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munriman Offline
#1 Posted : Tuesday, 23 November 2021 12:09:54 PM(UTC)
munriman

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Today I went and purchased a can of Chevrolet Orange/Red for some comparisons. We must be mindful of whether or not the Chevrolet Orange/Red is a true depiction of the colours used in the 1960's without an original paint example it is impossible to be sure. One thing is for sure, the Duplicolor Chevrolet Orange DE1620 is about as close a match if not exact to the colour of my original paint HK GTS 327 Type 1 engine Pagewood built car.

The Chevrolet Orange/Red is a a much more pastel matt finish almost like a red primer consistency. I have attached some pictures for comparison below.



The whole reason for this excercise is to give some confidence to restorers of what may or may not constitute a correct colour for a HK Type 1 GTS 327 Engine, or any other engine that came out of the US during the same period which also may or may not include HK Type2 GTS 327 which will require further evidence.

So in short in my view and based on my research and the photos attached if you paint your HK GTS 327 Type 1 engine in Duplicolor Chevrolet Orange DE1620 it should be correct for the time period for both judging if you are that way inclined and personal confidence that you are doing the right thing.



It would be great to compare both of these colours against an Holden X2 Holden Red. I have attached some pictures below of what I think is the same product being spruiked on Ebay as "NEW CORRECT HOLDEN ENGINE PAINT TO HD X2 HR X2 HR 186S 179 X2 186 X2 MOTOSPRAY", it shows the colour difference as I painted the top of the Oil Filler Tube with this so called X2 paint.

munriman Offline
#2 Posted : Wednesday, 24 November 2021 3:33:22 PM(UTC)
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I have come up with a confusing question, does anyone know about the sump on a HK GTS 327? Surely Chevrolet plants did not install sumps on Australian built cars or did they? In other words were the sumps on 327 engines manufactured here or in the USA?
HK1837 Offline
#3 Posted : Wednesday, 24 November 2021 4:03:01 PM(UTC)
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USA and Canada. The engines were completed, painted, run on gas, timing set and marked, distributor removed for transport. They had the engine plant code added at this time.
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munriman Offline
#4 Posted : Wednesday, 24 November 2021 8:11:30 PM(UTC)
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No doubt they would have tested the motors in the USA and Canada, but does anybody know if Holden changed the sumps in Australia to fit into HK GTS 327 Monaro's or were the sumps ordered in a certain configuration and made as a special order for HK GTS 327 Monaros or were the sumps off another USA car that worked on the HK GTS 327 Monaro's.
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#5 Posted : Wednesday, 24 November 2021 8:24:41 PM(UTC)
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The engines would have been made to GMH specification. Remember GMH would have projected for tens of thousands of them between 307, 327 and 350. There were many tweaks to them for the Holden chassis and for Australian fuel, and the sump was just one of them. Like the LH exhaust manifolds, lack of any 1968 onwards AIR gear, different distributors to US spec (except 1968 327 Chevrolet engines used by GMH) etc. All the SBC Quadrajets were unique to Australia too except for the first and last of them,
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munriman Offline
#6 Posted : Wednesday, 24 November 2021 8:48:39 PM(UTC)
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That's great information and totally reasonable, it starts to make more and more sense that there is no way Holden would have painted any of the HK 327 engines unless in extreme circumstances which we wont speculate about. We can also assume the gearboxes and bellhousings were also painted in the US and Canada at the time and there would be no need for Holden to do any painting of any of these parts. This brings us to another point, and that is the rams horn exhaust manifolds.

Now I notice that on the cover of the Scientific Publication they are painted the same colour as the engine, but in most cases these are just press photographs that should not really be used as a correct reference because a photographer of publicity executive would have had precedence over what was depicted on the cover to sell the books, if they thought the rams horn manifolds looked better painted for a cover of a book or magazine than that's what they got.

The question is does anybody know without doubt whether the rams horns were painted or not, I have three sets here and none have a spec of paint on them, not that that means anything on an exhaust manifold, but it doesn't make sense that an engineering company as big as GM's would think its a good idea or even allow to paint the rams horn exhaust manifolds sounds like a recipe for an engine fire.

