Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

I need to know if others have seen a number such as "1" on the extreme upper right hand corner of the cowl tag. The cowl tag in question is a Baltimore tag. Thanks

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Maybe it means the first LS6 built.............

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Hmmm. Well it is a pilot car. Congratulations Scott.

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Greg, Ive heard of a guy marking them at shows https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/imag...ns/naughty.gif,maybe your car was the first one he saw!! https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/imag...mlins/grin.gif https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/imag...mlins/grin.gif https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/imag...mlins/grin.gif

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

I heard that rumor to...it would have had to have been longer than 10 years ago though..last I heard "dataman" was lurking around some "supercar" show or something..I'm surprised I haven't been accused of adding it myself.. Oh..wait...Damn..that is being saved til I re-list the car for sale next time...ghee forgot about that..sorry guys..man I'm always ruining a good secret..;)

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Seriously,

I would appreciate it if any other owners of Baltimore built 1970 Chevelles have seen a similar number or code to post..I suspected that it was something maybe to do with the Fisher Plant, but upon looking at my Atlanta built (12C) gold LS6, there isn't a number so I'm not sure..I'm inclined to think it might have had something to do with quality control at Baltimore, where certain cars were inspected for certain features or quality issues. Maybe just an internal way for Baltimore to track the car, but since the code is embossed from the underside (just like the rest of the cowl plate) it would have had to been added there. Also the font appears slightly larger then the rest of the cowl tag data..Any help appreciated..

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Greg, My 06A Baltimore built 70 Chevelle convertible has a (2) stamped in the upper right hand corner of the Trim Tag. One idea I have is, it could designate a series of body numbers for part of the production year. My car being a late year build, having a (2) stamp and a Fisher Body number of B2556xx, and a Vin# of 136670B2004xx might indicate the 2nd series of bodies out of Fisher. Your car being an early build, probably has a Vin and body number starting with a (1), which would indicate first series for the 70 model year. Another theory, it could be the line the body was built on? Both are just my opinion, and I have seen this before on other Baltimore built cars.

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Kevin,

I think your hypothesis is good..I know my car is a "1" series, so that makes sense, but I have had others say that they have seen two digits stamped there..as in "16" so I'm not sure...I wondered about a second line or another line, but did Fisher produce all Chevelle bodies on the same line or were that multiple lines..I would think the later as well.. Also why not include this on ALL of the bodies if it denotes a series production of the line...For instance why would the plant only include the number on Baltimore cars, when other plants had mulitple series as well..1xxxxx, 2xxxxx, etc..??

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Kevin,

Just went out and looked at the car..The Fisher body number is a B 6354xx number so I'm not sure how that works as far as the "1" denoting a series production..The "data processing numbers" are 0111 (B D 0111) so not sure if it relates to that or not..What are yours? I have often wondered how the factory tracked cars that were on the line, and what method they used to keep track of cars with new RPO's (whether tracking for quality or assembly procedure)..Any thought?

Greg

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Greg, I'm not sure what the other plants did. Try to contact Dale's Place on Team Chevelle and ask his opinion on the 1-2 tag numbers. Also you could attend the Aces North East show in Maryland this summer and see if my theory is close. I'm sure there will be many Baltimore cars there to conduct an investigation.

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Here is a Bal body tag I removed from a 69 Velle I parted while on a canoe trip......I got a boat load of parts that day.. https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/imag...mlins/grin.gif

Steve

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

There is a 10 above BDY in the upper right corner https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/imag...ns/scholar.gif........This is all I have on this boat.


Steve

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

My 03C Balt. LS-5 has a 8 in the upper right hand corner.

ALbert

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Albert,

What is the body sequence number and the data processing numbers and code? Also do you have a console car?

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Greg, It is a non-console bucket seat car(M-22). Here are the numbers:

