Manufacturing process assembly

30A

30A

Senior Member
Does anyone know where to access the manufacturing process/assembly manual for a specific year and model? Ford's process in each phase of the assembly will provide insight for a restoration. Thx Steve
 
what year? At the 1940 NY worlds fair ford had an exhibit that was laid out how an auto was built, there is a movie available-it maybe "Ford's for 40"
 
Barry-ct said:
Ford never did assembly manuals. The only ones I've heard of were GM.
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There are assembly manuals for the early Mustangs. I don't think Ford did the manuals though. They supplied the drawings to Jim Osborn (I believe) and he assembled and published them. Extremely helpful books with all the factory specs on door gaps, which body clips to use, how to route wiring harness, etc.

http://catalog.osborn-reproduction.com/index.php?productID=73533
 
There are endless change order letters going out in Model A and V8 times...new parts, add a washer to that bolt, clamp the wiring a new way...now what in heck were the change letters changing??
There had to be a basis to alter. And Ford was assembling at 30 odd plants in some times, expecting to see the cars all screwed together the same way in Detroit and Istanbul. Seems to me there HAD to be a manual. Anyone who has done much work on an old car has learned a bit about assembly order through frustrating trial and error...the factory did not want 30 plants discovering by trial and error that the splash pan had to go on before the widget, or that the batter tray bolt had to go upward with two washersso it didn't rub against the blivet grommet.
 
Bruce, good point. There must have been some sort of inition written instructions prior to the change letters. There were, however, some assembly plants that changed assembly protocol due to local plant conditions. So, how was the protocol developed? We do know that there were Rouge men that would travel to outlying assembly plants to assure compliance with procedure, and some would return with a "better idea". Was it simply that assembly Foremen were so tuned in to "the method" that yearly changes were just a mild exercise in ingenuity?
 
Henry was dead set against any documents that a rival company could get their hands on. I'd bet a dime to a dollar that the line foremen were required to go to a school before they even started the line up on the new product and brush up for the new stuff. If they couldn't shut down the line they probably overworked some guys on shift until they could rotate out for their turn at bat.

If there is any information like this it should be archived at the Benson Ford Reasearch Center.
 
Barry-ct said:
Ford never did assembly manuals. The only ones I've heard of were GM.
Click to expand...

Barry-ct said:
Ford never did assembly manuals. The only ones I've heard of were GM.
Click to expand...

You can be certain there was some sort of internal documentation regarding the assembly process. Whether it was ever released in "Factory Service Manual" form like what Helms publishes for GM products is another matter.

rotorwrench said:
I'd bet a dime to a dollar that the line foremen were required to go to a school before they even started the line up on the new product and brush up for the new stuff. If they couldn't shut down the line they probably overworked some guys on shift until they could rotate out for their turn at bat.
Click to expand...

He may not have liked having things documented, but that doesn't mean things weren't documented in detail. The various part and assembly drawings, revision memos, etc., are examples that things were documented.

I wouldn't be surprised if foreman had to undergo some classroom type training, but it would be near impossible - if not impossible - to verbally pass down all the details from designer/engineer to line worker. We can't do it at my employer, and we mass-produce assemblies that are much simpler than a car.
 
And there was not all that much secrecy...Service Bulletins and letters and also change letters went out all over the country, and a smart cub scout could have found them. And manufacturers have always purchased new cars from competitors and disassembled them to see what the foe was up to.
Ford managed to produce damn near identical cars in a large range of models in 30 plus plants all over creation. The cars were complex enough that minor changes in fasteners and such could produce problems...see the problem corrections that appear in service letters! I am sure that Ford had assembly documented to the last lockwasher on the cigar lighter wire...and all that detail in the change letters was surely changing something just as detailed.
Question is...where is it? There have been lots of researchers chasing Ford tech for a long time.
Library of Congress '30s Ford publication collection is PATHETIC, by the way, at least in what is cataloged. My basement is probably 25 times better!
 
The class room would have been the first line start up. Changes between models were subtle enough that basic assembly knowledge would have been there already. Post assembly or in service problems that cause warranty issues would then have been addressed in an assembly line change letter and in service bulletin form for dealer. There were body cut away illustrations, blueprint drawings, and promotional sales movies made right in the plant but only after product release. Once a product is out the door in sufficient quantities "the cats out of the bag" but prior to release, Henry was a stickler for secrecy. They only filmed and photographed stuff after product release. He saw what happened between Nicola Tesla and his buddy Tom Edison so he was careful about industrial espionage.

Ford was a school of hard knocks type of guy and I think he expected that from his empoyees too. On the job training would have been enough in his way of thinking.
 
Hold on just a minute... Old Henry was proud of his operation and regularly invited competitors to tour his assembly plants. Henry didn't beleive in patenting such intelectual property as methods, assembly lines, and conveyor systems. Competitors quickly adopted Ford's methods, to the point that their operations could well have been designed and built by Ford. Granted, much of the above happened in the Model T era, but the die was cast and there was probably a great deal more secrecy among his competitors than Ford himself displayed for many years.
 
In all my years at the Ford dealership level there never any assembly manuals released to us. There may have been stuff internally, but it was never released to us. I've been told that they used to build cars and trucks as pilot models to get the assembly line running smoothly and to hammer out kinks in the process. These were never released to the public and were probably disassembled or destroyed. THis is all speculation. I personally would love to know the process of getting a new model to the assembly line. A work of art! The service bulletins were for corrections of problems found at the dealership level. We call them TSB's today. Any problems found during assembly if found then, are taken care of before that vehicle is shipped.
 
From personal experience, without documentation to be followed AND inspected to the assemblers will be very creative. If a problem comes up they will come up with their own solution. The change notices are evidence that there was some assembly documentation. I find it hard to believe that assembly documentation did not exist in the Ford plants. With out it the same cars built in different plants would not be equal.
 
They exist at the Benson Ford Research Center (a natural location, but interestingly nobody listed it as a possibility) and they are so-called SK drawings or sketches. They range from full to quarter scale which means that they are all pretty good sized and not readily duplicated. The body drawings are especially interesting as they show all the sealers and weld locations by type of weld. Others show the detailed routing of wiring and windshield wiper vacuum lines with all the clips shown, etc. for each body type. There are also drawings for each of the pin striping locations for the different bodies. How complete these drawing sets are is an open question, but there are plenty of survivors.
 
Check post 10, it was mentioned. I have had to use similar blueprint type drawings to perform alterations on several different type aircraft. They are so big that you have to have a good size table or use the shop floor to open them up. It took a lot of work to get the manufacturers to turn loose of them too. They have propriatary stamps in red ink all over them.

All this stuff would have come staight from the FoMoCo engineering & design department where they seldom have enough room to archive stuff from years past. Someone evidently did archive it somewhere or there wouldn't be a Benson Ford Research Center for sure.
 
Thanks guys for all the input. Apparently the info is not readily available in book form.

The restoration of a 36 pickup has sparked an interest to know more about the production logistics at the factory level for pre WW ll Ford cars and trucks - ideally 1936. I will continue my research and see where it takes me.
 
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