The LazyAssGeek’s

On the other side of the holding bin you  start with the heart of the beast… the engine.  More logistics amazement here, like everything else the engines are in production order.  Lance pointed out that the standard C6 and Z06 engines were mixed on the pallets, “350’s” and “427’s.”  Being me, I said “you mean 364’s, right?”  Still not sure how Lance took my smartass remark, but he started referring to the engines in displacement with 2 digits right of the decimal points.

Lance was quizzing us on telling the 2 engines apart.  When you see them sitting next to one another it’s fairly easy, the LS7’s intake looks flatter and wider on top, but one by itself it’s much tougher.. until Lance pointed out that the LS7 is a dry sump system and therefore doesn’t have a dipstick. The accessory build-up section is first and is very similiar for both engines.  There’s another one of those cool computerized etching machines, blip the bar code on the build sheet, put the machine in place on the front of the block, zap, your block is tagged.  Attaching the dreaded catalyic converters comes next, again slight differences in location and appearance between the motors, but the jig used to connect them is pretty cool.  You load the assembly into the jig, align it to the mounting points and then all the bolts get torqued into place at once.

The line winds back into an area of the plant that is hard to see and my memory is hazy at this point, but the next area you can see clearly is where the bodies are being lowered to the point where the engines can be installed from below.  Here is also where the rear-mounted transmission goes in and the whole thing gets mated up through the driveshaft. 

Shortly after this the wheels go on and this is a memory that stands out. The wheels arrive from Firestone, yes Firestone, they’re the ones that get to mount the Goodyear tires on the wheels and balance them, then they get shipped off to the factory.  Like seemingly everything else, the wheels arrive in production order and are offloaded directly into the production line.  Well on this day somebody messed up and the wheels were loaded on opposite sides, so this one poor (big!) guy on the line had to go from side-to-side and pick up the wheel/tire combo and carry it over to the other side.  Normally the tires come off the carrier line onto an air-glide table where the wheel can be just pushed over to the car and barely needs to be lifted onto the studs.  Gotta think that poor bastard had a really sore back by the end of his shift cause it was a full truckload of mounted tires/wheels!  Once the wheels are on the studs one lug gets hand threaded on to hold the wheel in place, then a big air hammer puts the other 4 on and drives all 5 to torque spec in one shot.

The car is pretty much finished at this point and the assembly begins to get slowly lowered to the ground as it comes around the final bend of the assembly line and here is another memory that stands out.  As it’s being lowered to the ground a worker walks around the car with a 2-pronged instrument checking the panel gaps.  There’s a large LCD monitor that shows the progress and measures the distance between the measured points.  On the car we watched get checked the hood was misaligned.  The computer yelled and spit out a QC sheet which the line worker put under one of the wipers.  The car will be moved to the QC hold section for the hood to get re-aligned.

Just beyond that point is where the cars are “born.” The engines are all test run after assembly, but this is the first time the engine is turned over with the car sitting on it’s own wheels. As the about-to-be new Corvette owner I got to go onto the line and push the button to start a new Victory Red coupe, shame it didn’t have the proper number of pedals though. Rob got the privelege of holding my watch while I entered the line. The line worker asked what I had ordered and was a really nice guy.  Made a comment about “lots of luxury now, they’re not just muscle any more.”  Told him I can handle the luxury as long as the muscle is still there! They print you out a “birth certificate” with your name to commemorate the moment.

After the cars come off the line if there are problems they get parked in a holding area, if they’re good to go they move straight ahead onto a 3 or 4 bay alignment pit. From there they go into a rolling test room and there are windows so we got to watch a test session.  During assembly they power the car and test everything that can be tested with the car sitting still, this room tests all the rolling equipment.  After the car is up on the rollers a screen lowers in front of the windshield and steps the worker doing the test through the stages.  The car gets taken up to highway speed, checks cruise control, brake system, etc.  Pretty damn cool to watch.

The last area where you can see the cars is the leak check.  They drive the car into a booth where it gets BLASTED with water.  They claim they haven’t had a failure yet. Car gets driven outside and onto a small test track where the suspension is given a small torture test and the driver listens for squeaks and rattles.  Can’t see much of that track from the inside, but after we left the plant Lance drove us around to where you can see the cars waiting to be loaded onto trailers and you get a pretty good view of the test track from there.

