Intro from an old Assembly Plant guy

[Keith Seymore]

I stumbled over to this site while looking for a good link on the A833 New Process trans and ended up posting. If I'm going to stay then I figure an introduction is in order....



Short version:

My dad worked for GM for 32 years, in Manufacturing (Pressed Metal) and in Advanced Manufacturing Engineering. He is the GM patent holder for several process innovations (including the hydroform process).

He also raced for Pontiac Motor Division, through Ace Wilson’s Royal Pontiac, during my growing up years.

You can read about that here, if you like:

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=560524

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/forums/album.php?albumid=184


As for me, I’ve been with GM for 37 years, in vehicle assembly and product design/development.

Almost half of that time has been in engineering program management, shepherding vehicle model lines through the process from concept initiation to full volume production.

I am currently working on a three year special assignment (offsite) on a low volume production/show vehicle, that I am not at liberty to talk about.

K

 

[Keith Seymore]

By way of further detail:

I started my GM career at Chevrolet Flint Assembly, the plant that produced C/K pickups, Blazers and Suburbans, back in June of 1979 (pickups were built on Line 1; Blazer/Suburban were build on Line 2). As a GMI student (ie, "General Motors Institute" - GM's own college) we worked in every area of the plant, including Engineering, Specifications, Material, Production, Inspection, Maintenance, etc in order to provide a well rounded, cooperative work experience.

After I graduated with my Engineering degree my first "real" job was as a Production Supervisor, Line 1 (pickups) Fender Set area, second shift. My area started just after body drop and extended down to "hood set". We installed the fenders, batteries, manual shift levers and spare tires, and tightened down the box bolts (plus any body mount bolts the previous area missed!). I had 27 production operations on the line, plus a couple absentee replacements, a couple "Utility men", one repair man on each side of the line plus one Quality Man (which is your "right hand" man), for a total of about 39 hourly employees.

After doing that for a couple years, in 1986 I was able to move over into an Engineering/Assembly liaison position. In this role, the engineer travels from plant to plant, assisting in new product launches and resolving start up build issues. During this time I was able to travel to the other C/K plants, like Oshawa, St Louis, and Pontiac, becoming familiar with their build processes and the similarities/differences to the Flint plant.

Next, I moved to the GM Milford Proving Ground as a full vehicle Development Engineer, still associated with the C/K/R/V vehicle. One of the issues I worked on was the old "brake pull" issue, which some of you might remember (particularly bad on the straight axle Blazer). I used to bring customer vehicles on property to work on or travel to various dealerships around the country to fix trucks that they could not.

After three years at Milford I was fortunate enough to weasel my way to the GM Desert Proving Ground. During my four years at the Desert I was first a driveline development engineer for light truck and then a brake development engineer, still for truck.

My first Design/Release position was back here in Michigan in January of 1994. I was the Engine Air Induction DRE for the GMT800 program. The airbox I designed is still in use today.

By this time the organization had restructured from its previous "platform" organization into a "matrix structure". Most of the engineers became subject matter experts (ie, the tire/wheel guy would release tires across all GM model lines, as would the interior guy or the body guy) but a few of us became "Platform Engineers", staying with the respective models. During this time I was the vehicle engineer on the 2001 GMT820D and 2002 GMT820C (the Denali and Escalade), the 2003 pickup, wrote the original engineering plan for what would become the Hummer H2, the 2007 GMT900 SUVs and back to the 2008 H2 program. During this time I worked in every Full Size Truck assembly plant in North America, including the aforementioned Flint, Oshawa, St Louis and Pontiac plants, as well as Arlington, Janesville, Silao and Mishawaka. Finally, after 29 years and 7 months, I left the truck group and moved over to the Chevy Volt program, where I was the Assistant Program Manager (or Acting PEM) for the export models. I did that for four years and went back to truck, as a design/release engineer for the K2xx underbody structure (cab and box) and for the GMT610 program. That’s where I was working when I got enlisted into my current position, with the GM Performance Parts group in the Specialty Vehicle Organization.

As a result of a brief stint on the T1 program I have now worked on 6 generations of GM full size trucks.

