[22times]

I was at a car show over the weekend and spotted a really nice 64 GTO. One thing I noticed was the owner had assembly line markings recreated on the firewall and other areas in the engine compartment. The car was really well done, but I question one of his marks. There was a 5N hand written on the firewall between the heater box and distributor. Was that correct for a 64? Just curious....

Rich C.

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[rexus31]

Firewall marking varied from plant to plant and shift to shift. It is possible it was there originally or the owner could have went overboard with the markings when he restored it.

[Tom Vaught]

I have seen Pics of that done (believe in chalk or a white Paint stick) but know nothing about how a plant runs except for visiting the Corvette Plant in High School.

Tom V.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by rexus31

Firewall marking varied from plant to plant and shift to shift. It is possible it was there originally or the owner could have went overboard with the markings when he restored it.

x2. And operator to operator.

The marks were not defined by engineering, but were implemented locally to "help a brother out" by giving workers downstream a heads up of the option content on that specific vehicle. They also help the operators stay in sequence, or detect if a mistake has been made, in the material that is built up off line and then conveyed to the main line (hood, fenders, seats, etc).

K

[John V.]

I don't think I've ever seen a "5N" marked on the firewall. From what I've seen, many guys try to duplicate markings that they find as they carefully strip the car down. So maybe this guy saw it on his and duplicated that. Nothing wrong with that. So not a question of correct or incorrect IMO.

I didn't find any such markings on my firewall so not adding any. No inspector's stamps either. It's a Fremont car. Was that typical? I have no idea.

Like Keith says, these were line worker scrawls that were considered useful by them.

I was watching a show last night on the History channel about the rise of the auto. They got into the early union organization. At one point they showed guys on a sit down strike, scrawled on the door of a car in the photo was some lengthy message about the strike.

It crossed my mind that some restorer could find evidence of that under the paint of that car. Would he duplicate it?

[Tom Vaught]

Do not know what purpose it would serve except to acknowledge that that individual vehicle was built during a sit-down strike that has nothing to do with the basic vehicle options. History but not much else.

Tom V.

[War eagle]

I found a bunch of codes on the firewall of my car but only after sandblasting. The chalk/paintstik remained after the black was removed. Like it stained the original bare metal. 38 was found just next to the heater core indicating the GTO intent. Above the throttle cable hole 2227 and below 2KL. Directly below the throttle cable was 5N. The left floor upper panel had a 2 below the stamped X in the sheet metal. Looking directly at the wiper motor hole and to its left, a large X was placed. Centered just above the trans tunnel is O with a slash thru it. This sits on forward slash and 9E is written after the slash. Only about half of these marks I understand. Again none were visible until after blasting the KC car.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by John V.

I was watching a show last night on the History channel about the rise of the auto. They got into the early union organization. At one point they showed guys on a sit down strike, scrawled on the door of a car in the photo was some lengthy message about the strike.

It crossed my mind that some restorer could find evidence of that under the paint of that car. Would he duplicate it?

I've seen marks that were lunch tabulations, cyphers to their bookie and love notes to ladies downstream. In fact, I've made a few cryptic notes of my own (if anybody ever tries to restore a 2016 G van THAT will keep them puzzled for a while).

The owner would have to decide on his own if he wanted to re-create that (much like finding "Linda" had signed your F car glove box).

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...ighlight=Linda

K