometimes several days or more, so sequential VINs are not sequentially assembled off the line anyway. Lots of chance for "randomness" of engines off the rack to be mated with the "randomness" of VINs, which are also not sequential....and so it goes....

So you are saying that SN 102 didn't always follow 101 down the line! If thats true then we can chuck the Coevette birthday app. I can see parts being somewhat random but I assumed that the cars went down the line in sequence. It would be a nightmare for the guy stamping engines/trannys

[Michael J.]

Re: 435 sequential vin engine pads-comments?

That's just what I was told. It seems many times they were taken out of sequence to fix things at various inspection points, and got out of sequence regularly. I remember showing a picture of my car rolling off the line to the plant manager at Bowling Green, it was #67, blue, and a friend of mine had #68, silver. In the photo you could see a silver about 4 cars back, so I remarked to the manager about how that must have been my friend's car. He just laughed and said, not likely to have sequential VINs that close together. But since they do hundreds in a day, the birthday calculator is still probably OK, just they are not rolling off sequentially or staying together through the whole manufacturing sequence regularly.