Blitzkid wrote:REBBONK HI
Caption, need a bigger hammer happened at Leyland Canley a few times, when cars were built wrong because of error -time, they stood on the car park as "Foreigners"".
The moving track. The shell/Body was dropped from the floor above, each workman was given a time to fit the part into the car as it came along the line, at the end of the track it drove off the end off the track a fully fledged car except for paint and testing.
But all cars did not take the same time to fit parts so you had to have no two Spitfires following each other, no two left handed cars no two overdrive etc, there were many reasons, if there were a mistake, then the second had little time and in came the big hammer effect. the car shells on the floor above were from a different factory they were hoisted up to the second floor and placed on "skids" these were electrical, moved about by a giant electrical panel, a central skid track led from one end to the other, off this were parking bays of six car bodies, any one could de brought from those bays on to the main line that led to the dropping hoist controlled by a giant electrical panel. Four men placed the body shells in order to be dropped, a two typist wrote out the order and sent out to all the stores, so parts met the body shells, the typist only had to miss out the letter 'O' and the wrong parts went to the shell, or the panel man had only to place the wrong shell out of place and you had a "foreigner". For five years I worked on that panel.
Blitzkid, I spent a few years at Canley after production ended, when it became ARG's research and development centre. Some of the old production equipment was still there, it was fascinating to see it being removed. IIRC, there were a few TR7/8s about that we had to certify to get them into the US?
Any stories/memories you have about the place I would love to hear. - Especially the more nefarious activities that went on.
BTW, my tag about the bigger hammer comes from my days working for Hawker Siddeley. Bits from different jigs often didn't fit.
