My recently acquired Lansing built 72 442 has a build date of March, 72. Is this considered early enough in the build year that some parts from the 71 model year may have been used? So far, I've come across 3 things that are particular to 71 on this car and having bought it from the original owners and knowing the history and the total lack of modifications to the car, I doubt all of this was changed over by them. The QJet (which obviously could have easily been swapped) is coded 7041250. The cowl area has the metal screen instead of the 3 separate plastic pieces that were normally used on 72's. Also, the battery cables are for a top post battery which I think was changed to side mount in 72. Just wondering what other 71 components may have been used. Anybody else have similar experience with an 'early build' Olds?

 

Assembly for a given year model starts on August, and in the '72 year model began Aug '71. That said a March '72 build would be fairly late in the year but early enough to have late '71 code dated parts. Hope this helps

 

most of the 72s i have seen had the metal screen. I think maybe they had both in 72. Don't know about the other parts. I heard there was a mid year change over on the cables. I thought that was 72 but not sure. If I remember right, I think Allan has a 72 with top post?

 

I dont know about Olds but i heard long ago that there was a Big Long Strike at GM and alot of the 71 cars and parts were carried over to 72. Again not sure about Olds but i have read there were not many 72 Trans Ams built due to the strike. So if thats the case maybe olds used some 71 components until the strike was over. Just a possibility i guess.

 

Yes, the 72 model year was supposed to be the body change to what ended up being the 73 model year cars. Because of the strike, that did not happen and the '71 body style was used for 72 with minor modifications (grill, taillights, etc) so it is possible that '71 parts were used on a '72 car.

 

As Scot already pointed out your car isn't an early build.

My car is a 72 Cutlass S built at Lansing on March 10, 1972. Close enough to your build? Want to compare VIN's? 3G87H2M208783. Body number on the cowl tag is 442325

1. The Q-jet on my car is not original so I can't comment on that. It wouldn't surprise me to find that yours has been changed. The one I have now is a 7042250 which is correct for 72 350 L34. Used to be a 2bbl car, hence the H in the VIN.
2. The cowl screen is one large mesh exactly as yours is.
3. The battery cables are top post exactly as yours are.

 

Great information (as always)..thanks! For comparisons sake, VIN is 3G87M2M198262 and body number is 417932. Build info on tag is 03G. I read in a reference book that there were special QJets used on OAI equipped cars which I hadn't head before. Just wondering what carb I should be looking for if I decide to replace this 71 carb.

 

Ah yes, the seventh week of March...

Look again, I'm guessing that is really an 03C.

 

Lots of months have segments of 5 weeks in them, this past March '13 had 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays hence covering a 5 week period.


Henry

 

Yeah, apparently Scott has seen the error of his ways, because he deleted that post.

In any case, here's March 1971. A 1971 car with build date 03E would have been built somewhere between March 29 and 31.

 

Corporate calendars aren't always made to align exactly with "normal" calendars. It's common for the "week" to start on a Monday, not Sunday, and there's often no such thing as a partial week. In light of this, the fifth week of March, 1971, may have also included April 1 - 4, and the first week of April may have started on April 5.

If anyone has documentation as to exactly how Oldsmobile (and other GM plants) counted the weeks, please share.

Back to the original poster's car:
The UAW strike that was mentioned above occurred near the end of the 1970 calendar year, thus interrupting early production of the 1971 model year cars. I wouldn't expect the strike to have resulted in any odd 1972 builds. (Other than the fact that the entire 1972 model year was one big odd build. What were eventually released as the 1973 models were originally slated for 1972. It was the 1970 strike which disrupted engineering and production and pushed those models out a year.)

 

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe they used an ordinal calendar for production of the car parts, and that may be helpful to translating the actual build date. My car was built in 1972 (started on April 7 and finished on April 10) according to my broadcast card and documentation I have from GM Canada. This in turn leads me to believe (could be wrong) that the factories didn't run 7 days a week, but were shut down on weekends.

