[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by The Boss

Must have been deafening!

I have relatives that can sleep leaning up next to that thing....

Originally Posted by MikeNoun

Here's a couple 1935 pics for you Pontiac production plant fans. The wheel chute is fascinating.

We still use tire/wheel conveyors like that today (except typically the tires are laying flat). Tire/wheels are usually built up in a remote area of the plant and then conveyed to the final line in such a fashion.

You can imagine, too, how important it would be to stay in sequence. If you got out of whack you could have one car with three whitewalls and one blackwall, and then the next one would be messed up, too, until you finally caught it. It was especially tricky with trucks, since some could get 4 tires (no spare), some 5, and some six (dually).

We used to keep a library of "wrong" tire/wheel assemblies next to the installation point so that if you got out of sequence, or got a wrong axle (5 lug instead of 6 lug, for example) you could throw the corresponding "wrong" tire on the vehicle to keep the line moving and then repair it out back.

K