66 early AO smith 427 car owner info

[Robert P.]

Hi, looking for Sept build AO smith body car with 427 for some info on battery cable routing
There was a change around Oct 4th looking for earlier cars
thanks Bob Peckham

[Gary B.]

Bob,

There are at least three AOS, BB ‘66s with Sept build dates on the C2 Corvette Registry with links to owner email addresses. You might get a response from one of those people if you send them an email explaining your information request.

Gary

[Robert P.]

thanks Gary I will check that out
Bob

[Robert P.]

still looking no response from any of the cars in the registry
Bob

[Jack M.]

Bob- Sent you a PM a few dayz ago... perhapz you missed it:

I could be entirely mistaken, but weren't the battery cables installed in St Louis... during the Engine Dress procedures? According to the 'MIDYEAR CORVETTE ASSEMBLY PROCESS' document by John Hinckley, he states the following:
"Install starter, positive and negative battery cables, and heater/wiper motor ground pigtail."
So wouldn't the cable routing be similar for both AOS and StL bodies?
If so, you'd have a vastly greater pool of candidates to explore.

[Robert P.]

Jack I must have missed it but thanks for the info . If true any Sept built BB original car should be able to confirm
that postive battery cable used the plastic tie strap like the small block car on the battery hold down , and a revision was made on Oct 4th 1965 where the cable was attached to a clip on the firewall . hopefully someone can confirm as I have no rivet hole in my firewall ( stripped to bare fiberglass)
Thanks Bob Peckham

[Jack M.]

Bob- Just bumping this thread for you... and expressing my apologies for misunderstanding the intend of your post. After reading your followup message and searching some older threads, I now realize that the battery cables themselves, were not the main topic.

Older threads clearly show differences on cable clip fasteners between AOS and St Louis. Also consider this thought: Since we don't know EXACTLY what constituted the 10-4-65 revised AIM drawing (UPC L72 - Sheet D6), we have no idea what changed. If a part was added or removed, it should have been listed... so was it just a better/more detailed drawing? And don't forget, AOS had their own 'Dow Smith' AIM.

Finally, could AOS workers have 'missed' installing a hole and/or clip... I guess anything is possible. Good luck with your quest. I hope you can find some early AOS 427 cars, and educate us on the results.

[Mark F.]

...Older threads clearly show differences on cable clip fasteners between AOS and St Louis. Also consider this thought: Since we don't know EXACTLY what constituted the 10-4-65 revised AIM drawing (UPC L72 - Sheet D6), we have no idea what changed. If a part was added or removed, it should have been listed... so was it just a better/more detailed drawing? And don't forget, AOS had their own 'Dow Smith' AIM....

As a follow up to what Jack said above, per John Hinckley's Corvette Enthusiast article "The "Other" Corvette Body Builder" on pages 64-65 of the June '06 issue, here's what he said about the AOS AIM:

The A.O. Smith-Built Corvette Body: A.O. Smith built the Corvette bodies using a duplicate set of body assembly tooling supplied by Chevrolet, and designed and built many of the smaller fixtures and hand tools themselves from Chevrolet drawings and their own production development efforts. A.O. Smith had a large staff of production engineering personnel from the Mitchell-Bentley operation and produced complete and highly detailed assembly process sheets covering every single panel, part, fastener, adhesive, primer, paint, and sealer necessary to build, paint, and partially trim the Corvette body.

They were paid on a contract basis by Chevrolet for each body, and were very careful to thoroughly document every single operation and support it with labor- time studies in order to justify their charges. The A.O. Smith process sheets filled a 500-page book,and each sheet not only had an illustration and part numbers like the Chevrolet Assembly Manual, but also included detailed step-by-step assembly instructions, along with the required tool and fixture numbers. Only two of these A.O. Smith Assembly Process documents are known to exist today.

In comparison, the AIM I have from St. Louis is about 400 pages…and remember, Dow-Smith’s AIM only covered the Body – no Frame, Engine Dress and Chassis Assembly Lines and also nothing after Body Drop to Final Assembly and Shipping.

[Jack M.]

Bob- Herez an example of an AOS page, which may have been updated AFTER your build:
1966 Fender Skirt Holes - Dow Smith (JohnZ)-01.jpg
1966 Fender Skirt Holes - Dow Smith (JohnZ)-02.jpg