St70 13637 B074577BDY
TR 756 34 34 Pnt
03C B D 0779

Hope this helps

ALbert

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Greg,

My research falls 6 years short of when your car was built, but based on many, many cowl tags from Baltimore from earlier cars, I believe these "extra" numbers refer to the body buck # (or "jig") that was used to build the body.
In 1964 Fisher Body at Baltimore built full size cars. They used 32 different bucks to hold the various metal pieces in place for welding, such as cowl, "A" piller, floor pan, rockers, quarters, roof, etc. Based on their expected sales of each body style, ie: 2dr Sedan, 4dr hardtop, sport coupe, convertible, etc, they had one or more bucks set for the right pieces to build those bodies. Each set of 32 bucks was called a "gate" (a gate of 32 cars). Other plants may have had 25 car gates or 20 car gates. By looking at my data on many of these cars, comparing these numbers to the various body styles produced, I've concluded these numbers correspond to the number of the body jig used to build "that" particular body. It would make sense that they would want to be able to document which body jig was used, in case some cars started to have problems later in assembly with things like glass or door fit, etc. The build sheets don't contain that information, and once the gate of 32 bodies was completed, they were banked until they were needed to meet the corresponding chassis on the Chevrolet side of the wall.
It does not surprise me that your pilot car is stamped with a "1".........
After all, pilot cars were built ahead of production launch to test tooling fit and establish assembly methods for the new models.

Verne
Again, I can not speak with certainty about the practices in '70.

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

My Balt. built car also has #1 in the upper right hand corner.


ST70 13637 B501269BDY
TR756 25 25 PNT
12A B D 0111


Dave

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Verne,

Very interesting info...Thanks for sharing..That makes sense about the factory wanting to keep track of the body jigs used on various cars, to potentially show any problems. My green 1970 is a "pilot" car, but certainly not the first 1970 Chevelle built at Baltimore..It is perhaps the 1st LS6 built there(an extremely good possibilty), but not sure if that would have made them use "jig" "1" or not..I was speculating that the numbers might have had more to do with quality control (sort of what you are implying as well), but more for the RPO side of things..vs. the actual body assembly. Do you know why this practice only seems to have happened at Baltimore? Any thoughts on what appears to be some correlation between the "B D" codes in the data processing line..ie.."B D 0111" (my green car) and floor shift transmissions at the least?? I am working on trying to gather as many 1970 cowl tags from various Chevelles/Malibus (both "SS" and non-"SS" cars as well as floor and column shift) built at Baltimore. I'm hoping there is a direct relationship between the presence of a "B D," code and the fact a car is a floor shifted car or an "SS". This possibilty was presented by Kevin (musclecarkid on here) earlier. I'd love to chat someday..My work number is 800-669-5834 ext 238. thanks again for sharing some really neat info.

Greg

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Here is my cowl tag info on the green car...


ST 70 13637 B635403 BDY

Tr 771 48 48 PNT

12B B D 0111


It is interesting that "Dave70SS," has a L78 that has a build date of 12A, that has a body number that is quite aways apart from my car, yet was built only 1 week earlier.
Also his "B D," numbers are the same..Any thoughts as to if the "B D," numbers might be batch numbers, and that his car and my car were both part of the same batch of bodies?? However Verne's post sort of implys that there was only 1 of each number in each batch, and we (Dave70SS and myself) both have "1" cars, so.......

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Greg,
First of all, I need to admit to a mistake in my first post. I had completely forgotten that Baltimore stopped building full size passenger cars in '64. But my data is still accurate if I look at '63. In '64, Baltimore switched to Trucks and Chevelles.
Also, (unfortunately) you are definitely asking the wrong guy about '70 Chevelle cowl tags. I haven't studied them at all. I was only trying to offer a possible explanation for those random misc numbers. On the earlier passenger cars, these numbers are, as yours are, placed in odd locations and at various angles, which indicates to me that they were not punched at the same time as the tag was loaded in the "typewriter" tool used to punch all the other information. It suggests to me that these extra numbers were punched separately using another type of simple tool that was only used for those numbers.
I don't know how many jigs comprised a gate at Baltimore in '70, but I would be very surprised of they only had one per body style. I'm sorry if it seemed like that was what I was implying. In '63 the passenger cars had 7 different body styles. They were distributed in various quantities in the 32 car gate. Also, during the model year, some jigs were changed from one body style to another. For instance, there would probably be more orders for convertibles in May than in December, so Fisher had to adjust the percentages of body styles in a gate to satisfy the orders. I've proven this in my data base by sorting these misc numbers by production sequence number and looking at the body styles as they changed, but with the same misc (jig) number.

The B D numbers are totally greek to me. I can verify however that the earlier cars used cryptic codes for an SS option, as well as for a floor shift car.

