Discovery!...... and a few questions.

[Michael A.]

Today's tasks involve crawling under the car while it sets on the body dolly......



.....scrubbing away 51 years of grime and gunk. Lo and behold, what do I find......



..... this looks like a job # of some sort. My car is a May 66 build with an AO Smith body. What all did this mean? Was there a significance to the W prefix and is the 376 some sort of sequence number? Would it have been applied at AO Smith or in St. Louis? Where else should I be on the lookout for this number? Just kind of curious.

Also in the right rear corner (passenger side) it appears the L-shaped bonding strip bonding has broken away from it's mating bonding stip above.


I can fit my fingers between the strip and the deck and that portion moves freely. You can't see it too well in the picture but there is a crack in the bend of the bonding strip. There is no indication that the car has been hit in this corner. My thought is to clean the strip up as well as I can and then to do a fiberglass repair to strengthen the crack. Then I would like to apply some sort of bonding agent to reattach the upper portion of the strip to the mating bonding strip above. I will say that there is a lot of space there (thus the reason I can fit my fingers up there) probably between 1/4 and 1/2". My guess is that may have contributed to the separation in the first place. Quality assembly!!! Any suggestions on the process to repair this as well as names of products to use for bonding the strips back together?

On the drivers side, also on the underside of the back, is the replacement power antenna along with evidence of the "bubba" method of installing that replacement many years ago:



In a case you didn't see it, there's a ~3x7" hole in the rear tub that had been roughly cut for installing the antenna. It had been covered by the carpet so no one would see it..... until!!! I plan to repair that in the coming weeks. My question is, what is the purpose of the metal plate that is that my hand is pointing to in the 2nd picture above? It's hanging fairly loose. Would that be a "bubba" addition or is it proper to have it there? And if so should it be attached more tightly?

This is getting to be fun!

Cheers,

[Bill W.]

Re: Discovery!...... and a few questions.

Mike,
The W376 is PROBABLY a job number. Job numbers started with 1 and went to 999, as for the "W", maybe the guy who applied that was named Willy. As for the loose piece of metal associated with the antenna, that is your ground plane and it needs to be there when you reinstall your radio. willy

[Loren L.]

Re: Discovery!...... and a few questions.

Agree with Bill, except that I thought the #s changed back at 500; I would also speculate (WAG) that "W" =s Wednesday.

[Ralph P.]

Re: Discovery!...... and a few questions.

....Believe AO Smith bodies had a letter prefix not seen on St. Louis job numbers...

[Keith B.]

Re: Discovery!...... and a few questions.

as stated A.O. Smith used a letter before the job number that went from 1-500. not sure what the letter stands for. here is one from a feb built 65 from Smith



but strange they forgot the letter and last digit on the luggage stop

[Jim D.]

Re: Discovery!...... and a few questions.

A.O.Smith identified their body's with job numbers starting with A 1-500, then B 1-500 etc. St. Louis cars did the same but without the letter proceeding the number. The "W376" on the O.P's car indicates a very late build of that A.O.Smith body.

[Rob M.]

Re: Discovery!...... and a few questions.

Agree with Jim 100%. the W376 would line up with a late May build or June I would guess. My 66 has V31 and is a May 6 build. Cool find!

[Michael J.]

Re: Discovery!...... and a few questions.

Also check on the outside passenger side foot well for the body/job number, under the blackout, like my '64.....