A couple more assembly line pictures. Keep in mind these are US so they may not pertain to our models.
Of note, painted exhaust manifolds yet again.
Also, my 66 had a completely painted orange bellhousing, not just the 1/2 of the bellhousing closest to the engine as it shows in these pictures.
And painted exhaust pipes with overspray on the muffler but the muffler in general is bare. How smokey will it have been when they started up a new car with paint on the exhaust manifolds and pipes?
Painted exhaust manifolds is how they looked. The engines were painted in the engine plant, overspray all all over manual bellhousing or auto flex plate just like you see. They were fired on gas (as in the proper gas not the US word for petrol) , the timing set and marked and the distributor then removed. Engine then freighted to the vehicle assembly plants. That first photo is the engine dress process at one of the VAP's, where the distributor was re-fitted, all engine dress attached and the carby first introduced to the engine. I agree those first photos in this thread must be 1967, the AIR pumps being for CA (manual only?). Quadrajets will be 703xxxx. Awesome photo, shame a large aperture was used.
THAT IS WHAT YOU CALL ORIGINAL, TRY RESTORING YOUR CAR NOW AND PAINTING THE MANIFOLDS, CARB BASE, COIL BOTTOM DIST ETC. ORANGE OVERSPRAY AND SEE THE REACTION AND COMENTS YOU GET AT CAR SHOW.
I feel compelled to point out that on these two points at least, you are wrong.
The engines were assembled and dry run with out accessories or carburetor; The engines were painted at the engine assembly plant. I believe they were dry run on propane at the engine plant with a contraption connecting to the intake manifold. The accessories ect and carb were later installed at the vehicle assembly plant, after being vin stamped for the car it was destined to be in - which also dictated accessories or carburetor.
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1970 Formula 400 Carousel Red on black (std) interior "no drivetrain option" car (same base drivetrain as GTO) 1:411 1970 Firebird Formulas originally sold in Canada
A couple more assembly line pictures. Keep in mind these are US so they may not pertain to our models.
Of note, painted exhaust manifolds yet again.
Also, my 66 had a completely painted orange bellhousing, not just the 1/2 of the bellhousing closest to the engine as it shows in these pictures.
And painted exhaust pipes with overspray on the muffler but the muffler in general is bare. How smokey will it have been when they started up a new car with paint on the exhaust manifolds and pipes?
It has been explained to me that the bellhousing and clutch assembly were actually a part of the engine assembly; This would explain why the bellhousing would have overspary (or in your case, be fully painted).
I learned a little more about this recently after purchasing and decoding a 1972 "GTO" 400; This engine is a WS code, which in 1972 was specific to GTO's (and so equipped Tempest/Lemans/GT-37 cars) with a three speed Muncie manual transmission.
After 1970, all GM passenger car four speeds used a "fine spline" input shaft, while the three speeds retained the "coarse spline" input shaft shared with 1969 & earlier (and most 1970) four speed cars; After 1970 the coarse spline input was designated for trucks and three speeds only.
It was explained to me that this specific engine code was for the assembly which retained the coarse spline clutch assembly which was actually a part of the engine assembly that was put together at the engine assemble plant; So the engine was stamped it's engine unit number (for warranty and tracking purposes), and the two letter designation code, which dictated the combination of pistons, cylinder heads, camshaft, exhaust manifolds, as well as the flywheel/flexplate, and clutch/torque converter, and tin the case of a manual transmisson car, the bellhousing; After assembly and dry run, the engine assemblies were crated up, and shipped to car assembly plants, and pulled to put on the production line as needed - and dressed according to the car. In some instances, you would have a 49 state (and Canadian) engine which had one carburetor type, while the California engine used a different carburetor - but both engines used the same code.
I would surmise that exhaust manifolds getting paint, or being left natural would be determined by when the manifolds were installed on the engine; I would guess that a "regular" full sized manifolds might be installed at the engine plant, and painted with the engine assembly, while platform specific manifolds might be painted at the vehicle assembly plant. Since full sized cars would typically dwarf production of some of the specialty vehicles, it would make the most sense to install those engines' exhaust manifolds at the engine plant.
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1970 Formula 400 Carousel Red on black (std) interior "no drivetrain option" car (same base drivetrain as GTO) 1:411 1970 Firebird Formulas originally sold in Canada
