So cool.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xGInPunKk8

 

I have looked, I’d love to see some video of some of the Lansing assembly plants. I’m sure some are out there.

 

Considering how hard it was to take video then, I doubt there is much other than pro stuff. The other problem is that no one there documents. At my plants, we have equipment that is just gone, and there's no video of it running. I try to video everything I demolish before it goes, but, to most people, it's just a job. There's no pictures of coworkers either other than incidental stuff. My boss and I tried hard to find a picture of when our older shop was a truck plant. It took a while.

 

Im kinda nostalgic about my employment as well.

I use to run the lead off machine for the underdrive piston in Dept 84. That machine was installed way back when the K car was first built. I was running the machine on the last day of production. I insisted I take home the last part that machine ran. It’s proudly displayed on my mantle, along with a marble brick from the Oldsmobile headquarters, and a brick from Building 75 at the Lansing Oldsmobile assembly plant.

The underdrive piston was used in the old 404 transmission, the 606, 62TE, the 41TE and 42RE, and finally the trans used in the LH cars (can’t remember the code) that probably hundreds of millions of piston, with who knows how many different operators.

I can say I ran the last part in that machine.


Somewhere (hopefully it’s still on the road!!) out there is the very last 62TE valve body I built.

This is old Dept 91. I worked 5 years on the clutch line. It ended production about 3 years ago. I don’t know how many transmissions were actually built.


My signature

And again on this one.

 

who you flipping off in your pic? lol i got my fisher lansing brick

 

That's great!

 

WOW.....so neat to see!

My 1972 Cutlass 442 was built on the Arlington, Texas assembly line! Thanks for posting the video!

OLE442

 

Crap! That picture was taken years ago, I never noticed that!!!

Thanks, now that’s all I can see!!

I got along with everybody in valve body assembly, I really enjoyed working with many of them. We could bust ***, get the job done, and have fun doing it.

I don’t think I was flipping anyone off, especially since the photographer was using my phone to take it.

Unfortunately, that dept and equipment has gone to that big factory in the sky. They finished hitting that department about 6 months ago, and have started moving In equipment for new product. Not sure what it is or will be.

 

I did about 9 months in West Virginia, with 6 of them being in transmissions. I then did a year in stamping, and have done the remaining 15 of my career so far in Final Assembly. I was usually an engine line engineer, trays and hoists for engines and transmissions on the engine dress lines in assembly shops. Now I'm doing electronics. It's kept food on the table and more, but office politics is unbeatable, so I will go out the same rank I went in when I get 25 in here in 8 years, if not sooner. I don't recommend tier one automotive production engineering to anyone as a career these days; the idiots are running the asylum.

 

I worked at Delphi Harrison Thermal for 4 years and really liked it until it became apparent that, as you say, "the idiots are running the asylum". We were the cheap help but it was still great money. Once you got the feel for the parts/model changes ....it was a no brainer. I always wanted to work in a GM assembly plant and it was neat but would rather have done final vehicle assembly. Any rate, I could see that Delphi, IMO, was just a way for GM to close plants without it looking like it was them doing it. I never thought that they could keep all those jobs long enough for me to get a basic retirement.
I also worked two years for a Chinese automotive glass plant and you want to talk about "the idiots are running the asylum".....LOL! Two years was enough in the hell hole for me.

 

My wife worked for New Process/New Venture Gear which interacted with Kokomo. A $1B per year operation locally until it was sold to Magna who found reason to move it entirely to Mexico.

 

Comparing this to a modern assembly line with robotics is crazy. Watching the fender and hood installation and how they didn’t scratch the heck out of freshly painted surfaces is beyond me.

 

I found it interesting because in my day I was selling tooling to GM and other companies for over 40 years. Technology is great but very few humans in the plants these days. Very depressing. Thanks for posting.

Wayne

 

Great video, thanks for posting.

 

Damn! This is such a cool video!
Really noticing how little attention to detail there could be at this pace.(makes me feel better about my restoration!&#128514
And yes, the way that guy slaps the fender on is amazing.

Is this the Arlington plant?
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Yup, check the video title!

 

Short and sweet, this is what we as Forum members hold true to the Oldsmobile!!!

 

Ouch. Yeah….that might have helped.
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worked at fisher lansing for 28 yrs. some of the best yrs of my life working with people that were like family. never be another place like it

 

A modern assembly line has very few robots. For 20 years, the lines at my plants had precisely 4 robots on the assembly lines, and they put the urethane on the glass. Recently, we have some automatic tighteners for suspension, and some collaborative robots doing various things. You are probably thinking of a Weld Line, which is not assembly. Weld lines have had robotic welders for 30 years, at least.

Fenders and hoods are still installed by hand, but they are usually assembled before the car goes to the paint shop. Typically, this is the only "assembly" done in a weld shop, and it's the last line that bolts on anything that gets bolts, then off it goes to paint. GM did things in a different way because the cars were body on frame, and the trim shop, Fisher Body, was in a remote location. With unibody cars, and in house paint, the shellbody is effectively complete in weld, and the first thing it gets is the ED Coat, which you see in the video.

The myth of "automation is taking car plant jobs away" is a myth. My plant is the largest city in the county when we are operating and employ some 6000 there at that plant. The Assembly shops are about half of that total.

 

Great video.... Shows you how little I know.... was surprised that Cutlass & Malibu would be running down the same line, even mixed in with each other, very cool!

 

Yes, I missed the title the first times through then I saw it.....LOL

 

Same here. I didn't notice the Chevelles until long after I noticed a red SBC getting enclosed by the front clip. My 1st thought was WTF???

Great video, thanks for posting!

 

Lots of good info in there, how parts looked what is correct etc.