I worked in the automotive business most of my adult life. That being said, one would think that based on some 30 or so odd years of experience there wouldn't be too many surprises. Our predecessors had a great wealth of knowledge pertinent to their occupations and the era in which they lived. Of course I knew that old cars had wood in them, I just didn't know to what extent it was used. I was reading an article about Fisher Body, whom manufactured thousands of bodies for a multitude of manufactures prior to selling to General Motors. After being purchased by GM, they became the only corp. that Fisher Body could build bodies for. Fisher Body and GM jointly owned in excess of 250,000 acres of forest land, of which they used in the manufacture of their cars. They also purchased sawmills, created and patented special tooling and jigs for their production process. The two corporations had such a tremendous investment in wood, tooling and craftsmen that they just couldn't abandon the use of wood in their cars. Wood continued to be a very vital part of their process well into the late thirties. Holding on to certain practices can make a very big difference in the cost factors related to the product being made. When Ford changed over to lacquer paint, they were able to paint a car in 6 hours instead of 6 weeks. Older paints, varnishing, preparation methods, drying times, re-coating times made a huge difference in the time it took to complete a vehicle. The net result, a less expensive automobile.
Because of so much wood being used, Chevrolet used step bolts, much like carriage bolts but with a larger and flatter head diameter. These bolts were less likely to compress the wood fibers, special tee nuts were used to anchor into the wood, and nut plates that could be nailed to the wood to prevent them from spinning when the bolt was tightened. For Chevrolet this production system fit nicely with their experience at carriage making. Some of this hardware is still in use today, just not to the degree that they once were, and certainly not in the automotive industry. For example very large step bolts are used in telephone poles to aid the lineman in climbing the pole. Ah, history and to think it was one of my least favorite subjects in school but I find many aspects of it very captivating now.
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| Nut plates, small holes for nails. Broken bolts removed, thanks WD40! |
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| Old regulator felt washers. |
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| New felt washers installed, nylon wasn't invented yet. |
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| Drivers door window regulator. Notice the use of tee nuts. |
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| Selection of needed carriage bolts. |
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| Last trip to The Filling Station. |
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| New flocked channel for the windows. |
I took all my interior garnish moldings to a powder coating company today, the ones that I had pictures of earlier in my blog. What do you think the Fisher brothers, Henry Ford, or Mr.Chevrolet would think of this process? SPC (Salem Powder Coating) is a rather small company, they are whom I selected to do this. The parts should be ready in a couple of days, more about this later. I decided not to go through the headache of tracking down all of the step bolts that I needed for reassembly of the car and use carriage bolts instead. The carriage bolts are available at my local Lowe's store just down the street. If I were restoring the 32 back to original I would be more concerned, it is a hot rod ya know!
My partner and I made another journey to The Filling Station this past weekend. More parts, more information and another bill. For those of you unfamiliar with this business, they are a vintage Chevrolet parts supplier. A great resource for parts and information! Why is it that the size of the parts bag is always disproportionate to the size of the bill?
More Later From---Beneath The Bark
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