Chevrolet assembly plants
 

This thread will serve as a repository for Chevrolet assembly plant pictures, documents and miscellaneous information.

Arlington Plant
 

This thread dedicated to the Arlington plant.

Baltimore plant
 

This thread dedicated to the Baltimore plant.

St Louis Plant
 

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What I think would be a good idea, aside from the pics, questions and dialogue that come from these pics is to add a hashtag to it.

For example on this pic........#stlouis

My reasoning it so that it would be easy to search later in time by plant. so as they say......."have at it boys!"

#stlouis

#Fremont

This photo is from Fremont but it reminded me of something.

Flint Assembly has an unusual arrangement, in that the two final lines come together in the middle of the plant to form a “main aisle”, with assembly action on either side.

As I student I used to host the factory tours, when Boy Scouts or Rotary Club or the DAR or whomever would come in for a plant visit. The tour was very high level and consisted of a run down the main aisle to the end of final and then back.

Flint’s second story is very high as you can see in the second photo. The body drop clamshell operators would show off a bit for the tours, letting the cab and box essentially free fall and then stop abruptly mere inches above the chassis.

It was, admittedly, pretty impressive and the groups were fascinated. They would stand and watch for as long as I would let them.

K

#StLouis

Seeing those guys spraying that car: I mentioned that the movements and promotions within the UAW were solely based on seniority.

That meant you could be pushing a broom one day and then spraying cars the next.

Normally you would give a new employee about three days to work along side a seasoned veteran, with him training, observing and then letting the new guy do all the work (probably way too soon).

I can't imagine what the training would be for painting other than 1 - get plenty of coverage on the show surface and 2- don't get any runs. Anywhere in between that would be acceptable.

Also - the assembler wouldn't have anything to do with the setup (like spray patterns, or volume). That would be taken care of by a skilled trades person - a pipefitter, perhaps - so all the assembler would have to do is show up and pull the trigger.

I did hang out down in final repair when I could and those guys (both short line repair and heavy) were more like what was done at an outside body shop.

K

Fremont plant
 

This thread dedicated to the Fremont plant.

Fremont plant- body drop
 

Fremont body drop.

Hi Steve,

Sorry, but I need to correct you on the spelling of the General Motors plant in Northern California.
The town is ‘Fremont’ and I happen to live here in Fremont.
It was named after John C. Fremont.

I made a very informative thread in the Pontiac section on 06-04-2021 about the Fremont GM plant.
Lots of great photos and information on this New state of the art automotive plant.

Here are a few photos from my article.

Regards, Chris

Great and interesting photos - the first with the two men installing the engine in the chassis appears that both the upper and lower control arms are not painted (neither is the brake drum?). The second with the chassis ready to be mated to the body appears the the control arms are painted black - maybe even with different cross shaft hardware on the upper (nut vs. bolt??) - hard to tell.

Yup, whole lotta things going on there in those two engine photos.
I’ve had several conversations with people about the a-arms, exhaust manifolds, etc.
The oil filter adapter and oil sending unit are also different.

Early Camaro Body by Fisher

1st Gen Monte Carlo production. What’s the apparatus over the engine bay?

It's a specialized tool known as a squaring jig,used to help speed up production during front sheetmetal alignment.You can just spy a guy holding an impact wrench down in the pit in the lower left,getting ready to secure the fender once the guy above gives the word.

Agree with "squaring fixture".

The only adjustment I would make to the previous comment is the guy in the pit is getting ready to shoot the radiator support bolts. The fenders are tight at the door and the fender nose bolts have been shot, but leaving the rad support bolts loose allows you to scoot the front end left or right to square it up.

Hopefully then when it's time to set the hood it goes right in there.

I stood and watched my guys do about 900,000 of those while I leaned on the foreman's desk. One every minute of every working day for about six years.

We didn't (usually) use the fixture, though. Typically those big tools are cumbersome and clunky and slow you down. They get used a little bit when new, and when management (or photographers) are looking, but quickly fall into disuse otherwise.

K

That's "roll test" at Fremont.

The drivers check the steering and brakes and run it up through the gears.

I don't see it (them) but normally there are mirrors front and rear so the driver can check the lights: headlights, high beams, turn signals and brake lights. [Maybe this is a roll test after a short line repair rather than the end of the final line proper].

The controller for the rollers is suspended by the electrical connection from the ceiling (circled). Those raise and lower the rollers for entry and exit. The driver reaches out through the window and grabs it to actuate the push buttons.

K

Great pictures.

I have been wanting to make a few comments about the vehicle audits and process:

As mentioned, some number of production vehicles were pulled and given a rigorous once over. These were done by local quality inspectors and included a drive on public roadways. The internal results were kept and tabulated and fed back to the offending production areas.

What was not mentioned is that at some regular interval (quarterly, maybe) a Central Office auditor would show up and perform a similar review. These results were fed back to headquarters and used to rank the various plants against each other. Results were posted in the audit area and were published in the local plant newpaper for visibility. The red carpet was rolled out for these visiting dignitaries in an attempt to sway the results a point or two.

The corporate audit rankings were also used as a data point when allocating additional production volume or the closing of low performing facilities.

Everybody in the plant (everybody that was halfway engaged) knew where their plant was in the rankings, whether it was towards the top (Detroit P truck chassis, Janesville, Oshawa), middle/middle bottom (Flint, Pontiac) or very bottom (Scarborough Van). Management used that as a dangling sword over the workers' heads.

K

More assembly pics. These are shared on FB by “Cryptopig the Painter”

Interesting mix

That's how it's done.

When I started in Hamtramck it was Volt, Buick Lucerne and Cadillac DTS all down the same line. Hard to find some commonality there.

K

I've added all the 1st gen Camaro pictures I had to JohnZ's assembly article. http://www.camaros.org/assemblyprocess.shtml

I remember being in the Ford Wixom plant - the Town Car, the Continental (fwd), and the Lincoln LS were all on the same line. The Mark VIII was on it's own line (and the cars just sat (covered up) a lot of the time from lack of orders).

Those pictures great to check out.

Fisher Body

Painting Monte Carlos and shipping Camaros. Looks like a bunch of matching SS/RS cars with 14x7 XT’s with caps and rings.

----All the Camaros that I can see clearly are converts as well.....Bill S

I always thought that the hubcaps and trim rings were kept in the car for the dealer install.