How its made: Chevrolet Corvette Stingray - Discovery Channel

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KillerHERTZ

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Just watched this episode on the Stingray and I am amazed at how poorly made the car is.

A few points from my 'sofa expert' eye:

-All workers in their own jeans/t-shirts, no uniform
-Headlights fitted without any protection to the surrounding bodywork + the light unit lenses
-Leak testing, bloke with a torch (Chewing gum) sits in car and looks for water leaking through , this surely isn't how other marques do it?

Looked like a kit car assembly line, anyone else see it?
 
Didn't see it. Keeping a balance on quality against retail price, I guess it was excellent value all the same. As for other car manufacturers, you obviously missed out on European 60's/70's motors, some were terrible but in the early 80's that's all I could afford. Water ingress, rust, faulty electrics, etc. were all common issues. Then the Japs came along and fixed everything bar rust.
 
It's common knowledge that most American made goods are poor quality, not quite as bad as China but definitely a contender.

They are made to a cheap price point to satisfy their market.
 
I didn't see it, but the aluminium body structure is quite decent, like the hydroformed sills

chevrolet_corvette_stingray_chassis-1_14.jpg
 
Sorry, KillerH. I got my wires crossed, I was under the impression the programme was about the original Stingray, so kindly dismiss my previous post and it sure doesn't sound like quality assembly judging by what you've said but I suppose it's possible the same applies as per the original, still good value?
 
How else do you check for leaks?
 
-Leak testing, bloke with a torch (Chewing gum) sits in car and looks for water leaking through , this surely isn't how other marques do it?

From what I know, some OEM pressurise the car with air. A small amount of leakage is expected through the panel joints (HVAC vents etc are closed) any thing more suggests either poor body build or the doors haven't been set correctly.
 
Just watched it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHGH3Z9TmLs didn't look low tech/kit car ish to me. It's a factory production line, how would wearing uniforms make the car better?

Nothing used to protect the paint when fitting headlamps but protective shields were used for some other operations. I'm guessing GM figured that headlamps weren't unwieldy/heavy enough to do much damage and/or any scratches would be in areas that don't show due to the way they're fitted?

Most American cars have always been a bit cheap/nasty/brash but i disagree about American made products being poor quality as a generalisation... a lot of the tat that they churn out used to be good quality before company buy outs and the inevitable outsourcing to the East that followed... several brands of metalworking tools have gone from top quality to cheapnese tat at the same price, for example Vice-Grip/Pro-Snip owned by Irwin who cheapnesed them in 2008 to remain competitive make more profit. They've wrecked the quality of several British made brands too- Record, Gilbow & Hilmor off the top of my head

The internet suggests that 'shower tests' are still the most common method which makes sense to me... doesn't have the comedy element of say https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbAamroMhGM but high pressure water finding it's way past seals via capillary action etc can't be replicated by seeing how much air (or helium if you've got a film crew and 3 'idiots' to hand) gets out. VW appear to look for damp carpets/puddles afterwoods instead of a a bloke with a torch and chewing gum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhdtrPdcAts
 
"fracture rods" are a new one on me, I understand why they do it, retains the circle but it looks like a later stress fracture waiting to happen.
 
Fracture split conrods have been about since the 1990s. Whether they're powdered metal, more conventional carbon steel forgings or more exotic stuff like Ti Rods in the latest Yamaha R1 the process takes advantage of the brittle-ductile transition temperature of the specific alloy to get a 'clean' break. In the case of carbon steels an alloy composition (either more carbon or micro alloying with vanadium or Ti) that results in a pearlitic microstructure with essentally no ferrite produces something that fractures cleanly at around room temp when notched and hit correctly. Yamaha found that cooling with liquid nitrogen helps cleanly fracture split the flavour of Ti they use

It's not about retaining roundness of the big end, snapping 'em cuts out a couple of additional maching steps and produces mating surfaces that are self aligning without needing doweling or other maching steps to prevent fretting. Fracture splitting is cheaper, faster and can result in a lighter rod
 
If you're interested in manufacture have a look at the National Geographic Megafactories series on YouTube.
 
I went to watch it but was sidetracked by the Morgan one and watched that instead.
 
I watched something about Detroit many years ago and all the production line workers were what was called day men, in other words casual labour. Many worked there their whole lives but never had a permanent job.
Neither did they have canteens or locker rooms which may explain the tee shirts and jeans. It was the nature of the industry.
 

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