I looked at the time build code on my cowl tag and it shows 04A which is the first week of April. The first day of April 1972 was Saturday though. So with that info in mind, I'm suggesting that in this case, the first week of April goes from Sun April 2 to the following Saturday April 8. That makes the actual build date(s) consistent with the 72 calendar and GM documentation I have on the car. The broadcast card shows production date of April 7. But there's evidence it wasn't finished till April 10.

If you look at this ordinal calendar, that was also a leap year, so day 100 would actually be day 101. That matches the ordinal date stamping I found on my axle - SA O 101 [2.73 Olds - 101 day]. Reality is these axles were ordinal stamped as they were produced, so if the car had been completed on the 7th, the axle code should be SA O 0098. The evidence of the axle tube production is consistent with the final production date of April 10 on the 1972 Calendar, which is Monday.

April 10 was also the date the car was shipped to Golden Mile Chev Olds - for a leasing company fleet acquisition.

So I'm inclined to believe that the 'build date code' using month and weeks followed the typical calendar everyone used. Don't forget that these cowl tags were pre stamped by fisher body. They didn't control the final assembly line though.

Before anyone jumps in and claims this is all supposition? Go back and read it again. I'm basing my conclusions on hard evidence I actually have for my car. Anything to do with how GM calendars worked is speculation on my part and I'm just offering my point of view - not fact.

 

(03E) 5th week of March was exactly three days per the calendar above. April 1st - 6th = 04A.
The actual date Fisher Body done their part of the build is noted on the cowl tag. Which entails of pretty much everything including the body shell from the firewall back and then they shipped it to the plant, fully painted and trimmed, including the interior, minus the instrument panel, dash and floor-mounted components, and front carpets. The assembly plant (Oldsmobile) then assembled all the rest of the trim, chassis, and final assembly components, including all the front end sheet metal, and shipped the finished cars to the dealers.
Take my car born in June '72 for instance

06A (1st week of June '72) on the cowl tag. That means Fisher completed their part on June 1st, 2nd or 3rd.
Now the blue sticker on my driver's side door reads 06/1972
BUT on my protect-o-plate reads 07-10-1972 (Which would be the date the assembly plant was finished with the build and the car was ready for the dealership for delivery) My car being a Special Order has a lot to do with the amount of time elapsed between Fisher Body's part and the finish by Lansing. Actually the car was delivered to the dealership on 07/14/1972 to the dealership per documentation.

 

I thought this came up in another thread .....

??A = 1st - 7th
??B = 8th - 14th
??C = 15th - 21st
??D = 22nd - 28th
??E = 29th 'til end of month

it didn't matter what month or what day of week.

 

Yes, they used ordinal date codes on most parts and subassemblies, but not all date codes were ordinal.
The problem here with the conclusions you're drawing is that the "hard evidence" does not tell you what you think it does.
Start at the beginning. The purpose of date codes is traceability. Not to a calendar, but to a manufacturing time-frame. You trace a part number and a date code. The body code and the date codes on the build sheets not a guarantee of exactness to the date either. For example, the date on the build sheet even says "scheduled" date. And the scheduled date was not always the date it was actually assembled. That is why some body tag dates are actually *after* the build sheet date. Now that doesn't follow sequence, does it?
What all this means is that the "hard evidence" is not as "hard" as you think it is. When you get down to trying to perfectly fit the time-frame pieces of the puzzle together, the edges are fuzzier than they appear. The dates get you pretty close, but we have to recognize that they are not exact.
This research is not an exact science, and trying to make it so will lead you down the wrong path.

 

And just exactly what I stated was wrong??? Pray tell...

 

I can't tell you your statement is wrong, but you offered no proof that it's right. Maybe you didn't understand my previous post? What proof do you have that each month started on the first day?

I'm looking at my employer's fiscal calendar right now, and Week 1 of 2013 started on Monday, December 31, 2012. Week 1 of 2014 will start on Monday, December 30, 2013.

 

Logic tells me that the 5th week of May '72 as on a cowl tag would not include June 1 which was a Thursday. How else could you squeeze 5 weeks in a month if you used June 1 as the 5th week of May? This isn't about a fiscal year or month or ordinal or Julian dates on parts, it is about a specific stamping on the cowl tag. If June 1st 1972 was 05E then what pray tell would 06E consist of?

