RAIV and RAV more continuation....

[Belair62]

More if you have them...wonder where they are going with that wagon in that strange hauler

[Steve_Hoog]

I got a ho bunch, going to do some here and there. I'm not going to post the entire interview, here is another little part:

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So they had the body mount cushions all loaded onto the spud wrench?
The doughnuts were all setting right on there, and the spud wrench was up through 'em. When that body came down they'd guide that spud wrench into the hole, and that would bring the body down onto there. They matched up. They didn't have a lot of problems other than cross threaded bolts or maybe one of the rubber body mounts would falloff as the body was getting shifted around. The guy didn't have time to set there and pick that up off the floor to put it back in there. He put the bolt in it, and they'd take a piece of chalk, mark an X on the side of the frame which indicated that it had a body mount that was defective. Something was missing; a bolt wasn't in. Maybe that guy was behind and he just let that one go. He didn't even try to do his job putting the body bolt in. He just put an X on the frame. As it went through they had inspectors. Them inspectors would look at all of this, and they would see the X on the frame and then it would go into final repair. When the car was already running and assembled, they would go back and redo these defects in the car. After they put the body on the first thing that would happen was the radiator support went on. The inner fender wells would go on before the fenders. Then the fenders would go on. There was another assembly line that come in that carried the grilles.



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[Steve_Hoog]

Floor 2 of the assembly line:



Full Size

[Steve_Hoog]

[ QUOTE ]
You started working at the plane in late 1963, did you ever see any Super Duty cars in the plant?
I never seen any of them assembled. I saw the motors setting in the plants. I heard a story about some "Pike's Peak" cars. Supposed to have been a dozen red Catalinas with Super Dutys. I've seen red cars. !remember seeing' red cars out by the Quonset hut. I have no idea if they were "Pike's Peak" cars; if they was Super Duty or what they were. I didn't go pick up the hoods and look under them. But I did see Super Duty engines. The engineering building had one. And at one time they had a tri-power GTO motor that was painted black. It wasn't Pontiac blue, it was black. It had chrome exhaust manifolds on it. It had a chrome intake manifold. It had chrome tappet covers, and it was painted black. It was really pretty. It sat on an engine stand in the engineering building. It was a show motor. They had Super duty motors in there. At the time, I don't know if they were what they called "bathtub" manifolds or not, but they were aluminum, dual quads, huge strange looking' things that we didn't see on the production lines. We didn't know what they were. We didn't know if they were going to be in production on next year's model, last year's model or what. Unfortunately y they had already been through their heyday and weren't going to be produced any more. I don't have any idea where those motors went to. I know a young lad who works in the old plant 8, which right now is a warehouse, just a storage place is all it is. I know that they scrapped a rack of Ram Air V motors, which went to Sam Allen's junk yard in Pontiac. General Motors demands that he crushes, or melts or destroys them. And they watch to make sure that that" s done. He said that he knew that there was a rack, which is five, that went out there. These were complete, assembled motors that had been stored there for years, and they were scrapped. I don't know why they would do that, but they do. These were completely assembled motors. They were good, but they were scrap as far as the company was concerned.



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[Belair62]

[Jeff H]

One man's scrap is another man's...

I've heard that Chevrolet melted down a bunch of the crossram intakes. But I can't picture a complete engine being scrapped!

[MC69TA]

Hello
Anyone know where this 69 TA is or any info about what happened to it.
VIN 22337N109163 I was owner once.
RAIV 4 Speed

Thanks
Mike

[tjs44]

might contact PHS and see if anyone has asked for docs on it.Tom

[Norm reynolds]

Late –71-72 when I used to hag out down atco there was a firebird that would just tear up the track at the time it was said to be a RA-V but back then I was 20 and it did not mean anything to me at the time only the car was an animal it was called bird of prey does anybody in south Jersey remember this car

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[Steve_Hoog]

[ QUOTE ]
How well aligned was the front end sheet metal during assembly?
Well they had six guys at the end of that line that did nothing but align hoods and fenders and bumpers. Each one of them was responsible for every sixth car down the line. He'd just count six cars and start to work on that. They had their own carts with their special tools, bars, boards and stuff. They used 4x4s wrapped with carpet on one end and had handles carved out of other end. That was their special tool for adjusting bumpers. If a bumper wasn' tjust, right, they'd take them posts and hit the bumper in the right spot. If it didn't move, why they'd just hit it harder the second time. They didn't loosen any bolts. The endura bumpers really gave them fits when they first came out. It took a while to find the right pry points, but pretty soon they figured out how to put a long metal bar into the radiator support injust the right spot to spring the whole front bumper. They used the 4x4 on them endura front ends once in a while. My friend Lee even saw a guy hit one so hard one of the headlights got knocked out and ended up on the floor.


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