studebaker assembly line video

[rkapteyn]

http://www.wndu.com/home/headlines/New-exhibit-shows-never-before-seen-Studebaker-artifact--279136451.html

Robert Kapteyn

[SN-60]

Interesting exibit that's for sure!...Note the silver(?) Packard Hawk on the turntable...didn't know they had one of those at the SNM.

[Skybolt]

Thanks for sharing. Would have been nice to see that before I took a tour of the plant, just to get a better idea of where everything was.

[DieselJim]

Interesting exibit that's for sure!...Note the silver(?) Packard Hawk on the turntable...didn't know they had one of those at the SNM.

The Packard Hawk is on loan.

[Warren Webb]

It would be nice for all of us that can't come to visit there to have a monograph available detailing the exhibit. I always enjoy the pictures of the assembly line. Too bad for me all the assembly plants I've visited were GM plants, Linden, South Gate & Van Nuys which are all gone now too!

[Buzzard]

Yes I agree. I witnessed first hand the lousy assembly techniques at the GM engine plant in St. Catherines Ontario, circa 1980. It's a wonder the motors ran at all, never mind lasting several years.
Bill

[SN-60]

I toured the GM asembly plant that was located in Framingham, Massachusetts in 1970. I clearly remember a guy at the end of the line swinging a large rubber hammer trying to get the hoods to shut!

[rstrasser]

SN60
I wounder if it was the same fellow. When I toured the Tarrytown NY Chevrolet assembly plant in 1958 there was a gentleman up on the hood of a 58 Chevrolet using a rubber to adjust the hoods fit. Maybe he moved to Massachusetts after the Tarrytown plant shut down.
Ron

[Jeff_H]

When I was a student at GMI (formerly known as General Motors Institute and currently known as Kettering University) in Flint, MI from '87-'91 I knew a fellow student who interned at Cadillac. He told me about the guy on the Caddy assy line who was the expert door fitter that would "tweak" the doors to get them aligned. My friend was sort of appalled at his methods but not so much the results and wondered what happened when that guy was sick or on vacation.

[Roscomacaw]

Jeff, I had an old school bodyman working for me for several years. Used to make me shake my head - the methods of "adjustment" he used to get doors and decklids to fit! 2X4 "levers" (persuaders really!) and big rubber hammers. He could make doors fit that had given me fits. It's a craft that's not for the faint of heart!

[Mikado282]

The same goes for doors in houses and buildings.

[acolds]

As a old time friend of mine use to say its not the tool but the man using it that does the job. Its a skill not learned in a book

[reichsrundfunk]

When I was a student at GMI (formerly known as General Motors Institute and currently known as Kettering University) in Flint, MI from '87-'91 I knew a fellow student who interned at Cadillac. He told me about the guy on the Caddy assy line who was the expert door fitter that would "tweak" the doors to get them aligned. My friend was sort of appalled at his methods but not so much the results and wondered what happened when that guy was sick or on vacation.

On the days he was sick, Cadillac produced what we would have called "Monday-Friday" cars which you wouldn't have wanted to own....
George

[savannahgreg]

Chevy wasn't the only one. At Rolls Royce in past times and currently, there are craftsmen called "fettlers" who do final adjustments or replace small parts when something is not right. Of course, RR takes pride in their cars being hand built which they were and are but lots of that was because the production quality of jigs and dies wasn't all that precise. Ferrari bodies were beaten by hand on jigs and then bondoed over to hide the hammer marks. SO the paint cracked everywhere in a few years.

[SN-60]

The same goes for doors in houses and buildings.

Yep! The old rubber hammer trick works on everything except Avantis!!