Quality control like this cost us the import wars

[fteufert]

Did any of the welds fail? Obviously not after 33 years.

You have an assembly line high rate manufactured car, not a Rolls Royce.

If you were welding the frame to build the car, I am sure you would have taken the extra time to make it perfect, like most of us would.

If you and every other buyer of a 1982 Corvette wanted concourse work on every aspect of the car, then you would balk at the price that it would sell for.

Time is money.

 

[LS6 Tommy]

Looks like every C3 frame I've ever worked on. I may very easily be wrong, but I don't think they used automated frame welders yet in 81...

Tommy

 

[rburke65]

They used large spot welding presses, but they were not using robotic mig or spot welders.

 

[finn]

Someone posted that there were 25000 Corvettes made that model year. Also, there were no robotic welders in general use.

Assuming there is one frame line and one shift on a low volume car, that comes out to 11 to 12 frames per hour, every hour, all year, or a frame roughly every four to five minutes, including fixture set up time.

All of a sudden those welds look pretty good to me.

 

[countryroad82]

hey you said it..."but EVERY 70s-80s 'vette or mulletmobile had just gobs of caulk built up in the trunk, firewall, and every other seam."

but whatever, as a C3 vette owner we hear the ignorant comments all the time..."used to have an '83, 68's were horrible, mine was a stingray not a vette, mine had the optional trunk, and was an experimental V6/10/12", that kind of stuff...

and yeah, I was being a smartass...but I do like the mulletmobile comment, may have to co-opt that one...I have a disc of 70's cheese rock I call "mullets and mustaches"...it's a Joe Dirt thing...

Yeah the mulletmobile thing is a word I have heard here and there, feel free to steal it I had a Monte Carlo SS that I referred it as my mullet machine because it always seemed when I would twist the key an instant mullet pop out. I loved that thing!! But yeah I was meaning trunks for the F bodies, pretty much everywhere on the C3s with the caulk thing. Like I said, not knocking them, I like both F bodies and C3s, just pointing out that were I to do a car for somebody (which I have and got to redo it due to owner ignorance) and leave it as is or factory I have an unhappy customer. Which in the one case where I had to redo, the owner did own up that he never noticed how bad it looked until he had the car repainted and popped the trunk, it was a '77 Bandit Edition TA....... which is one of those cars I'll NEVER do the decals again!!!!

You must not have looked at too many original Mustangs with that comment. Im working on resto-modding her '68 Mustang and Ford did some similarly funny things. Per your favorite gripe, her car has probably 10 lbs of factory caulk on every seam. Worse tho is that Ford did a VERY nice job painting the interior, floor pans and all with some decently thick and durable paint. Unfortunately either they didnt paint underneath the vinyl roof at all, or they painted with water colors bc there sure wasnt any left when we pulled the vinyl.

I've had quite a few Mustangs in my shop, but from the ones I have had they weren't really all that bad imo. Not near as bad as the aforementioned GMs. Bad by todays standards, but not as bad as GM. Then again it could be that I was inebriated due to the fact I let a Ford in my shop lol!! I always felt that Ford had better bodies because I've never really had to replace as much metal on them as I do for GM musclecars, and I am in the rust belt!!! Around here we rebuild cars guys out west wouldn't even consider a parts car!! The paint they used on Fords is some awesome crud too!! I've peeled back carpet to replace floor sections and all the good metal cleans up just as good as the day it left the factory, which amazes me. Most manufacturers in the day didn't use any paint, if any under a vinyl roof. Normally it was primer and they called it done!!

 

[Art From De Leon]

Read the book "Rivethead; Tales From The Assembly Line" about what was the norm at GM during that time.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0446394009/?tag=atomicindus08-20

 

[66354dream]

I already hold GM in pretty poor esteem, but I am surprised at that too.

That makes 2 of us

 

[03protege]

JMO but looking at the pics I dont believe those are robot welds, too much inconsistency. It looks like the weldor ran into EVERY possible problem, not just one or two repeatedly bc a jig or part was slightly out of position.

I agree with you, especially looking at that last picture where there is a big gash "welded" no where near a joint.

That's a human, and a dumb one at that.