Just wondering if anyone has any factual or even anecdotal evidence as to how these subframes were built?

To give an idea of what i'm after i'll state what I think happened:

Sedan/wagon/coupe/statesman subframes assembled from folded sections locally at the assembly plants. All components out of Woodville press shop.

The commercial extensions built at Dandenong in the Truck section, and these sent to the assembly plants to be welded to the completed passenger frames. All components out of Woodville press shop.

The only exceptions to the above possibly the commercial rear sections sent CKD to South Africa or New Zealand or wherever assembled CKD commercials.


The above info regarding commercial chassis may go some way to explaining why Dandenong dropped all passenger vehicle production and built only commercials after a time in HJ. I know there was a big rationalisation late in HQ bought about by Torana ceasing at Elizabeth, all TA (and then Gemini) to Acacia Ridge, all LH at Dandenong and all LWB sedan and coupe to Pagewood. However what drove the decisions made of what was to be assembled where may have favoured commercials only at Dandenong due to them manufacturing the rear half chassis, meaning it was expensive to freight them out and then bring back utes, vans and tonners for the local market.

SO as I said, just looking for evidence, eg has anyone studied chassis's hard enough to spot inter-plant differences? What about the back half?

Thanks Wayne. Those plant layout pictures for Dandenong Truck assembly is where I have seen the HQ Frame area before, and that I was referring to above.

The Statement about passenger production was in reference to Holden and Statesman, it is clear in the next sentence when I refer to LH being at Dandenong after late HQ. During late HQ Dandenong stopped assembling Statesman (prior to this they assembled HQ Statesman from Elizabeth bodies). They also ceased coupe production late in HQ. During HJ Dandenong ceased Holden passenger altogether (sedan and wagon) and from that time forward until September 1976 Dandenong only built Holden Utility. From the same time in HJ Dandenong also assembled vans and cab-chassis using Elizabeth bodies, and this continued until the end of the 1977 calendar year with a single HZ panel van being completed out of Dandenong in January 1978. My guess is after this time the commercial chassis jigs either continued to make commercial chassis rear halves for Pagewood, Acacia Ridge and Elizabeth or were relocated to either Woodville or Elizabeth for the same thing and ready for WB production. The reason for stopping HZ assembly altogether by the start of 1978 would have been to pave the way for V car assembly (Commodore), small amounts initially but once the U car finished then ramp up Dandenong for more Commodore after that.

Edited by user Tuesday, 30 January 2018 10:39:52 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Lucky old Lloyd Beck didn't totally get his way from that 5th bulletin in on the HRC link! Some of the rationalisation of production happened (as referred to in my first post), but if they'd stopped vehicle body and assembly at Elizabeth and expanded elsewhere to achieve it, GMH probably would have gone belly up by the end of the 70's. The "expected upturn" in sales happened, but GMH didn't get their anticipated share of it.

That is pretty good evidence. Are you talking commercial chassis or just the passenger front rails? Where exactly did you see them? The cars going East would probably have been from Elizabeth and Dandenong, mostly Toranas got imported into NSW and QLD as both of those plants produced their own cars. The reason you wouldn't have seen commercials is all of the plants built their own commercials but Elizbeth did a lot of cars to supplement production of passenger cars at other plants. If you could tap into your memory you'd probably also see painted van and cab-chassis bodies heading to Pagewood and cab-chassis bodies to Acacia Ridge. The HX LE would only be heading north or south/south-east from Pagewood as they were all made in NSW. Statesman were the same, from the end of 1973 they all came out of Pagewood until not long before Pagewood closure when they were then made at Elizabeth.

I looked at the map. At Broken Hill you would have seen:

Pagewood to Elizabeth and vice versa.
Acacia Ridge to Elizabeth and vice versa.

If the trains with the chassis were going East to West then that means Pagewood or Acacia Ridge were making them. Logic tells me that they were going the other way during HZ, ie Elizabeth or Woodville were making the chassis and they were going to Pagewood and/or Acacia Ridge. But maybe not....

Map:
https://en.wikipedia.org...ces_in_Australia_en.png

Which means either Pagewood or Acacia Ridge were building the chassis's. I can't see then going via Broken Hill from Victoria.

All coupes after HG were Pagewood and Dandenong only, and all coupes after about 12/73 were built at Pagewood, and Pagewood was the only body plant to have jigs to build the coupe bodies. Either Elizabeth or Acacia Ridge must have sent their jigs to South Africa after HG coupe bodies were completed to assemble their Chevrolet SS bodies. Dandenong jigs would have most likely been removed and replaced with LH Torana jigs.

Thus all LE were Pagewood bodies and Pagewood assembly (as were all HJ coupes). You can tell they are Pagewood bodies as they have a Pagewood assembly plant tracking number stamped into their firewall. Plus we have first hand knowledge (from the Maintenance Foreman at Pagewood at the time) of where the HJ coupe bodies (that later became HX LE bodies) were stored after being assembled as bodies in white late in 1975, and also of them being built as painted and hard trimmed bodies at Pagewood and being stored outside waiting for assembly.

On top of all that we have counted all 580 HX coupes in the Pagewood service/warranty records, plus the holes in the Pagewood records where the cars destroyed in a Perth fire would have been if sold. There are no coupes in Elizabeth records. Even the prototype LE was a Pagewood HJ GTS coupe, and the HX GTS coupe painted black (for the 50th anniversary) was a Pagewood car.

The only possible scenario is they were cars allocated to South Australia or Western Australia from Pagewood that were not sold and sent back to NSW, QLD or Victoria to fill sales.