Hand made Pagoda's fact or fiction ?

[mbzse]

quote:Originally posted by waqas

quote:Originally posted by Mike Hughes

.../...and you will see the number "593" in crayon on the backside of the door card before he cut out the bad section and let in his repair section.  Hopefully the rest of the trim and body components on that car are marked with the same "Aufbau" number

Wait, I thought this number was the inspector number, not the chassis number ??

My body number ends with 1537, and various body parts are stamped with this: hood, trunk hinge, soft-top lid, hard top.
When I took apart my interior, I found the same number "79" scrawled on everything related to leather -- door panels, kinder seat halves, b-pillar leather-covered panels, glove-box, etc.
However, my wood pieces all had the number "476" scrawled underneath.

OK, the answer is in.

A well known Pagoda enthusiast, (Bernd Meyer-Brockel) ex. board of the German Club Pagode, states the following: The metal parts were stamped
with last digits of the Body number (Aufbau No).

The crayon marked parts like inner door skins, little transverse rear seat, glove box, underside of drivers and passenger seats were marked
with the last digits of the productionNumber (ProduktionsNo)

Both of these numbers are found on the data card for your vehicle, and are also stamped into the little metal plate by the hood (bonnet)safety catch (left side)

Note: Both of these numbers are disparate from the Chassis No of the vehicle in question. Odds may be that the last digits coincede to be the same in some rare cases, on some of our cars, though.

.

[J. Huber]

Excellent detective work, Hans! I just verified that the production number on my data card matches the crayon numbers on my old pieces...

[waqas]

quote:Originally posted by mbzse

quote:Originally posted by waqas

My body number ends with 1537, and various body parts are stamped with this: hood, trunk hinge, soft-top lid, hard top.
When I took apart my interior, I found the same number "79" scrawled on everything related to leather -- door panels, kinder seat halves, b-pillar leather-covered panels, glove-box, etc.
However, my wood pieces all had the number "476" scrawled underneath.

OK, the answer is in.

A well known Pagoda enthusiast, (Bernd Meyer-Brockel) ex. board of the German Club Pagode, states the following: The metal parts were stamped
with last digits of the Body number (Aufbau No).

The crayon marked parts like inner door skins, little transverse rear seat, glove box, underside of drivers and passenger seats were marked
with the last digits of the productionNumber (ProduktionsNo)

Both of these numbers are found on the data card for your vehicle, and are also stamped into the little metal plate by the hood (bonnet)safety catch (left side)

Note: Both of these numbers are disparate from the Chassis No of the vehicle in question. Odds may be that the last digits coincede to be the same in some rare cases, on some of our cars, though.

This is great information!

I should have simply looked at my datacard... indeed it shows the production number as 00079 !  (matches all the items you mentioned)

The next mystery is: why do the wood pieces have the number 476 on them?  As far as I can tell, most (if not all) things are original in the car.

A final concern: if these are chalk, then presumably any wiping or cleaning would damage the marks. Is there anything that can be done to preserve the marks? (spray-on coating of some sort).  Since I have no plans to replace the kinder seat or door cards, etc, I'd like to try and preserve the marks.

[J. Huber]

And for those of you who need a visual -- or wonder what the heck we are talking about. Here is one of my numbers. A little hard to see on the body but its there...

[Mike Hughes]

quote:Originally posted by waqas
A final concern: if these are chalk, then presumably any wiping or cleaning would damage the marks. Is there anything that can be done to preserve the marks? (spray-on coating of some sort).  Since I have no plans to replace the kinder seat or door cards, etc, I'd like to try and preserve the marks.

You might try going to an art supply store.  Folks who work in pastels sometimes use some sort of spray-on fixative on completed works to reduce chalk migration and color blending.

Of course, one should consider that these chalk and crayon marks have survived for 40-odd years hidden away on the backsides of all the various marked components we've been discussing.  So, absent a catastrophe, they should likely continue to survive just fine as they are if left undisturbed!

