Wanted- set of WD code argent 15x7 steel wheels

Morning Jason,
Never heard of the argents except on my 4 speed 64 Wildcat.
Are these still 70 A-body?

 

Okay I was watching a movie so glazed over optional on GS but still never seen any unless I didn't know what to look for. Cool project to locate

 

Jason,
Just so you will know,
I had a 70 Stage 1 4-speed with these wheels. The car was built "05E" (5th week of May 1970).

It came with 4 wheels, the spare was missing. One was dated 11/17/69 with a "WD" code, the other three were dated 3/11/70 and were coded "WH".

It appears my car was built with 1 of the earlier batch of wheels, and the other 3 were from the new batch. (At least that was what I always assumed.)

Anyway with the rarer options you often see such a spread of dates like this. Just look at the Stage 1 distributors, they ran 70 stage 1 distributors all the way to the end of the 72 model year.

So with all this being said you could also use "WH" wheels if you wanted.
Duane

 

Yes these WD1/ F4 optioned wheels were Stamped WD on early cars August 1969 - January 1970,
After January 1970 to very early 1971 (Sept- Oct 1970) they were stamped WH.

Basically ,it was the most inexpensive way to get the big G60 -15 RWL polyglas tires. Ordering these wheel costing $181 and were only available on 1970 Buick GS 455 and Stage 1 cars.

For comparison the 15 x7 WD2/F7 15 x7 Buick chrome rally wheel with G60 Polyglas cost $240. Also,in 1970 a lot of our 70 GS cars were ordered with 14 x6 chrome rally wheels with G70 -14 Goodyear RWL polyglas tires and that cost $179.

The smart buyer in 1970 was ordered the WD1/F$ wheels for his 70 Big block GS car.
These wheels were offered at the start of 71 Model year but cancelled early in the 1971 model year.

The WD1/F4 wheel and tire option was a 15 x7 plain steel wheel with dog dish cap, trim and ring and the big G60-15 RWL Goodyear polyglas tires.

Look at my avatar pic, this shows what they like and are original and correct to my 1970 GS Stage 1 convertible.

The wheels were painted a satin low sheen silver and were never body color as I see others often paint them which is incorrect.

 

Rich, there were (at least) 2 different '70 order forms. I know I have both, but can only find one (earlier I believe) which shows F4 & F7 avail. only for GS 455 and F8 (red lines) & F9 (14" wide oval RWL) as available only on GS 350. I know Mike Trom has an early GS 455 window sticker showing F9 as an SCO option and my 10E Stage 1 had that option so he put SCO on my reproduction window sticker.

At some point, there the other (later?) order form, IIRC as I can't put my hands on a copy) shows all the tire options available for both series so theoretically a '70 GS 350 could've been ordered with G60-15's (F4 or F7) although probably very few were and on '71-72 cars, since the 455 was simply an option, seemingly the G60-15's could've been ordered with the standard (350) or optional (455). I don't recall in there was an early '71 order form showing the F4 option, but I know there are documented early cars with the the option. There was a thread not too long ago that this issue was discussed.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of these points.

I always assumed the F8 G70-14 RWL (and F9 Redline) were Firestone Wide Oval, but never had anything showing that. Are you sure the RWL were Goodyear and do you happen know on the red lines (asking b/c I'm planning on using them on an upcoming '70 project) what they were?

On a different note, this question came up recently on a friend/board member's new '70 addition that had option code V7 (super-sport wheels as opposed to the '71 super sport wheels or the F4 Argent wheels). With the exception of F4 & F7, in '70, was option code V7 simply a trim ring added to the base 14" (body color in many if not most cases) steel wheel/dog-dish hub covers on F1, F2, F8, & F9 (or no tire option)? That was my understanding, but wanted to make sure I was telling him the right thing.

Thanks. Maybe one day I'll finally have all the WD/WH, 7.0/WG, F3, F7, F8, F9, V7 info. straight.

 

Rich, there were (at least) 2 different '70 order forms. I know I have both, but can only find one (earlier I believe) which shows F4 & F7 avail. only for GS 455 and F8 (red lines) & F9 (14" wide oval RWL) as available only on GS 350. I know Mike Trom has an early GS 455 window sticker showing F9 as an SCO option and my 10E Stage 1 had that option so he put SCO on my reproduction window sticker.

