Dodge Pilothouse Era Truck Club News Dodge Pilothouse Era Truck Club Newsletter January, 2006 Issue Published bi-monthly THIS ISSUE • really old news • main article • humor from the past • news of the club • meet the member • fun stuff QUOTE OF THE MONTH "The pilot-house cab was higher, wider, longer, fully waterproofed and provided excellent vision through it's large, non- opening windshield. It's chair-height, comfortable, adjustable seat assured the driver a comfortable ride." Don Bunn and Tom Brownell, Dodge Pickups, History and Restoration Guide, 1918-1971, pp. 62-3 NEWS OF THE CLUB Welcome to the DPETCA Newsletter It's here! We've got our first official Dodge Pilothouse club magazine out the door and in the email. This is another substantial step for our club. You'll find this magazine is designed around a mix of "the old and the new." I even thought of calling it that. Tell me what you think. We have reprints right out of the 40's and 50's. And we've added some background information on the historical aspects of our trucks. This issue has a terrific article about the factory where many of our Dodge trucks were produced - "Dodge Main". You also find current information that updates statistics about our club and in-depth articles about some of our club members. We end it all with some jokes right out of the 50's and a few funny movies, just because we all enjoy a good laugh. ● Now, some recent information about our club. We're currently 83 members strong, and still growing. It won't be long before we reach 100! Why not encourage your friends to join us? Most recently, we've added and want to welcome the following new members: Mark Gunter from League City, Texas Steven Hood from Sherrard, Illinois Derek Olson from Coon Rapids, Minnesota David Erb from New Holland, Pennsylvania Wes Felts from Rockport, Texas JimGaspard from Dallas, Texas Shane McGilvrey from Noblesville, Indiana Tom Davis from Surrey, British Columbia, in beautiful Canada In future articles I'll offer some insights to the people who use our web site. We really have quite a world wide following for these old trucks. We have finally added DPETCA merchandise. Now, you can proudly display our association with our favorite truck by purchasing hats, mugs, shirts and more. There's quite a selection to choose from. Make sure you stop by and see all the wonderful "stuff". Here's the link if you need Content being added to our site include new reference material to help repair, restore and maintain our old work horses. We are adding parts list books for Fargo trucks, more brochures, truck color chips and new repair manuals for our Fargo/Dodge/ Desoto owners both here in the U.S., as well as in Canada and Australia. Our goal is to be the most complete reference file:///F|/Dodge_Pilothouse/newsletter/jan_06/jan_06_newsletter.html (1 of 8)1/27/2006 1:02:57 PM Dodge Pilothouse Era Truck Club News library available for our Dodge Pilothouse trucks. You are helping us accomplish that goal. Our ultimate goal is to continue to grow till the day we can support our own truck meets. I look forward to the day we are large enough to host our first Dodge Pilothouse National Truck Meet. Won't that be a glorious event! i don't when it will happen yet, but that's our goal for the future. Enjoy the rest of this first issue. We're on a bimonthly schedule right now (that's every other month). Give me your feedback and comments because after all this is your club and we want to make sure it meets your needs. DPETCA President and Editor, Bob Koch MAIN ARTICLE We'll be looking at some of the Dodge factory plants in the next few issues. This issue focuses on the Michigan plant known as "Dodge Main". In future issues we look at the San Leandro, California and Windsor, Canada plants as well as some others. What follows is a reprint from a handout that was given to visitors at Dodge's truck plant in Warren, Michigan. Chrysler Corporation’s truck manufacturing activities are centered on the 88-acre site of the Dodge Truck Plant, the world’s largest factory devoted exclusively to truck production Its 1,518,159 square feet of floor space house facilities which produce the third largest volume of trucks built by any company in the world. The most noteworthy feature of the plant, however, is the day-by-day union of the arts of custom building and volume production methods. More than 350 different models available in the line of Dodge “Job-Rated” trucks are built on several assembly lines. Each customer’s order is filled individually to meet his personal trucking needs, so that often a four-ton tractor, a school bus, and a half-ton pickup truck might follow each other out of final