HK1837 Offline
#7 Posted : Thursday, 25 November 2021 5:23:20 AM(UTC)
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Bellhousings would be on the engines in North America when painted. Gearboxes raw.
The exhaust manifolds were painted in the engine plants along with the rest of the engine. That whole SP book has photos of a GTS327 they pulled apart. The driveline on the cover is straight out of a new car.

Here is the engine dress section of one of the US VAP's in 1967 model year. You can see the painted exhaust manifolds. Some of these engines are for Californian sale as they have air pumps.

Edited by user Thursday, 25 November 2021 5:54:26 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

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HK1837 Offline
#8 Posted : Thursday, 25 November 2021 6:31:31 AM(UTC)
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Here is Tonawanda engine plant in 1959 in the 2nd and third photos, the bottom three photos are at a VAP - two of them in that VAP's engine dress. The top photos is also at a VAP with transmissions being attached to engines.

https://euclidsbridge.wo...nda-engine-plant-c-1959/

Also have a read here. Will take you a good half hour. The basic process for HK was the same, just ignore the bits about when and where tags and VIN were attached. Plus as far as I am aware HK V8 were not body dropped. When you get to the Chassis-to-body at Van Nuys you can see the painted Camaro log exhaust manifold, these are 1968 or 1969 engines.

http://www.camaros.org/assemblyprocess.shtml

Edited by user Thursday, 25 November 2021 6:38:32 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

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munriman Offline
#9 Posted : Thursday, 25 November 2021 7:04:12 PM(UTC)
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Thank you for the links, great informative and important reading and clarifies alot of questions when considering American production line procedures. It would be safe to say then based on most of this information i.e. production line photographs, Scientific Publications, press photographs etc that manifolds should be painted on a HK GTS 327, and that's how they would have been delivered to Australia from the USA and Canada for Type1 and Type2 327 Engines.

Below is a few pics sent to me today off a HK 307, apparently they sat in a boot of a car for decades, can't verify them as original paint but they sure look consistent with age, and it is a good reference point because who would have bothered to paint them after the factory back in he day. This slavish pedanticism of painting every little detail correct, getting every clip right, and checking every bolt for the right marking is a modern phenomenon.



On another note would it make sense that they installed the gearboxes and did all the linkage adjustments in the USA and Canada on Australian export 327 engines as well? Now this is speculative but could it be possible that they painted entire assemblies (Engine,Gearbox and Bellhousing) for export engines?

If not at what point were the gearboxes and linkage installed. If HK production was not body dropped then the linkages on the gearboxes would have been a pain and prone to damage during installation, especially with HK 327.

I am of course asking all this to try to figure out when and what was painted on a HK GTS 327, especially in the USA and Canada, but also if some things were painted in Australia, the question again is where and how was the colour matched.

We can within reason now say that exhaust manifolds were painted the engine colour, if the gearbox was raw as stated at what point would you think did they were painted?
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#10 Posted : Thursday, 25 November 2021 7:46:24 PM(UTC)
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The gearboxes were attached here and sometimes painted. Different between Australian VAP’s too, pretty sure Dandenong left them raw. I doubt it was much different to the US setup where gearboxes were attached soon after engine dress.
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munriman Offline
#11 Posted : Thursday, 25 November 2021 8:32:36 PM(UTC)
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That's really interesting, if the boxes were painted here then they did a damn good match between engine and gearbox on my Type1 327, all the bolt heads as well. I am now am more anxious than ever to split the box from the engine and have a look to see if there is any paint between the surfaces.

It now seems more likely than ever that Holden were able to exactly match the paint to the American engines. This could only have been done in one of two ways.

1- Holden mixed the paints locally to exact American specification
2- Holden imported paint batches to match from America

The patination looks the same and the paint has held up the same over 50 odd years, so it must be the same paint or exact specification paint i.e. lead content, pigment etc.

So if they painted the gearboxes in Australia, I wonder what they were calling the paint (obviously not Chevrolet Orange) so it stands to reason that it was possibly batched here, then they would be able to label it with their own names i.e. Rocket red, HK Rocket Red, Holden X2 Engine Red, Holden Red or whatever red it may have been called in 1968.
HK1837 Offline
#12 Posted : Friday, 26 November 2021 11:03:21 AM(UTC)
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They had to be painted here, remember some plants painted them and some didn't. Same with the HK-HG M20 4spd. I have personally pulled apart untouched 253 M21 HT or HG and the boxes were raw, and a lot of Dandenong V8 HK cars have turned up the same. Yet Pagewood looks to have painted the box once attached to the bellhousing.

