what GM A body cars came with Manual disc brakes?

I'm trying to figure out what they mean or what they meant "was inspected"..It can't be someone's initials b/c it's always two of the same letters. Anyone know for sure?

 

I have no idea what those stamps mean. I'm guessing they were something from Fisher body, otherwise, I probably would know. Most of the stuff actually put on the cars at the Lansing Olds plant was hand written and could mean anything and wasn't consistent from even hour to hour let alone a pattern. We had lots of stamps and coded hand punches, but they were put on the history card that went with the car through the process. All of them were filed when the car was shipped as it showed all the repairs done to it in the process. Think all that stuff burned in that fire. Wish I'd kept mine. I do recall washing the crayon marks off the firewall on my Ramrod the first time I detailed the engine compartment.

Hey Rusty, was there a phone number by Pierre's name? That may answer it. Sounds like something from the shithouse wall. "For a good time.....call Pierre"

Brian:

All my stuff is still boxed up (somebody's going to get some real gems one of these days) , so bring your 70 assembly manual to Martin and I'll show you how to "interpret" all those options, variables, and engineering changes. You're right, a lot of the optional usage changes were for the BOP plants as GMAD got more powerful and Olds (and the others) still tried to document what they were doing and "legitimatize" what they were building anyway with Chevy, Pontiac, and Buick parts. Those requests came in all the time. Big time central office vs independent division politics going on then (except at Chevy).

 

Hey, what would a V8Buick thread be without an Olds Hijack? o No: :laugh:

I have no idea what the firewall stamps mean, although I've always assumed they were inspection stamps. Dave's theory that they were from Fisher is interesting. If that's true, then I would think other Fisher-made bodies would have similar stamps. Has anyone checked with the Corvette or Camaro nit-pickers? (I say that with the utmost respect, really.) Any other non-Olds GM owners want to chime in?

Not all the stamps are two letters, but when there are two letters, it's always the same letter repeated, right? That's the trend I've noticed, but I can't claim to have studied this. Total speculation here, but I'm thinking the stamp may have been the first initial of the inspector's last name, and if there were two guys with the same initial, they used a double letter for one. If so, it's a good thing these cars weren't built in my home town, where everyone and his Dutch brother is named Van Somethingsma.

 

Well, Brian Von Headerboy, :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Chevy was GMAD and there really was no distinction between Fisher Body, they had no assembly plants of their own by then (all GM), GM Central office called all the shots for them, they got all the good looking women, the best seats at the meetings, the best cuts of the prime rib, etc. etc. when Mother General was n charge. B.O.P. fought each other in those days for the scraps that fell off the trough, and obviously lost the battle.

Olds, Pontiac, and Buick (and Cadillac, but that's a wole different world from muscle cars) all had old home plants and separate Fisher Body facilities. At times they were like the Hatfields and the McCoys.



I don't think there's anything cryptic in these letter codes, you may want to try looking at them in a black light or backwards in a mirror with an old Beatles song running backwards ("Paul is dead") from the white on white.........but from all the action in the back seats in the body float area (where hundreds of bodies from Fisher awaited scheduling and VIN assignments on the final lines at Oldsmobile) don't shoot that black light in the rear seat! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: You may be OK, though, most of the pecker tracks were in the back of Ninety Eights and Big Wagons. :grin:

So bring your 70 Assembly Manual to Martin, give me a few minutes to digest what's there (a cold one every 15 minutes helps), and maybe we can figure out what MC was put on W cars (all built at lansing by the way).

How can this be a highjack when Rusty called me out on this one. Also, you didn't tell me your car was a girlie-boy automatic before. I thought you were a real Man! Har, har, har! Headers and an automatic on an Olds? :sleep: :sleep: :sleep: Anybody can drive that! :bglasses: :bglasses: :bglasses:

At least Rusty has manifolds. Sheesh.............

 

2 70 W-31 master cylinders.

first, from Ken Millington's sebring yellow car that sold on ebay and now resides somewhere in Ohio

second is from an unrestored nugget gold car, which is also Ken's

 

Maybe the double letters were from inspectors that stuttered :spank:

 

checked the smaller 1" master cylinder last night and it has "DP" or "DR" (Dr Olds!) stamped into the pad---can't tell which as the downleg of the "R", if it is an "R", was not stamped in real well.

Part #, Casting #? on underside is 5460466 and to the left is the Delco Moraine emblem.

