[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by John V.

1. The Data Plate code 8680 is seen on the '64 Fremont Production Manifest record (aka PHS doc) in a Box labelled LOAD OR SEQ No.

I have logged these in an attempt to understand the purpose. Since it is coded on the Fisher Body Data Plate, the assumption is that it had relevance to Fisher. At the moment, I cannot recall if I was able to discern any pattern to this code

A sequence number would be self explanatory. That number would start with 001 and count up one-for-one for each build. After several thousand vehicles have been built the number would be abbreviated (ie, 138680 would be written as 8680, or 680, or even 80) but would continue to increment up.

The sequence number is the "handle" that the assembly plant uses to keep all the parts in order and provide a sense check as the vehicles are going down the line. All coordinated material, including the cowl tag, service labels, VIN tag, Mulroney label (window sticker) and anything built up remotely (axles, front end sheetmetal, tire/wheel assemblies, seats) are tied to that sequence number.

Most plants have accumulators, or banks, after body shop, after paint, and after trim. These allow builds to back up and allow the downstream areas to draw from the bank and continue running in the event of production downtime (breakdown, or maintenance, or material shortage). This also allows for shuffling the build order, if desired, in order to balance the downstream workload or set a problematic vehicle aside.

Those plants, then, could have a unique build sequence number for the body shop, and then another unique/different build number for paint, and a different build number for trim, and a different build number for final (ie, General) assembly.

Fremont did not have these various accumulators and built straight through (a risky proposition, I would think, for as often as the body shop or paint shop went down). As such, I would suspect this "8680" body shop sequence number was the same all the way through final.

K