Back around 1979 I did a tour at GM in Framingham MA. The line was a combo of Regal's and Cutlasse's. Only saw the assembly of all the parts for the most part. As far as I can remember at the end of assembly the cars were put on rollers and started and ran for a few minutes at maby at a calculated 30 mph or so. These 1980 models had HEI and i'm guessing way more advanced assembly tuning. Reading some pass posts and how some said their 455's or Stage1 cars ran sluggish before tuned makes me ask how the these engine were tuned or even run on rollers the same way at the factory?? In the engine manufacturing plants did they just put in the distributor with the points gap/dwell preset and line up a mark somewhere on the timing cover and the distributor to come close to preferred factory setting? Did they run each motor at all before it left that factory to the assembly plant.. I'm asking alot aren't I.
When I went to the Corvette plant in Bowling Green, they would take cars off the line that failed any of the tests for further investigation. I would imagine that they had something like that in place back in the day. If they had a problem starting the engine, or it ran rough, maybe they had a process to sort that out? A smart dealer might make checking point dwell, ignition timing, and idle speed part of dealer prep, to avoid complaints/come backs? Just spit balling here, I don't know.
I worked at Buick and yes all engine were started on what they call a merry go round, engine were put on the wheel hooked up and started and ran for a short time and timing was checked. Any issue with motor it would sent to repair.
There are a couple pictures floating around the net from the Flint engine plant.. In one, the engines are sitting on stands, looks to be hundreds of them in a big room.. they were started and run.. Timing checked, carbs adjusted ect. These engines appeared to be early nailheads for the most part. In another pic what appears to be a 73 455 has air lines plugged into the spark plug holes, and is being "air motored" to check for leaks. Not sure if the ignition system was even wired in that test. Add that to Stall's reply above, and you can see that yes, the factory did test each and every engine built, for function, and to set the timing. I am sure there was a group of guys that did that, day in and day out.. that would have been a boring job. JW
I remember you posting about the Corvette plant tour. It had to be awesome seeing it in person. I believe I saw the same factory on TV's how things are made show. I also was thinking the dealer did the final tune per order of Buick management on the high performance cars. Makes me wonder why when someone ordered a car the buyer had to wait 2 or 3 days to pick it up, maby do to tuning and cleaning? The only 2 new cars I bought were off the lot.
Nice info thanks! When were your days at Buick if you don't mind me asking? I think I saw the nailhead pics and yup I think there was a date to were they were the small early ones. I just might have the pics bookmarked or stored somewhere in my laptop. It's funny repeated boredom from guys doing the same thing over and over back in the days makes for some exciting pictures for us now. Not to start a thread in a thread but if a engine was taken out of the line and not repairable did it cause a non matching numbers car? or did they do the stampings when they were at final assembly?
Guess it would be like the guy/gals running the LS's at the plant today, over and over and over, then 25/35 years later the LS freaks get all moist over "man that would have been cool"
I too have seen the photo that JW mentions in his first paragraph. I can confirm that they were Nailheads, but it was years ago, and I have no idea what year engines that they were.
I don't know, all the years that I worked at GM dealers I was under the impression that if it ran long enough or good enough to get it on the car hauler, it was delivered to the dealer. We had quite a few 3rd generation F bodies the wouldn't even start to get them off of the truck. They had faulty fuel pumps and on those F bodies, the rear axle had to be dropped to remove the tank.
From the pic BamaW posted it looks like the intakes are on the tall side which iv'e only seen on the early 264's and 322's??
That is not the photo that I remember, but it is the same engine room. The photo that I saw was an overhead shot.
This is a screen shot of GM foundery's. I always have trouble giving direct links. You can try linking it.
Here's a page mentioning a 30 minute test run, 1956: https://www.hometownbuick.com/portfolio/buicks-busy-acres/
Those are 1953 to early 1955 with a single oil filler cap on the valley cover. Late 1955 and 1956 had two oil filler caps , One on each valve cover ( as shown in the photo of Walt's post #15)
They do don't they! They also look like they were born to work at a car factory, especially the engine guys. Probably even their baby pictures showed signs they were going to be machinists or something close