 

Never said it was exact, just offering my evidence from the 'broadcast card' and GM Canada Authentication for my car. My axle ordinal date code of 0101 should NOT have been punched 3 days earlier, so I'm inclined to think that the actual completion date on my car was April 10, 1972 even though the broadcast card says it was sequenced on April 7. I have no problem with the fuzziness of that 3 day gap. All it means to me is I have narrowed down the gap of when the car was fitted by Fisher and completed by Lansing. Nothing more. Do you know offhand whether GM ran production on weekends back then or is this just another example of research gone wrong?

Probably the only way to know for sure how the date coding system for scheduling, production and calendar coordination is to find someone who administrated that and can give lucid first hand information.

 

My father worked at plant#2 in Lansing and they ran overtime a lot Saturday included, he built the rear ends for A,B and C bodies, and my ex-father in law worked @ plant #1 he hated working overtime but they still had mandatory Saturdays and Also one of our members Dad (hurstlightning84) worked for Fisher in Lansing and I am sure that they worked on the weekends. Most of these people worked during 1968-2009.

Pat

 

GAOldsman: I do not agree about your "POP" plastic warranty card. Those were "embossed" by the "selling dealership" with the VIN/owner info/dealer code, etc., NOT the Final Assembly Plant, when the car was "put in to service" (sold) to active the starting warranty date.

 

Yes you are 100% correct Dave, my bad. The car was released from the dealership to my Grandfather on 7/14/1972 so I guess it was delivered to the dealership on 7/10/1972. Makes sense to me being that the factory did not install some of the items on my car per the agreement and the dealership did the rest.

 

Good information Pat.
Any way you can confirm with your Dad if the axle stamping was done on the actual date of production?

I was fishing for the information about weekend operation. Not sure if I'm reading that correctly so feel free to clarify this. Are you saying that OT was mandatory on Saturday? Did the plant shut down on Sunday or was Sat/Sun normally supposed to be shutdown and then startup again on Monday?

What would be overtime for Lansing? Trying to figure out how many regular hours were on the normal shifts, and what was considered OT.

So if the plant got backlogged with production during the week, they would work OT on Saturday to catch up?? Or would they work a couple extra hours every day (which suggests they had start/stop times for production) to stay close to production expectations? Love to hear back on this since it sounds like you have a first hand go to source.

Wouldn't Fisher production be a different operation than the final assembly line?

 

Normal shifts were two shifts M - F and like Pat said overtime was more often than not.

More info on cowl tags...

The trim tag date is when the body shell was welded together at Fisher Body, not when the body finally got to Oldsmobile and went through final assembly. Typically it took 2 days (4 shifts) to go through the Fisher Body process and another 1-1/2 day (3 shifts) for the final assembly process.

 

So typically the factory was normally 'scheduled' to be shutdown on weekends? This is interesting because my Fisher broadcast card shows April 7. That was Friday in 1972. If the car took 2 days or less at Fisher (FR/SA) and 1 day at Lansing, this makes perfect sense according to the GM production date/shipping date of April 10 supplied to me by GM Vintage Vehicle Services.

 

As I recall normal shift is 8hrs. 5 days per week. Overtime was done by seniority and or the amount hours of overtime served, this was posted for all to see if you were getting hosed by a brown nose that was getting all the OT.

OT was given to people who wanted it also, if you don't want it you did not have to take it. That brings us to MANDATORY OT, you have to work it regardless of hours or whether you felt like it or not,this usually pertained to Saturday and sometimes 10 or 12hr shifts!

My dad would always worked OT, it was not uncommon for him to have 60hrs per week. He's been retired for 6 years now his house is paid for, and he can buy a new car anytime he wants.

Allan, I will check with the old man, I am not sure if the made the axle tubes there or whether american axle did? he moved axle carriers from one line to the other and also assembled the inside components i.e. side gears, pinion/gear and axles.

GA oldsman for the most part when things were going good three shifts were pretty common through the 80's, third shift was not always there but more common than not!