I will do some checking on a brandX site I am registered on (just don't tell anyone :shock: )

 

DaveH, my W-30 may be an automatic, but it's got the Hurst Dual-Gate, so at least I've got something to keep my right hand busy during my leisurely jaunts down the strip. Of course, that means I have to adjust the A/C with my left hand. I must admit, I'm impressed by the way you're able to coordinate all your limbs and make your car run. I'm surprised you're able to keep your torso planted in the driver's seat, the way your limbs are flailing around. Having your gut wedged underneath the steering wheel probably helps. :laugh:

I wasn't aware they allowed women on the assembly line back in the late-60s. Weren't they supposed to be at home buying Avon and making dinner? Wait ...... there were women involved, right? o No:

That's interesting that there were two different classes of Fisher Body plants back then. I wasn't aware GM started playing those games that early.

 

The "Fisher" plants at the later to become GMAD plants (and all Chevy plants at that time), had the body shop connected to the assembly plant by a tunnel. Bodies were scheduled in sequence with the final assembly plant as soon as they hit the paint line. Most assembly plants function that way today for obvious reasons.

At Lansing, and I assume at the other two home plants, but not positive, were physically separated across town and in the case of Oldsmobile, trucked over to the final assembly plant. The three home plants for BOP had been doing business like this for many years. An "order number" was used to coordinate the body order from Olds to Fisher and wasn't used after the body was received and put into the body float area. When the body was received, that order number triggered the scheduling of the final assembly and the body was pulled from the float and put into sequence on the line. A 4 digit assembly sequence number was hand written on the windshield and the numbers went from 1 to 2000, then started over again. That number appears on the Olds Broadcast build sheets, but nowhere on the Fisher Body broadcast sheets. Same number was used on the various subassembly feeder lines to the main chain in axle, engine subassembly and dressup, engine/trans mating, fuel tank subassembly, bumper subassembly, front end final paint (then on to separate lines for fender trim and another for hood trim), then all met together at the final line. The VIN was assigned as the body came down the body trim line and was also stamped on the frame and engine/trans in the engine dress area. They all worked from the numerous broadcast "build sheets" that were hard copy printed on teletype machines all over the plant. VIN was not used in the system other than buyoff at the various inspection stations to make sure they matched and were correct for that job #.

End of chapter 43 of my new book. :laugh: :laugh:

Will reserve reply on personally slanderous comments to another time. Maybe face to face.

Put up or shut up and bring your assembly manuals on the master cylinders. Like I've said numerous times, I don't attest to anything built at the BOP assembly plants, but all Olds W cars were built at Lansing. Just because a car is "an original unrestored" doesn't mean it was built that way initially. I could probably show 25-30 changes that were made to my original, unrestored car by the dealers in warranty, service replacement parts when GMPD "consolidated" the inventory (like the water outlet from the intake to water pump), and things I added/changed myself. All was done in the first 5 years we owned it from new. Who knows what may have happened over the years on cars that have changed hands.

BTW, all brake pipe fittings were color coded for size back then. Don't see any evidence of that on those two pics.

 

Dave--will there be a chapter in your book discussing the various "liberties" that people took in the back seats, etc? Some salacious (sp?) material might help open the audience for the book up some. :grin: Maybe that chapter could be titled "Break Time".

 

We had a lot of fun teasing gullible people we worked with that some couple was caught doing the dirty deed in the back seat of a car the night before (which just happened to coincide with a new car in the system for that person. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: We always had over 5000 bodies in that very dimly lit area of the plant.

I'm sure every plant had something like that going. The little Ford heater/A/C plant in Plymouth where I started (and ironically ended) my career at Ford had them working out of vans in the parking lot as well as in the "rack shack" out back where the empty racks are stored for strike protection. Those large wire shipping baskets can be opened and walked through. One day a new suspicious plant manager saw an extension cord running into the "mountain" and decided to follow it. OOPS. Found 2 separate "Love Shacks" in operation back there. Few people fired over that one.

 

they were just testing the rear suspension or doing NVH testing.

 

Maybe Jimmy Hoffa? :Brow:

A coworker of mine tells the story of a previous plant at which he worked. They started having paint problems on their product and couldn't figure out why. They finally figured out it might have something to do with the fresh air intake system for the paint area, so they mounted a security camera on the roof. Turns out that every day at break time, a certain amorous couple made their way to the roof and commenced to get it on. Upon completion, the used, ummm, protection was discarded down the fresh air intake, thus contaminating the process. After being shown their very own home movie, the guilty parties were allowed to resign.

 

At Eaton, a female production line supervisor and a maintenance tech were caught whilst she was "performing" a certain deed on him. Both kept their jobs, but the buzz around the plant was something.......... Ah yes .... and they think the automotive assembly process is an exact science ..... NOPE !!

How about when the Quality secretary went to the local Home Depot to buy carpenters pencils to mark the parts. Welcome to Tier 1 supplier - ness ........