At some point, there the other (later?) order form, IIRC as I can't put my hands on a copy) shows all the tire options available for both series so theoretically a '70 GS 350 could've been ordered with G60-15's although probably very few were and on '71-72 cars, since the 455 was simply an option, seemingly the G60-15's could've been ordered with the standard (350) or optional (455). I don't recall in there was an early order form showing the F4 option, but I know there are documented early cars with the the option. There was a thread not too long ago that this issue was discussed.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of these points.

I always assumed the F8 G70-14 RWL (and F9 Redline) were Firestone Wide Oval, but never had anything showing that. Are you sure the RWL were Goodyear and do you happen know on the red lines (I'm planning on using them on an upcoming project) what they were?

On a different note, this question came up recently on board member's new '70 addition that had option code V7 (super-sport wheels as opposed to the '71 super sport wheels or the F4 Argent wheels). With the exception of F4 & F7, in '70, was option code V7 simply a trim ring added to the base 14" (body color in many if not most cases) steel wheel/dog-dish hub covers on F1, F2, F8, & F9 (or no tire option)? That was my understanding, but wanted to make sure I was telling him the right thing.

Thanks. Maybe one day I'll finally have all the WD/WH, 7.0/WG, F3, F7, F8, F9, V7 info. straight.

Duane, I'm curious as you, as does everyone refer to 05E as the "build date" but wouldn't that actually be Fisher Body's Body assembly date (week)? I'd assume the assembly of the car began not long after as you couldn't have bodies sitting around for very long or was the whole process more seamless? I always assumed that the car's assembly date (I.e. the day it rolled off the line @ Flint or GMAD) corresponded pretty closely if not exactly to the invoice date showed on the Sloan or Wayne Roberts as that's the day GMAC would start collecting interest from the dealership. I've never looked @ how the date on the POBF (i.e. Flint) compares to the invoice date or Fisher Body build week, but I'd assume the POBF shows the date the car's assembly began @ the assy. plant and IIRC, it took about 3+ shifts for a completed car to roll off the line after assembly began so if I'm correct, the invoice date would be a day or two later (maybe 3 if assy. began 2nd shift on Friday & assuming they were running 2 shifts/day, 6 days/wk. &/or if the office staff doing the invoicing to the dealerships worked Saturday?).

 

Dano,
98% of the time the Cars/Owners do not have any paperwork, therefore the only date any of them have is the date stamped on the firewall tag.

Yes we assume that is the date the shells were assembled @ Fisher Body, however it is a known date that can be referenced for all the vehicles, therefore it is the only base point you can use across the board.

I believe the cars were assembled shortly after that, but GM needed to sequence them correctly for final assembly. By sequencing, I mean they needed to put them in color batches, had to make sure they had all the parts ready for the options to go on the car, make sure they were not building too many AC cars in a row, etc. (I have talked to a few guys that worked "the lines" back in the day and they said if there were too many AC equipped cars in a row that there was not enough time to get them all done. They needed non AC cars to filter in to keep the lines running smoothly.)

The above is one of the reasons why you often see a "flip-flop" between the vin number and the body numbers. Just because a car has a lower vin number does not mean it was built before a later vin numbered car.

This sequencing of options can sometimes "hold up" a car from being built. Brad's Black car is an example of this. All the parts on his car appear to be approximately a week later then all the other cars "built" the same week. They may not have figured out how to build a Black car with black stripes right away, so it was held back.

Then you get into the problems the 70 GSX's introduced with their paint schemes. According to the guys that actually painted them, the cars were pushed off into an area until they had so many. Then they would rip apart the paint dept, paint the batch up, and have to put the paint department back together for the 1st shift to start production. Sometimes they said they only had minutes to spare. ( I was also told this type of problem did not occur for the 71-72 models. Maybe due to the small number of cars produced.)

As far as the dates on POBF (Production Order Body Final) or POCP (Production Order Chassis Paint) or the sheets used at other Non-Flint plants, now you are talking about GM sheets, and are talking about final assembly. They were developed/assigned to specific body shells that were made by Fisher. I have no info as to the "time" relationship between the two. They could have been developed at the same time or after the shells were finished, I don't know. You are also assuming the "Build sheet dates" are when the car hit final assembly, I can't say if that is correct or not. I always assumed that was when the sheets were created, but could be wrong with that too.

