Sheetmetal Date Code

[janobyte]

one more

[69Z28-RS]

My drivers door, the only door I've checked, is  'H 37 -1'    which is within 1 or 2 weeks of the production week 09C.   How close are the doors on you fellas' cars to your production week??

[Bryan302]

Mine are H 17 - 1 on the LH door.  Every place I've found has been H 17 - 1 on a 05A build date.

Bryan

[MyRed67]

My drivers door, the only door I've checked, is  'H 37 -1'    which is within 1 or 2 weeks of the production week 09C.   How close are the doors on you fellas' cars to your production week??

  I found several date codes on my car and most of them were 1 to 2 weeks prior, the pic. I posted of Drivers Front fender (41) was furthest out about 4 weeks, and the only one.

[ZLP955]

Thanks for the photos janobyte. I may have missed something, but did you say that the 'H 12' and 'H 17' are both on the same door?

My drivers door, the only door I've checked, is  'H 37 -1'    which is within 1 or 2 weeks of the production week 09C.   How close are the doors on you fellas' cars to your production week??

Gary, the door in the photos at the start of this thread is from a parts car, but on my 04A car, almost all of the panels are stamped 'T 12'; so far I have found one 'H 7' and the latest is '13' (the flat hood) which is cutting things fine for an 04A build.....

[69Z28-RS]

The closeness of sheet metal production to car usage implies that the sheetmetal items were pretty much JIT (just in time) even back then.. I suppose that's more true for sheet metal than some other smaller parts, in part due to the difficulty of warehousing large quantities of these larger bulkier parts.   I'd bet John Z can shed some good light on this subject.. 

[JohnZ]

The closeness of sheet metal production to car usage implies that the sheetmetal items were pretty much JIT (just in time) even back then.. I suppose that's more true for sheet metal than some other smaller parts, in part due to the difficulty of warehousing large quantities of these larger bulkier parts.   I'd bet John Z can shed some good light on this subject.. 

In those days, cars were selling like hotcakes, and the system was stretched to its limits most of the time; for a stamping plant, that meant racks were in short supply, and you can't produce stampings unless you have the proper shipping racks for the panels (each panel had hundreds of special racks designed just for that panel) - there weren't any "warehouses" to store stampngs - the only "storage" was in the rail cars that hauled the racks of panels to the assembly plants.

[janobyte]

Upside down H12 and right side up H17 on pass door. BTY car's 04D Norwood built. H172 on driver's. Doors are un-molested in any way. (except for door speakers---ugg !)

[69Z28-RS]

The closeness of sheet metal production to car usage implies that the sheetmetal items were pretty much JIT (just in time) even back then.. I suppose that's more true for sheet metal than some other smaller parts, in part due to the difficulty of warehousing large quantities of these larger bulkier parts.   I'd bet John Z can shed some good light on this subject.. 

In those days, cars were selling like hotcakes, and the system was stretched to its limits most of the time; for a stamping plant, that meant racks were in short supply, and you can't produce stampings unless you have the proper shipping racks for the panels (each panel had hundreds of special racks designed just for that panel) - there weren't any "warehouses" to store stampngs - the only "storage" was in the rail cars that hauled the racks of panels to the assembly plants.

Thanks for confirmation, John..      that's as I thought.... 

[rich69rs]

In those days, cars were selling like hotcakes, and the system was stretched to its limits most of the time; for a stamping plant, that meant racks were in short supply, and you can't produce stampings unless you have the proper shipping racks for the panels (each panel had hundreds of special racks designed just for that panel) - there weren't any "warehouses" to store stampngs - the only "storage" was in the rail cars that hauled the racks of panels to the assembly plants.

Referring back to post #7 on page 1 of this thread, would it be kind of odd then that the sheetmetal date code stamped into the driver side door of my car is H34 for an 01C built car?  Quite a time diffrerence between the 34th calendar week of 1968 and 01C bulid (the 3rd week of January 1969).

[69Z28-RS]

Not i

In those days, cars were selling like hotcakes, and the system was stretched to its limits most of the time; for a stamping plant, that meant racks were in short supply, and you can't produce stampings unless you have the proper shipping racks for the panels (each panel had hundreds of special racks designed just for that panel) - there weren't any "warehouses" to store stampngs - the only "storage" was in the rail cars that hauled the racks of panels to the assembly plants.

Referring back to post #7 on page 1 of this thread, would it be kind of odd then that the sheetmetal date code stamped into the driver side door of my car is H34 for an 01C built car?  Quite a time diffrerence between the 34th calendar week of 1968 and 01C bulid (the 3rd week of January 1969).

Not if your door had gotten replaced somewhere along the way???

[ZLP955]

Upside down H12 and right side up H17 on pass door.

Thanks for confirming. Interesting that your door has 2 stamps as well.....
I guess we're unlikely to ever find out why, unless someone who worked in one of the many stamping plants (and knows why it occurred) reads this.

[KurtS]

Sounds like they were changing locations of the stamp in the die and hadn't (or forgot to) removed the original location.

[69Z28-RS]

Kurt,.. 
That's a reasonable theory..   could be..    only thing I've heard that makes sense...
If we knew those dates, and had some dates before and after along with the die location, we might be able to confirm that theory...

Gary

[firstgenaddict]

How bout this one? 64? the car is a 12C all the other panels are between H46-H50 I think the characters were in upside down and or out of order. lol