Pat

 

Yes I was talking about the era of '68 - '72 as far as the two shifts per day go.

 

It sounds to me like you're saying that all 12 months of the year had 5 weeks. I'm assuming that's not true. I think that only 4 months a year have 5 weeks.

Which brings us to an easy way to solve this puzzle:
If enough people with an "E" in their Fisher Body date code will post their codes (and tell us the model year), we'll be able to figure out which months had 5 weeks. We can then compare that to the actual calendar. All I need to see is a couple months in a row, like the 05E and 06E you suggested, to prove me wrong.

 

Not at all what I am saying. Where in between the lines did you gather that? I was stating that if you combined the last part of one month with the first part of another month, then you would never need the fifth week of any month. Is that clearer for you to understand? I have seen 08E, 10E and 03E for the '72 model year, so it would be interesting to see any and all tags with the E or 5th week of production for that month.

 

GAOldsman: no big deal was funny you missed that as you pretty much "know your Oldsmobile facts".

Also, you correct on the time frame both at Fisher and the Final Assembly plant to complete the car, especially at Lansing as the Fisher plant was across town! My current W-31 took two days and three shifts to complete at Final Assembly and only one day/two shifts at Fisher. My brass hat cars usually were done in three days both at Fisher and Final and two days after Jan 19th., this was right after the 70' strike, as we were "cranking'em out". I think DaveH said like 96 cars an hour and we still had the "lowest cost per car to build" and "lowest warranty charge back to Lansing Assembly" then all the other Olds plants! And the kicker was we were producing more cars per hour during the 70' model run than any GM assembly plant. Wow

 

Thanks Pat for the compliment Lansing had the Fisher Plant across town and some plants merely had a "hole" in the wall separating the two

 

I have pics of the following 5th week Fisher Body tags for the 1967 model year at Lansing.

08E - 09E - 11E - 12E - 03E - 05E

August 29th was a Monday
September 29th was a Thursday
November 29th was a Tuesday
December 29th was a Thursday
March 29th was a Wednesday
May 29th was a Monday

I'd bet there aren't any 02E (no 29th), 04E (29th was Saturday), 07E (29th was Saturday) for model year '67 and I'm missing pics of 10E, 01E, & 06E.

 

Seeing as how every month but one has more than 28 days (= 4 weeks), 5-week months are a necessity. And since there's 52.1 weeks in a year, at least 4 months need a fifth week.

 

Another thread had me looking up some dates on my '61 Starfire.

body tag 12E (5th week December '60) 29th was a Thursday
Lansing body #843 (843rd Starfire body at Lansing Fisher Body)
VIN# 616M01835 (835th assigned Lansing Starfire VIN#) - things were a bit different in '61, each model started with VIN# 01001

I have some production data for the '61 model year - it shows: Lansing Starfire production started in November '60:
November 205 units (in a perfect world 616M01001 thru 616M01205)
December 562 units (in a perfect world 616M01206 thru 616M01767)
January 464 units (in a perfect world 616M01768 thru 616M02231)

So, my car was approximately the 68th Starfire assigned/completed in January.

With the info stated in this thread the car needs ~4 shifts in Fisher Body & ~3 shifts at Final Assembly (would a Starfire convertible require more shifts for completion?)

Does the 12E represent the first shift or the last shift at Fisher Body?

conclusion: the body was started December 29, 30, or 31 (the 31st being New Year's Eve & a Satruday) - worked on for 4 shifts then moved to assembly and after 3 shifts was completed on January 4 or 5 (after plant shut down for New Year's Day "observed" on Monday 1/2/61)

Sound plausible?

 

12E just represents the 5th week of December when the body was started ( welded together) no more no less.

 

And yes that conclusion is very plausible and highly likely.

 

[QUOTE=Allan R;529211]Good information Pat.
Any way you can confirm with your Dad if the axle stamping was done on the actual date of production?

I spoke with my dad, he said they did make the axle tubes at plant two, as far as being stamped with a date code at plant two, he's not sure because that was a different part of the plant that did that and he never saw any stamping, even though the axle ratio code was on the right hand tube.

Pat