Smitty will attest to a lot of this as he worked for GMH. All engines, all boxes came from the same source in Australia. Same with all mechanical parts. All imported stuff came through the same source within Australia. Even the paint came from the single origin. The whole notion people have come up with the years that BAP and VAP sourced stuff locally is just fiction. GMH appropriated everything under single contracts for economy of scale reasons. The stuff they built themselves was either built in the Victorian engine plant or made/assembled (or pressed) at Woodville, plus a number of other smaller facilities. Anything they cast came from their one foundry location. Anything they bought in from Australian suppliers was all sourced from the one supply source by whomever had the contract at that time. BAP's and VAP's simply put it all together, with the logistics looked after by head office. All the local plants had to do was supply power, labour, air, water and natural gas. They didn't press anything, they didn't really fabricate anything other than sew up trim in the local trim shop. Everything was supplied to the VAP's as dictated by the schedule and it was all send either from Woodville or Fisherman's bend. I know this is in broad terms, and there will have been variations where it made sense (like if the supplier was in Sydney or Brisbane they may have sent the required bits directly rather than ship to South Australia or Victoria and back again).

As for BAP and VAP variations in how they did things, well it will simply be a combination of the age of the plant and historical reasons. You can see in that Camaro article that Van Nuys and Norwood did the chassis to body join differently. I saw similar variations between BHP Newcastle and BHP Kembla in how they operated their BOS - it was simply an age and historical difference. In HK you see it in when and where the tags were attached in the build process. Or how Pagewood and Dandenong painted the front panels with the body in the BAP, whereas Elizabeth painted the front panels in the VAP. Remember Pagewood was the oldest plant by the time HK came around, and they kept following their old established ways. Whereas Acacia Ridge was brand new and built very differently to the others. This was the 60's. Communication was by phone or Telex or post. You can fly to Singapore from Sydney today faster than you could have driven to Melbourne in 1968. The Internet wasn't even made public until 1969, and the World Wide Web that people incorrectly call the Internet today didn't exist until 1991 and not really used to much extent until the later 90's. Co-ordination of production schedule and thus inventory to meet that schedule was done by mainframe and mainframe access communicating via low speed modems. So there was no real means to make all VAP locations do things identically, and there was little reason to do so. In the capital cities most cars would be sourced locally, and 99% of people would never notice that this car had a painted body tag but that one is nude, or that GTS327 has a raw gearbox but this one is painted. Once the cars were 12 months old and out of warranty GMH didn't give a damn, the only money they would make out of the cars after that was to supply parts for another few years and get a kickback from GMH dealer licencing.
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munriman Offline
#13 Posted : Friday, 26 November 2021 10:06:37 PM(UTC)
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It’s great to know regarding HK GTS 327 and of course other models that some gearboxes were painted and some were not. It makes perfect sense that different plants used different technology and processes, so moderate variations in practice were inevitable. Its also great to know based on all the references provided i.e. (valuable information on US plants and processes) that all engines were painted prior to dispatch to Australia including the exhaust manifolds and bellhousing.

No body could ever doubt that a company the size of GM or GMH would have to centralise and standardise all their primary practices. If local VAP or BAP had the flexibility to source local supplies every plant would have to price the same car differently and there would be no way of maintaining consistency of quality. Is it possible that paint could be the only exception to this?

I still have a question about HK GTS 327 engine colour. I have seen two variations in Type1 engines alone, one which is red and one which is orange, does anyone have an opinion for the reason for this? Is there without a doubt two distinct colours for HK 327 engines or more? See examples below


castellan Offline
#14 Posted : Tuesday, 30 November 2021 5:25:42 PM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: munriman Go to Quoted Post
It’s great to know regarding HK GTS 327 and of course other models that some gearboxes were painted and some were not. It makes perfect sense that different plants used different technology and processes, so moderate variations in practice were inevitable. Its also great to know based on all the references provided i.e. (valuable information on US plants and processes) that all engines were painted prior to dispatch to Australia including the exhaust manifolds and bellhousing.

No body could ever doubt that a company the size of GM or GMH would have to centralise and standardise all their primary practices. If local VAP or BAP had the flexibility to source local supplies every plant would have to price the same car differently and there would be no way of maintaining consistency of quality. Is it possible that paint could be the only exception to this?