The last thing I want to do is confuse things even more, but I noticed your body build date is December, well into full production. So, if your car is a pilot car, then it must have been the first to be built in some new way, or with some new equipment which required new tooling or assembly methods for this mid '70 production release. Was there something "new" released in '70 Chevelle production in the January time frame? Most pilot cars were built 4-5 months prior to production launch, or as close as 2 months before if the model change-over did not incorporate major changes. At least one pilot car needed to be built in each different body style to test the proper fit and alignment of the tooling, and most were built with many options, in order to test their assembly and fit. The "order" to build these cars came from the plant itself, rather than through normal ordering channels. When these cars were completed (and met spec) they were assigned the first VINs. Some were given to plant execs to drive until production launch, then wholesaled to dealers. So, in reality, when the whistle blew and full scale production began, the very first car off the end of the line was not VIN 100001. It was more likely something like 100008.

Oh, and back in the era from where I've collected my data, the Baltimore plant was not the only plant to use these jig numbers. Out of the 12 assembly plants producing full size cars, several of them used this practice.

Just trying to help by comparison to other years that I am familiar with.

Verne.

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Fascinating stuff Verne...I remember years ago at Late Great when you guys started that project. You have accumulated a lot of info since then.

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Hmmmm that brings a question to mind on a car of mine. If you don't mind I would like to know if that first few cars starting out of sequence with S/numbers was also true at the St Louis Vette plant??

I have a '65 Vette roadster with S/N 000011 and have been told it may be the first car off the line with disk brakes and now if what you say is true then my car may be only the 2nd or third car off the start of the line with that early of a S/N and not the actual 11'th car off..?

I understand the first few cars off, had drum brakes because the 4 wheel disk set ups were not ready in time. This info came from a respected source by the name of Bill Moock in Bartlesville, OKLA.

Thanks
Larry

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Verne,

My green Chevelle is a "pilot car," LS6. It isn't a "pilot car," for the 1970 Chevelle, but instaed the LS6 option. As of now it is the earleist LS6 with a verifiable buildsheet. On both buildsheets are the words.."pilot job 454 CI," and the paperwork has been looked over by leading Chevrolet/Chevelle historians. Thanks for sharing your info..I'd love to chat on the phone..Is there a way to contact you?

Greg

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Larry,

First of all, I haven't tracked the Corvettes at all. All my data is strictly focused on the full size cars. At any rate, it's my understanding that the pre-production pilot cars were built at only the one or two "lead" Fisher Body plants. Once the tooling was verified, I'm not quite sure how that information was transfered to the other plants. However, in the case of the Vettes, since they were only built at St. Louis that year, I would feel pretty confident that St. Louis did the pilot car Vettes.
Aside from paper work to validate that, I would encourage you to seek out other low VIN '65 Vettes (probably not an easy task) and compare equipment and date codes. Let's say Vette #15 had parts with dates about 2 weeks prior to the calculated final assembly, but your car had parts with dates 2 months prior, then I'd say you have a pretty strong case that your car might have been one of the pilots.
Since Corvettes only had two body styles, I doubt they built that many pilots, even if they needed to test assemble a variety of options. Strictly educated speculation on my part, but I doubt St. Louis built 11 pilot Vettes. I'd hate to think it took them that many to get it right!?! At any rate, I feel confident that your car was not the 11th to roll off the line.
You might also want to check to see if there are any "'64" parts on your '65. I recently had the fortunate opportunity to thoroughly go over a '64 Impala Super Sport convertible which was a pilot car. Body number 2 (perhaps #1 didn't quite meet spec?), VIN#6. This car had a '63 steering box, wiper motor and tach harness. The car was built two months prior to production launch. This car was originally built as a 4-speed car, verified by the original engine number, cowl tag and paper work - then dismantled and reassembled as a Powerglide car. Original owner history has verified the car was delivered new with the automatic, and I've found many traces left behind of the original 4-speed set-up that the plant didn't bother to remove. So, in that case, they saved the time and cost of building an additional pilot car only to establish the assembly methods of an automatic SS.

Larry, your Vette might still hold some undiscovered secrets.................!

Verne.

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Greg,

I never doubted your car was a pilot, I just didn't know what might have been "new" that far into production.
As for getting in touch with me.......easy, I'm in the book. ....But to make it easier, you have a PM.

Verne.

