Jeff & Charles,
I don’t know what I was thinking, when I wrote about the VIN’s on the fenders. They are, of course on the inner fender, and would have been stamped on the BP line.
Okay this is where I’m going:
Ford General Offices issued an order for production to one of their three plants after determining an internal need or customer order. They then sent a punch card to the plant that detailed the serial number, how the car was to be equipped, and where to send it.
The plant, upon receiving the production order, generated broadcast sheets to inform line workers of the types of parts and sub-assemblies they would need, and where on the line to direct them. “Where” was controlled by the Rotation Number. We believe that two rotation numbers (ROT) were used, one during BP and one during TC. This is proven, at least in Metuchen, since my 1966 buck tag has a ROT of 18 while my broadcast sheet has one of 126.
Radiator supports were marked with buck information. There is one code that references the 2-rail assembly skid. This usually takes the form of a letter code followed by 3 to 4 numbers. Some very early cars had a letter followed by only two numbers. There is also a code for the body style, the interior and exterior colors, and perhaps some basic accessory codes.
Mr. Fria’s research seems to conclude that this skid number helped to identify the car until the VIN number joined it. In other words, the skid number may have been the surrogate for the rotation number during BP, at least on very early cars. Sometime before painting the body, the VIN number was stamped on the inner fender.
Next we have the warranty tag on the door. We know the door was set at the time of bucking and that the body was painted. If there’s paint under the warranty tag, then its placement couldn’t have occurred any sooner than the end of BP or the beginning of TC. It may be possible that this warranty tag traveled with the buck, and communicated the missing information (such as engine/transmission combo), but this still doesn’t tell the whole story. We know that everything necessary to prepare a buck was not listed on the radiator support and warranty tag. Critical information such as the engine and transmission combination were lacking from radiator support markings. And a vehicle with a convertible or vinyl top would still need to communicate what color these items were, and that info was not included on the warranty tag. If we follow this conclusion to its logical end, then something else close by the body must have communicated this missing info. We know from the Martha Reeves video that broadcast sheets were sometimes affixed to the numbered stanchion posts of the conveyors that moved the body down the line, as seen during the engine-setting operation. This same process may have occurred during the BP operation, and another broadcast sheet with a BP-ROT was likely to have accompanied the buck at that time, and the car’s initial BP-ROT would have insured the correct color placement.
Once cars were shuffled in BP to fit vinyl and convertible tops, ROT”S lose their meaning, and there’s no way to identify them without referring to the serial number. Thus the VIN stamped on the inner fender and/or the warranty tag on the door served an important check/balance in re-synchronization of the ROT’s.
Parts and sub-assemblies subsequently found their way to the correct car by way of the TC-ROT. This couldn’t have been generated too far in advance, since we wouldn’t know what the shuffling order would produce when a car left BP. By the same token, we can’t begin lining up the correct sequence of parts and sub-assemblies until we have the new TC-ROT. This creates a time constraint on the lines, and we can’t have delays!
How does Ford coordinate the re-setting of ROT’s without delaying line production?