And so ended the plant tour.  As I’ve described it many times (and probably repeatedly here…) it was like a 2 hour episode of “Modern Marvels” only in person.  Was already worth the price of the trip and I hadn’t even gotten the car yet!Š

We arrived at about 7:45am and were met by our Delivery Team Member, Lance B. Lance is a retired airline pilot who owns a ‘58 and a ‘92, so with the ‘92 he & Rob became fast friends, commiserating over the “Optispark.”  Lance gave us a quick synopsis of how the day would go and then sent us off to watch the mandatory safety film, which of course leads to signing a release.  Damn lawyers.

Now renting the GM car despite Rob’s cranky complaints the previous evening pays off… they were short on staff cars and we were able to take the rental because it was a Pontiac Grand Prix.  OK, so he’s right, that car is a piece of crap, but it was a GM piece of crap and on that day, that is what mattered!  A quick drive across the street, removal of a very sophisticated security device (a vertical steel tube stuck in a hole) and we were parked at the front entrance to the plant. On the drive over to the plant Lance told us that Corvette Assembly doesn’t hire “off the street”, only existing GM employees.  The line runs at approximately 1/3 the speed of a standard GM line, which means there is always a waiting list for assembly workers. The plant produces 160 Corvettes and 30 Cadillac XLR’s a day.  The weather had turned awful by the time we had the car so I Corvette Forum member ROKNBLU’s shot.

You enter the plant in the holding and QC area for painted body panels.  There are C6 and XLR panels hanging everywhere. Unfortunately you do not get to see the painting process, just what comes after. As you continue down and around the aisle you come to a spot where there are assembled chasses coming slowly down a track.  At that point all they have on them are rocker panels glued along the sides, which are the only panels attached with adhesive.  All the other panels are bolted on.  At this point they have an engraving machine that gets fed the VIN via a bar code from the build sheet that travels with the car all the way through the assembly process.  The VIN is then engraved onto the frame in a spot that will be VERY difficult to access once the car is fully assembled.

My memory is a little hazy at this point, but as I recall the next bit of the process can’t really be seen from the walkway where visitors are allowed.  Pretty much the next time you see the cars they have body panels from the quarters back.  The interior starts going in at this point.  As the line travels the floor level of the stations changes to suit the work to be done, so the interior stations are higher above the floor than body panels, etc.  As the electronics get installed there are power modules that get plugged in so that they can test all “non-running” electrical systems - seats, radio, fans, etc. After that the cars take a right turn on the line they head to where the seats and then the doors are installed.  The door installation is a fairly cool process.  The doors are picked up by jigs which have a locater pin attached.  This pin goes through a location hole in the frame to properly align the door, then the assembler shims it into position with spacers and torques the door into place. 

Opposite this area of the line is a really wild process.  The frames are fed along a conveyor to a robot that glues the rear storage tub into place.  The frames are fed into a waiting area where they are turned 90 degrees and then backed into the robot area.  The robot applies the glue into the area where the tub will be, then it picks up the tub and puts it into place.  The car is then turned another 90 degrees and goes back around the carousel.  The carousel alternates between cars that have had the tub installed and those that have not.  The ones that have come back around with the tub installed are lifted a level up onto a conveyor that sends them towards the area where we saw them coming “downhill” towards where the VIN is etched.

Another jog around a corner as the windshields are installed.  Another robot that applies the adhesive around the frame and then installs the windshield. There are actually very few robots in the process and best I can recall, the tub and windshield are the only robots that we saw in the assembly process.

It starts looking like a car in a hurry now, fenders, headlamps, hood, nose, etc.  After the body assembly is complete the car is picked up off the dolly it has been riding and begins to rise to the upper level and into a holding area that separates the body & chassis assembly area from the drivetrain area.  The holding bin can store about 10 cars so that if either side of the line falls behind or stops it doesn’t effect the other side of the line.

To be continued….

The first day was a travel day. Had to run up to the Hazelton area to pick up Rob’s candy ass instead of him taking the puddle jumper from Wilkes-Barre(you knew you weren’t getting away without comment on that).

Flight to Nashville was on-time and smooth as you could want it.. unless of course you’re Rob. The plane was a new Embraer 170.  It’s a 70 passenger commuter jet.  I thought it was very comfortable.. Rob hates flying and the plane was too small! Damn was he cranky by the time we landed.  Had to smack the bitch down.

Next door to the Hampton Inn is a restaurant called Santa Fe.  Pretty typical Texas steakhouse style of chain restaurant.  But hey, they gave us coupons for free appetizers at the hotel and we’re cheap.  Rob, aka “Fried Cheese” had to order the enormous fried cheese appetizer in addition to the sampler we ordered.. why waste a coupon, right?  At least it was a counter to the mediocre enchiladas I had as an entre! But the beer was cold, it was stumbling distance from the hotel and hey, they had massive pieces of FRIED CHEESE!!!