inspection. The nerve center of the intricate supply organization made necessary by this assembly procedure is Dodge Truck’s planning department which schedules procurement of parts to build specific models and times their arrival at one of the plant’s four receiving docks. The purchasing department must deal with from 900 to 1000 suppliers in buying the parts not made by the Corporation. Virtually all of the Corporation’s plants are called upon to manufacture major components of trucks. Dodge truck motors are built at Dodge Main, Plymouth, Chrysler-Jefferson, and Highland Park, axles are made at Lynch Road and New Castle, Indiana, body parts are made at Highland Park, DeSoto, and Dodge Main: the rest are purchased from vendors. The function of the Truck Plant is to bring all of these components together in the final assembly of trucks. Each of the parts manufactured by Chrysler has, in turn, its own history of supply and inter-plant cooperation. The motor, for instance, has five major components, each of which is acquired in a different manner: crankshafts are both purchased from vendors and forged at the Dodge Forge plant; cylinder blocks are cast at the Dodge Foundry and also purchased; cam shafts are acquired from suppliers; and pistons are both bought from suppliers and cast at the Highland Park Plant. All purchased parts are made by suppliers according to rigid Chrysler standards and specifications, and each part was first designed and tested by Chrysler’s Engineering Department. To make sure that the right engine—and there are eight different truck engine models—reaches the right chassis at the right time, the Dodge Truck planning department operates an ingenious coded teletype system. Body and engine specifications, color, special equipment, and accessories are teletyped on a “schedule ticket” and flashed to key locations throughout the plant. Each receiving station feeds material to the main assembly line in the order received, thus assuring an orderly flow of parts into the proper truck. Some 540 of Dodge Truck’s 6,000 employees are responsible for this long range planning, daily scheduling and material handling. About 4,000 employees are directly involved in manufacturing, 543 in shipping, 219 in maintenance, 167 in factory accounting, 65 in inspection, 78 in medical and plant protection, 50 in master mechanics department, 33 in factory management, 10 in administration, 9 in personnel, and 57 in miscellaneous activities. Their operations are conducted in a main assembly plant, a military service building, and several auxiliary buildings. The entire facility has a capacity of approximately 900 trucks daily, handles 47 freight cars, has 9 miles of conveyors, uses about 231,000 gallons of water daily, 84,000 cubic feet of gas, 113,000 kilowatts of electric power, and employs 41 electric trucks and jitneys. A visitor to the Dodge Truck plant can get an overall picture of operations at a glance from a 1/16 plot scale model of the entire manufacturing space which is kept up to date. All proposed changes in routine, plant layout, and machinery installation are first plotted meticulously with wooden models built exactly to scale. This device is used for constant study by the plant engineering department to determine ways of cutting costs and increasing efficiency. file:///F|/Dodge_Pilothouse/newsletter/jan_06/jan_06_newsletter.html (2 of 8)1/27/2006 1:02:57 PM Dodge Pilothouse Era Truck Club News (aerial illustration of Dodge Main plant) After viewing the layout board, visitors are escorted to the beginning of the two assembly lines. Enroute they pass several sub-assembly operations, the first of which is the trim line. Here upholstery, windshield wipers, mirrors, heaters, etc., are installed in bodies after they have arrived from the paint department on the second floor. They also pass the radiator and grille sub-assembly line, the express box pickup assembly, the rear and front axle sub-assembly, and one of the receiving rooms. The first object placed on the final assembly line is the frame, which is laid transversely and upside down on the moving conveyor to facilitate installation of springs and axles. Visitors pass between two lines; the left line handles half-ton, three- quarter-ton, and one- ton truck assemblies, and the right line handles all large units, from one and one half-tons up. After axles have been added to the frames, they reach a point known as “turn-over”, where they are literally flipped over and placed right side up, facing forward. The next step is the “merry-go-round” a circular subassembly “line” where final sub-assembly of motors is completed before installation on the chassis.