Intro from an old Assembly Plant guy

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

You just reminded me of a story...

Maybe you guys didn't do this, but up at Flint we would "fit" hoods and fenders with a big hammer and a big stick.

If the fenders were "inboard" relative to the doors, rather than undoing the lower bolts and adding additional shims at the anchor locations the fitters would open the door and stick a big 2x4 in behind the fender and "ERRKKK" reef on that baby to bend the fenders out.

Similarly, if the hood-to-fender gap was tight at the front, they'd pop the hood and whack the nose of the fender (out) with a big rubber mallet. At that point, I know we'd been using the same technique since at least 1960, since I knew the guy that used to fit the 1960 pickup hoods....

But, you're right. We probably shouldn't mention it.

K

I thought of another one we shouldn't mention:

The wheel opening moldings are designated by RPO (regular production option) B96.

Sometimes, when installing the moldings, the screws would hit torque but not be fully seated. Rather than grabbing a screwdriver and torquing the screws home my line side repairmen would grab a big hammer and WHAM 'em once so they appeared seated.

This led to us calling the fasteners themselves "B96 nails"...

K