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Marshal, thank you for the interesting response. Great info. Thank you for your fathers service!!!!! I can understand during war time anything goes to get the needed material out to that solider. WWII production was a incredible task and this country was able to explode in production. One of the many reasons we won!!!! Many odd companies produced odd items. In addition to Saginaw, many other office equipment companies produced the carbine, including IBM. (WWII history is my other hobby)
I can understand intricate components, electrical, computers as such but a bracket?? But I guess there was an accountant somewhere calculating that the cost to set up and produce that did not offset the cost to just buy it. Not enough need to set up for it. You would think that GM could produce it cheaper than your company could.
I would have loved to really see the line in action. Not the tour but the day to day events. I can only imagine the stuff that went on, especially in the bad old days when quality control was not a priority!!. I love your bolt story. They probably did it just to mess with our heads. So the floor sweep kid just went around picking up all the parts that had fallen to be reused and periodically run out to the hardware store???
Greatly appreciated!!!! Good info!! Ike
Last edited by general ike; Mar 9, 2018 at 10:57 AM.
As Marshal stated, The big three would mainly assemble cars. I think that they made their own large items, like I saw Chrysler stamping out floor pans for Dodge Darts when I was a pipefitter apprentice. I am sure that they probably made their own fenders, hoods, doors and trunk lids, things like that.
My one maintenance boss had worked at GM's Fisher Guide. They made all of the lights, bright trim and things like hub caps.
Most people have no idea how much work does into making metal parts. Usually it takes at least four or five dies to make a part with huge punch presses to make a small part. It takes many months for a very skilled die maker to make the dies for a part. Think of all the parts that go into making a car.
Yes, outside automotive parts makers could make the parts a lot cheaper than they could. Plus we would build the dies and special machines to make their parts. A very small parts manufacturer would not have die makers to make the dies. We were also saving them a lot of time making all of those parts, because we were more flexible. Lou.
Thanks Lou. I fully comprehend what goes into making a simple bracket from a manufacturing, machining point of view. I assumed that a a car manufacturing company could do that the cheapest on thus would not look for an outside vendor. I guess my idea of what a major car manufacturer does is way out of line with what actually happened!!! Ike
Last edited by general ike; Mar 9, 2018 at 01:54 PM.
I just wanted to say thanks to all on this thread. I’m hopefully moving my 69 build over to body and paint this fall and trying to button up everything and assemble all the pieces for the final fitting after paint. I too never realized all the changes in 68, 69, 70. Even though minor they truely affect the final product. I’ve got a set of extensions like the second from the left (cant seem to find a part number on them, I tried blasting the paint by two holes but nothing yet) and a set I took off the car. The car had some front end modifications done in the 70s and I’m trying to bring it back to original front end. Now I’m concerned about what front end pieces might have been on the car when I got it and what pieces I’ll need when fitting it back to original??
I have a 69 that my dad bought in 1981. We did an on-frame restoration and discovered it had a 1970-73 nose (side vent sections were cut and glassed in). So while rebuilding the front end now in 2021, I went crazy trying to find these braces only to discover that for 37 plus years these front bumper braces have not been on the car and bumper has been bolted directly to body. I ordered new '69 braces (from Corvettepartsworldwide.com) and they appear to be about 1-1/14 inch too long. I see in the first photo that the second set of braces appear to be shorter than the rest, or maybe I need the last pair (to right).
I crudely measured the bracket on another '69 and the distance from the tip down to the dogleg is an 1' or so shorter than the braces I have.
Does anyone have any insight on this?
Thanks. Bill
I would find a set of braces with the correct 68,69 part numbers and the correct corresponding brackets to go with them. I got a nice used set from forum member geopar here on the forum. Original stuff is almost always less hassle than repop parts imho. Go back to earlier posts in this thread for the part numbers. Check EBay as well.
If you go with the 69 braces, you will need the correct twist brackets and extension brackets as shown in my previous post.
Man, all great info, awesome thread!!
I've been having a devil of a time finding the proper grill brackets for my '73, seems that is a "one off" year, for damn near everything on this car!
Car had a front plate bracket added, and I'm going with center grill instead, right side grill is toast too. Ugh.
