I'm curious about the hours & days of operation for midyear production -- both engine cast and assembly. Did Flint, Tonawanda and St. Louis run 5, 6, or 7 days a week? 1, 2, or 3 shifts?

Dave

 

Yes (to all shifts as needed). The casting date shows the shift by the position of the screw slots on either side of the casting date. Shift work varies as needed. Generally, GM based factory capacity on a 6 day 2 shift maximum, but like any business - they did whatever it took.

 

I believe the St. Louis plant worked two shifts during the sixties with some overtime on Saturdays to keep up with demand.

Foundry operations are best run on a 24 hour basis because of the time to heat up and cool down the furnaces.

Current Corvette production is limited to one shift plus overtime.

Duke

 

So it would be possible then to have an engine cast date that is a Sunday?

 

JohnZ can probably give a definite answer, but I don't think they normally operated on Sunday.

Duke

 

St. Louis ran two shifts, with either daily overtime or an occasional Saturday as necessary. Flint Engine ran three shifts in machining, two in engine assembly, with Saturdays as necessary depending on demand. Saginaw Foundry ran three shifts, six days (including the dedicated 24/7 truck fleet to haul castings to Flint Engine); the furnaces were kept going on Sundays, but no castings were poured on Sundays (except on an emergency basis).

 

Wow, this forum is such an incredible resource of information and knowledge. Thanks SWCDuke & JohnZ.

 

What about the Tonawanda Forge & Foundry?? BB owners want to know. :confused:

 

Same kind of schedule at Tonawanda; Flint and Tonawanda each built 5,000 engines per day. The Saginaw Foundry was an hour away from Flint Engine, but the Tonawanda Foundry was on the same site, adjacent to the engine plant. Flint had two SB V-8 assembly lines (170/hour and 110/hour), and in later years had a separate line for the Chevette 4-cylinder. Tonawanda had two SB V-8 lines, a BB V-8 line, and in the 60's had a Corvair line, and in the 70's it was replaced by the Vega 4-cylinder line.

 

In the summer of 1973, I was working at Monsanto Chemical, in a suburb of St. Louis. One Sunday when I was off, I decided on a whim to drive down to the Corvette assembly plant. I pulled into a parking lot marked "visitor", and asked the gate guard if there was any chance I could get one of the "assembly line tours" I had heard of. I was driving a 70 Trans Am, but explained that I was a Corvette owner. He said "he would see". In a few minutes, a man in shirt and tie came out to the parking lot and introduced himself as the manager? He said that although they didn't do tours on Sundays, he would give me a personal guided tour as long as I understood that it could end at any time that he was needed wlsewhere. I agreed. He took me through the fiberglass body assembly shop first, then to where the bodies were painted, then to where the body was mated with the frame. (I didn't see the power train assembled). Then, about the end ov the line, a guy came up with a single box (a foot square, with about 2-3000 nuts in it) and explained that they were running out of that particular item, and that was all they had left. The guy (I don't remember the name) got real serious, and apologized, but had the guy with the box rush me to the parking lot, while he ran off to do something else. As I got to the parking lot, I commented that some new Corvettes I saaw behind a fence also had molded rear bumpers, in addition to the molded front bumpers. He said they were prototype 74's, and I left.
They did make Corvettes on Sunday. At least for one unday in 1973.

 

Great story, we should have a section on the forum for thing like it.