Drawings from Benson Ford Research Center

[60ch]

Has anyone here personally ordered a drawing from the Benson Ford Research Center? Did you manage to get the information that you needed? I am trying to get a machinist drawing with dimensions of the A3131B left side spindle arm. After downloading the appropriate forms from the Benson Ford website, I called to ask how I could be sure to get a drawing with machinist dimensioning. I was told to email my question. There have been three emails all of which were responded to quickly but with no difinitive answer about dimensioning. I understand that the people that work there are not machinists and may not understand what I want. Is there a list somewhere that tells an inquiring person what is on the drawing. I don't want to receive a foundry or forging shop drawing because I did not know what I was ordering. Thanks, Terry

 

[GordonJ]

Terry - the people at the Benson Ford Research Center (from my experience) are librarians, and definitely not technical people. They manage a large variety of historical automotive data including books, manuals, ads, pictures, etc. and are not really focused on the material contained on the prints. As you may be aware, the microfilm of the prints are not a complete set for the vehicle and I believe the biggest effort recently was just to create a database listing the available prints by part number. I don't believe anyone has taken it to the next level to determine what they actually contain. I would suggest that you put a call out to the Michigan based Model A'ers on this forum and ask if someone is taking a trip to the Benson Ford soon. They could pull the print and take a look for you to see if the dimensioning is included. It is really not a major process as the prints are on microfilm and are in boxes organized by part number. I would volunteer for you, but I am presently in China on a ISE assignment.

 

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

Has anyone here personally ordered a drawing from the Benson Ford Research Center? Did you manage to get the information that you needed? I am trying to get a machinist drawing with dimensions of the A3131B left side spindle arm. After downloading the appropriate forms from the Benson Ford website, I called to ask how I could be sure to get a drawing with machinist dimensioning. I was told to email my question. There have been three emails all of which were responded to quickly but with no difinitive answer about dimensioning. I understand that the people that work there are not machinists and may not understand what I want. Is there a list somewhere that tells an inquiring person what is on the drawing. I don't want to receive a foundry or forging shop drawing because I did not know what I was ordering. Thanks, Terry

That is what I have learned is that often times a drawing of a specific part number is actually an assembly drawing, --which has the individual parts drawn along with corresponding part numbers for drawing on those individual items, ...which very possibly has multiple drawings if minor revisions were made during the production run. Coinciding with this is sometimes separate Engineering Releases or notes on each subsequent drawing that require someone to study the drawing to determine what changed or why it was revised. For me it is very time consuming. That is why I think that the person wanting the demensions would likely need to spend several hours studying all of the drawings and revisions on that one item just to know what they have is correct. Imagine if the librarians pulled a print and gave you those dimensions and it turned out the print they pulled the dimensions off of was from the 2nd of 4 revisions where the dimensions changed due to issues. Then you would be fighting an issue that the Ford Engineers found and changed because it didn't work correctly.

 

[60ch]

Thank you Brent and Gordon for your replies. I will plan on a trip to Michigan in the future and do some on site research. Two years ago I did visit Greenfield Village and would enjoy going back. Terry

 

[RonC]

MAFFI indexed all the drawings with Ford's help. You could see if they have anything that might narrow down your search. Also if I remember correctly someone donated a complete set of drawings and engineering releases to them in the 90's.

 

[Ronnie Lawson]

I worked for a company Arvin Industries (was formerly Noblitt and Sparks)that was a tear 1 supplier for Ford Mufflers. We did build the Model A muffler. When we were NS we built tire pumps, hub caps, brake levers, radiator outlet tubes, heaters and jacks for the Model A. We had what was called running changes and the prints would not get changed. These running changes would get what was called a deviation. We could produce the product although it was not to part print for so many days. So part prints are not always up to date per production parts deviations. The deviations would not go into the level change box on part prints. Today Ford, Chrysler and General Motors use the same deviation. The deviations today has all three logos on the top header of the deviation.