Now with the Wayne Roberts/Sloan info, you are talking about invoicing dates, which involves the accounting department. I don't know what their rules were either. Did they bill when it rolled off the line, when it was loaded on a truck, when it came off a train rail somewhere in a holding area, I sure don't know.

The bottom line is this, taking all the above info into perspective, and all the variables involved, if you are trying to figure out the exact day your car was built, then good luck, because I could not do it. The only thing you can do is get a range of possible dates.
Duane

PS. What is IIRC?

 

If I remember correctly

 

$hit, I should use that all the time.
Duane

 

Thanks Duane - You're perspective on it all is as clear as mine, so I don't feel bad. I agree the Fisher Body date (week) is the one constant we have even though it only approximates when the car was actually assembled. I assumed some sequencing needed to be done based on parts availability, etc. Interesting inside info. On the A/C and GSX.

What really got me going thinking about all this more so than trying to figure what day a specific car was built, was that I'd seen two undoubtedly original '70 cars (both Stage 1 4-sp's, not that it matters per se) that were both 12D and both invoiced on the same day (1/6/70 IIRC) and one had pointed lenses, plastic rad. cover, and clear overflow and the other had flat lenses but plastic/clear so if we were to assume that the cars were invoiced the day they rolled off the line, then we'd know the day that switchover happened although it could've been on different shifts and there could've always been a later car(s) that came with an earlier part if, for example, they'd found a bin of the earlier part.

It'd be interesting and I'll have to pay more attention now to the date/day of the week on the POBF or GMAD build sheet and the invoice date and see what that spread is. Do you know if I'm correct that it took about 3+ shifts for a car to be be completed?

 

Thanks Duane - You're perspective on it all is as clear as mine, so I don't feel bad. I agree the Fisher Body date (week) is the one constant we have even though it only approximates when the car was actually assembled. I assumed some sequencing needed to be done based on parts availability, etc. Interesting inside info. On the A/C and GSX.

What really got me going thinking about all this more so than trying to figure what day a specific car was built, was that I'd seen two undoubtedly original '70 cars (both Stage 1 4-sp's, not that it matters per se) that were both 12D and both invoiced on the same day (1/6/70 IIRC) and one had pointed lenses, plastic rad. cover, and clear overflow and the other had flat lenses but plastic/clear so if we were to assume that the cars were invoiced the day they rolled off the line, then we'd know the day that switchover happened although it could've been on different shifts and there could've always been a later car(s) that came with an earlier part if, for example, they'd found a bin of the earlier part.

It'd be interesting and I'll have to pay more attention now to the date/day of the week on the POBF or GMAD build sheet and the invoice date and see what that spread is. Do you know if I'm correct that it took about 3+ shifts for a car to be be completed?

 

Dano,
I have also heard it took about that long to get a car thru the line. As far as the early vs late 70 parts, again the changes took place at different times for different plants. I did an article on this and there was a range of time when the cars started changing out the early parts, and were all then all later parts. It was sometime around the 2nd week of Jan 70 when everything was changed over. However someone on here said there was one built later then that that had the pointy lenses. I would want to see the dates on the gauge and instrument cluster before I would believe that. I could only find 1 or 2 cars in the 1st/2nd week of Jan that had any of the early pieces, but then again look at the spread of dates on my original post about the wheels.

You want to really drive yourself crazy start looking at the date codes of all the parts and then look at how the spreads changed through the production year. Welcome to my world.

Now hopefully we can get back to "our regularly scheduled program" and Jason can find a set of wheels.
Duane

 

Yes, sorry to hijack your thread Jason.

 

Ya know in a round about way I ended up at "Chrysler Carlisle" last Saturday. I was wearing a GSX Reunion shirt. There were thousands of people, cars, and hundreds of venders and absolutely no one knew who I was or asked me any questions. I was totally invisible, Mr. Cellophane.

It was a wonderful feeling.
Duane

 

Pic of RPO code WD1 /Sales code F4 wheel and tire option that are original on my 70 GS Stage 1 conv.