[Keith Seymore]

You can see the build sheet hanging here, telling the operator(s) which parts to put on.

People like to talk about "finding THE build sheet" (which is remarkable, no doubt) but there wasn't just ONE build sheet: there would have been several.

Any area where parts were built up remotely and then conveyed to the main line would have had it's own build sheet: front end sheet metal, motor line, chassis line, seat room, axle line, etc.

The build sheets were supposed to be gathered up and thrown away along with all the other debris in the vehicle (extra screws, paper cups, love notes, numbers lists for your bookie, inspection tickets) but sometimes they got built right into the vehicle (in the seats, or behind the headliner, or under the carpet, or in the doors, or on top of the fuel tank) and it was easier to just leave them where they lay, sometimes embedded in goo or with a screw shot through them.

It must be a pretty good system; 60 years later we still build vehicles with a piece of paper hanging off the front end.

Speaking of inspection tickets - they had an additional informal function beyond just tracking repairs and completion. The tickets could indicate, based on where they were placed, what repairs were required. That is, rolled up and placed inside the coils near the master cylinder could indicate that the brakes failed the pressure test and needed a repair or to be re-bled. Smashed in the door opening might mean one thing, under the windshield wiper something else, and coiled and placed in the door handle yet a third thing.

Pity the poor young engineering student who pulls the ticket to look at it and then puts it back in the wrong spot.

K