K

 

[Keith Seymore]

So that leads us here: This is my '87 Chevy pickup, of which I am the original owner. In fact, I ordered this truck and followed it down the assembly line as it was being built on Monday September 29th of 1986. It was coming down out of paint and into the trim area at the beginning of second shift (about 4:30 pm). I picked it up there and followed the body through trim with no issues. When the cab and box were complete, I hopped downstairs to the engine line and followed it through the process (we changed out the oil filter and fixed a cross threaded dust cover bolt). By then the chassis had started on the rivet line; I followed the chassis, then the engine/chassis assembly down to body drop. Once the cab and box were set it's a straight shot down the final line to the end. During roll test the inspector wrote up an A/C charge (which I bought off on) and that the backup lights were not working. The lights were repaired on the "short line" repair line, after which I drove the truck myself off the line and over to the shipping building. I told "Lloyd" that this was my personal truck, left the plant at 1 am and by 5 pm that same day it was at Hank Graff Chevrolet in Davison, Michigan.

I owned this truck for two years in Michigan and then two years in Arizona. By then I had been promoted to a GM Company Vehicle driver and, not having need of this truck, sold it to my father - in - law. He owned the truck, in Arizona and Montana, until his passing last August (of 2008). Having bequeathed it to me, it's now back, cosmetically a little worse for wear when I got it but in great shape mechanically. I took the summer (from May to September) of 2009 to whip it back into shape.

So that makes me both the original and third owner (lol).

Here it is today (it's my daily driver):

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[DoubleDingo]

Wow! So you probably worked on building a few of our trucks!

Checking through my VIN's all of my trucks (2-1965's and 1-1981) were built in Fremont, CA. Plant.

 

[foamypirate]

Welcome to GMSB, Keith! Lots of great history there! I've always enjoyed following your posts on the other truck forums, and am glad to see you pop in over here!

 

[donmateo]

Awesome story! Welcome to the forum!

 

[Georgeb]

Wow! sweet truck with a great story! Welcome!

 

[MannyDantyla]

awesome info! thanks for sharing

great truck you have there

 

[CSFJ]

Welcome to the forum.

 

[73 C10]

Hi,

Good to see you here. I read you bio. I've got a question for you. I posted the question in post #10 of this thread:

http://www.gmsquarebody.com/forum/showthread.php?p=278181#post278181

Any insight?

 

[350runner]

welcome!

Sent from the dust in front of you!

 

[Don5]

Welcome and Thanks for the interesting background info. I look forward to reading your future posts.

 

[Keith Seymore]

Thanks, everyone.

Hi,

Good to see you here. I read you bio. I've got a question for you. I posted the question in post #10 of this thread:

http://www.gmsquarebody.com/forum/showthread.php?p=278181#post278181

Any insight?

Yes - I added some commentary on that thread.

K

 

[Keith Seymore]

We've owned about a half dozen of these little trucks, including a '69 GMC stepside, a '75 fleetside, an '80, an '82 and the '87 (all 2wd shortboxes).

Here's a pic of the "father" of the little red truck: this was my '80 stepside, also ordered new and followed through the assembly plant.

You might notice some tricks here, like lowered about 6" in back, 4" in front, spare tire mounted in the box, etc. Some of the tricks you can't see are a 292 cu in straight six with dual exhausts, a 4 speed saginaw with floor mounted shifter, and a platform hitch that comes out from behind the license plate.

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I sold this one in about 1985/86 when I became a company vehicle driver the first time...

K

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[Keith Seymore]

...and here's the "grandpa".

At the left of the photo you can just barely see the rear of our Hugger Orange '69 GMC (this is the only photo I have, I think).

This one was also a straight six, bored and stroked to 305 cu in (dual exhaust), with a homemade tripower intake and 3 Rochester 2 bbl carbs installed, actuated by a Pontiac tripower progessive linkage. A 3.11:1 low gear Saginaw fed back to a 3.73 axle, which made for some pretty exciting launches.

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This photo is circa 1969; for the purposes of this discussion you may disregard the '65 GTO (which I also still have - per the earlier links I suggested).

K