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Verne,

I actually spoke to Jim Mattison regarding "pilot cars," and he relayed that most "pilot cars," were actually built at the Flint Plant irregardless of what the car says. Chevrolet had a special area in the Flint Plant for that purpose. The LS6 was an exception though because it was basically a "SS396" with a larger engine. These cars were built at the respective plants, with the cars being used for media evaluation, engineering, auto shows, etc. They (the LS6 "pilot cars," which he said I have) had hand assembled engines and rears, and were monitored for quality and assembly procedure. He thought about 10-12 cars would have been assembled, and most would have been scrapped. I think therefore it is possible to have other LS6 "pilot cars," from plants other than Baltimore..Along with "standard" 1970 Chevelle "pilot cars." I would suspect that the same can be said for any of the major mid year introductions..1967 L78 Camaros, COPO's, etc. He sent a nice letter discussing the LS6 and "pilot cars" in general. I'll try sending it over if you like. Thanks for your input..I'll try you on Monday.

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

> I actually spoke to Jim Mattison regarding "pilot cars," and he relayed that most "pilot cars," were actually built at the Flint Plant irregardless of what the car says.

You're talking apples and oranges here.
Flint did the buck builds and early prototypes.
The *PRODUCTION* pilot builds were only done at the plant. The whole point was to prove out the tooling at the plant.

Look up some of the threads on the real early 67 LA Camaro (7L100016, body # 1) (either on camaros.net or CRG). It has great info, including some posts from John Z who worked at Flint and was responsible for making the tryouts in the plant work.

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Most people that are aware of "pilot cars," understand that there are different "levels." That is from pure one off prototypes to actual initial production cars built to test the production cycle. I would imagine that even with the L78 being another BB Camaro, there was a certain amount of engineering that was done in Flint vs. Norwood or Van Nuys...Also while any engine changes..L78 to LS6 for instance was just a larger engine, there was still a fair amount of engineering that needed to go into the cars, hence why they went to GM people..executives, zone reps, etc. They were people that could provide "real world," feedback..hence my car was a demo for a service zone rep. In regards to the LS6 program, there were certainly cars built using what would have amounted to crate LS6 engines...the Motor Trend test car being an obivious one. These cars, were built using SS396 cars and built more than likely in Sept./Oct 1969, would be the "truest" "pilot cars," as they were prototypes. My car is a "production pilot car," since it was not scrapped and was actually retailed. It would have been used to check both line quality and production/engineering quality of the "finished" product. GM wouldn't have actually allowed the prototypes to be sold as there would have been too many liability issues. I would imagine that there are other "production pilots," out there for the other plants, but again it is possible given Baltimore's importance in the "A" body program (Z16's, COPO's)that Baltimore was used as the "testbed" for production, and other "production pilots" weren't constructed.

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

[ QUOTE ]
I would imagine that there are other "production pilots," out there for the other plants, but again it is possible given Baltimore's importance in the "A" body program (Z16's, COPO's)that Baltimore was used as the "testbed" for production, and other "production pilots" weren't constructed.


[/ QUOTE ] Wouldn't every plant make pilot cars so the guys doing the job knew how to do it ?? Seems like manufacturing 101 but what do I know !

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Let's not confuse "prototypes" with "production pilot cars". Prototypes were generally built 2-3 YEARS prior to production and used mostly hand made parts, and could not be sold to the public due to liability. It would make sense that prototypes would all be built at Flint, with close proximity to the design studios and central engineering. Most prototypes were destroyed, however the pilot cars which met "spec" were mostly sold. The '64 pilot car I just recently documented was sold "new" with 400 miles on it. The dealer told the purchaser it was a "demo". It was built at Janesville, which happened to be the leading production plant both in '63 and '64.

Verne.

Re: Question about 1970 Chevelle Cowl Tags..
 

Belair,

I would think that all the plants would make production pilots, but who knows as of yet no other "pilot" LS6 has surfaced. It would make sense that the other plants, Atlanta or Leeds for instance would have wanted to make sure the line would support the work,and quality was ok, but since the LS6 was just a larger engine maybe there wasn't a need. I was specualting that since Baltimore was the "A" body plant that seemed to take on the more "interesting" projects" (Z16, COPO) maybe they were given the task and then the other plants just followed suit based on what Baltimore encountered. It wouldn't be any changes to the line, since the LS6 is just a larger L78, and the plants certainly could use the same work flow. There have been a few LS6's that have surfaced from the other plants (I have an 12C Atlanta car) from around the 12B time period and to date , no other cars seem to be coded as "pilots." So who knows...