[zoegrlh]

I just re-upholstered my interior.  I took the seats all the way down to the frames and springs.  I ordered new horsehair cushions from MB and new leather from GAHH.  As I was cleaning up the frames I noticed the initials/signature on both the backs and seats frames in white crayon.  This had to have been put there by person building the frames at factory.  I also had the production number written in yellow crayon on door panel backs as well as kinder seat back and seat, and the backside of the dash cushions/pads, on the aluminum form.  But what was really interesting, was that also on all the leather parts (backs) they were stamped with the MB production number.  So when I replaced the leathers, I had a rubber stamp made to the same size and font of the original stampings.  I then stamped all my leather parts before installing.  Did this to keep in the original look.  Also when I repainted frames and cleaned springs, I made sure not to paint over those original crayon initials.
Bob

[john.mancini]

One of the most interesting aspects of restoring older vehicles is that you often find hand-written codes and numbers, especially in the interiors. Not to dissappoint, but I found more of this type of documentation with older Ford and GM cars, and they are hardly what we would call, "hand-built". Older Mustangs, and especially older Corvettes had hand-written codes everywhere.  They also had a lot of rubber stamped codes on parts showing inspection identification and dates. Interior specs and codes are consistantly found in all cars, that is, if the interiors are still original.
John

[Longtooth]

Not to put a damper on the "hand-crafted" W113's business, but when I was in college taking a Quality class, we visited a local Ford asm plant (Milpitas, CA) in '68? or '70? every day for a week to "evaluate" the quality control conditions (or lack thereof) over each stage of assembly.

There were no "robots" .... everything was being put together "by hand"... guy's/gal's with pneumatic tools and pneumatic lifter's & chain hoists, etc. along the entire assembly line, along side and under it. Body seams were all hand leaded and ground / sanded ready for paint.  Painting was by guy's in space-suits...no automated painting robots.  At the end of the asm line, a swarm of "fix-it-uppers" (we called them) did the pre-quality inspection fixes... swarming over & under the car (car over a pit), each person with a specialty, "fixed" by adjustments all things ... body panel warps, paint blemishes were taken over to the side and "blended out" on the spot (in a kind of make-shift paint booth) with another person using a big hot air gun on wheels to "dry" the freshly painted blend.  There were stacks of spare parts --- so that if a seat didn't work properly, they removed the malfunctioning seat asm, and replaced it on the spot. I got to "evaluate" the underbody "fix-it-upper" section one shift.. they mostly pushed and yanked the exhaust into position, replaced missing nuts, bolts, and screws on the chassis to suspension and similar attachments, looked for leaks at the brakeline-brake joints, etc... tightening the connectors or replacing the brakeline hose when that didn't work, etc.  

When the "fix-it-uppers" were done, a lead "fix-it-upper" passed judgement and if acceptable, the car moved on to the quality control inspectors --- there were only a few of these for each car... they'ed start the engine, put it in reverse, back up 5 feet, then 1st and move the car forward while the quality inspectors went over the car, honking horns, turning lights on and off, exercising signal and brake lights.  When it was "passed", they gunned the car into 2nd, screeching tires and ran the car outside to park it in the huge production lot for eventual loading onto rail cars.

So... in late '60's & early '70's Ford was "hand building" the cars... there were the usual chalk marks and indelible pen marks designating what options were supposed to go on each car.. upholstery type, seat types, engine type, tranny type, etc. ,and marks by asm's (indicator's of which assembler had done the work (this was so quality inspections could feed-back and track quality by assembly person), marks by quality control showing such-&-such had been inspected (and by whom), etc.

The only difference may be that there was no hand-crafting of upholstery... dashs were already sub-assembled by a vendor, as were seats with seat coverings.   But, chrome trim was "hand" adjusted by the swarm of "fix-it-uppers", bumpers re-aligned by same (kicking them into position wasn't uncommon at all), small dents removed by hand on the spot (just like the "dentless painters" do today... they probably learned their skill at a car factory)... extraneous body scuffs were buffed out, etc.  

Those were the days when Quality wasn't built into the cars, but rather was inspected into them at the end.

I've never bought an American car (other than my '65 Chevy C20 pickup) because of that experience.  

I'm sure the German asm lines and assemblers were more conciencious --- my time and experience in Germany being my basis... and more-so at MB assembly plants than perhaps at others, since working on the asm lines for MB was the crem-de-la-crem assembly line job if you did your job "correctly".  The differnce between the MB plants and GM's at the time may have simply been "pride of workmanship".

The real differentiating factor though wasn't in assembly, but in quality of engineering design for the parts that were being assembled.