The GM plants were cranking out 58 cars/hour at the peak of F-body production, so installers at each station had just about a minute of actual working time to complete their task.
When Van Nuys first started building Firebirds, decal installation was done as the cars were emerging from the paint curing ovens. Jon said the sheet metal was so hot they had to douse the car with three 5-gallon buckets of water just to be able to touch the surface. Even so, the water evaporated so quickly the decal immediately fused itself to the hood wherever it touched, so the defect rate was over 50%.
They eventually moved the decal installation operation further down line just before the doghouse was installed.
Workers pulled a hood off the overhead conveyor, set it on a jig attached to a turntable that allowed them to spin the hood 360 degrees while using a squeegee to displace air and water trapped under the decal.
Once the decal installation was complete, the hood was hung back on the conveyor hook (in the same spot) where it would remain in proper production sequence to be mated with the car for which it was intended.
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