I still have a question about HK GTS 327 engine colour. I have seen two variations in Type1 engines alone, one which is red and one which is orange, does anyone have an opinion for the reason for this? Is there without a doubt two distinct colours for HK 327 engines or more? See examples below




Both of them look totally wrong colour to me.
munriman Offline
#15 Posted : Tuesday, 30 November 2021 7:29:43 PM(UTC)
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Would you have a pic of what you think is the right colour, and do you know of only one colour for HK GTS 327, or more than one colour? cheers
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#16 Posted : Wednesday, 1 December 2021 6:16:13 PM(UTC)
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I have now done some samples of the KBS Rocket Red and some comparisons of this paint to the Duplicolor Paint Cans and also my original paint 327 Engine. The outcome is no real surprise, I have tried to photograph all of these colour in the best light situation to show the shades, but from my point the Duplicolor Chevrolet Orange still looks to be the closest match

Below is a sample board of the four colours, the two top colours are the Duplicolor Chevrolet Orange at the top followed by the Duplicolour Chevrolet Orange Red underneath, then the third one down is the KBS Rocket Red which is the same colour as the Duplicolor Chevrolet Orange Red and then the bottom colour is what is advertised on ebay as X2 Red.



Below is the paint can from KBS known as Rocket Red



I have added below a few pictures of my bellhousing, the first picture shows a KBS Rocket Red and Duplicolor Chevrolet Orange Comparison



The rest of these photographs are of my oil pump housing, various angles and colours, but looking at it in person the chevrolet Orange is the closest.



The final photo below is of the head, again Chevy orange vs Rocket Red



I would say that if anyone painted their GTS 327 engines Duplicolour Chevrolet Orange, Duplicolour Chevrolet Orange Red, or KBS Rocket Red everyone would have a hard time seeing the difference, unless they were side by side.
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#17 Posted : Wednesday, 1 December 2021 6:32:24 PM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: HK1837 Go to Quoted Post
They had to be painted here, remember some plants painted them and some didn't. Same with the HK-HG M20 4spd. I have personally pulled apart untouched 253 M21 HT or HG and the boxes were raw, and a lot of Dandenong V8 HK cars have turned up the same. Yet Pagewood looks to have painted the box once attached to the bellhousing.

Smitty will attest to a lot of this as he worked for GMH. All engines, all boxes came from the same source in Australia. Same with all mechanical parts. All imported stuff came through the same source within Australia. Even the paint came from the single origin. The whole notion people have come up with the years that BAP and VAP sourced stuff locally is just fiction. GMH appropriated everything under single contracts for economy of scale reasons. The stuff they built themselves was either built in the Victorian engine plant or made/assembled (or pressed) at Woodville, plus a number of other smaller facilities. Anything they cast came from their one foundry location. Anything they bought in from Australian suppliers was all sourced from the one supply source by whomever had the contract at that time. BAP's and VAP's simply put it all together, with the logistics looked after by head office. All the local plants had to do was supply power, labour, air, water and natural gas. They didn't press anything, they didn't really fabricate anything other than sew up trim in the local trim shop. Everything was supplied to the VAP's as dictated by the schedule and it was all send either from Woodville or Fisherman's bend. I know this is in broad terms, and there will have been variations where it made sense (like if the supplier was in Sydney or Brisbane they may have sent the required bits directly rather than ship to South Australia or Victoria and back again).

As for BAP and VAP variations in how they did things, well it will simply be a combination of the age of the plant and historical reasons. You can see in that Camaro article that Van Nuys and Norwood did the chassis to body join differently. I saw similar variations between BHP Newcastle and BHP Kembla in how they operated their BOS - it was simply an age and historical difference. In HK you see it in when and where the tags were attached in the build process. Or how Pagewood and Dandenong painted the front panels with the body in the BAP, whereas Elizabeth painted the front panels in the VAP. Remember Pagewood was the oldest plant by the time HK came around, and they kept following their old established ways. Whereas Acacia Ridge was brand new and built very differently to the others. This was the 60's. Communication was by phone or Telex or post. You can fly to Singapore from Sydney today faster than you could have driven to Melbourne in 1968. The Internet wasn't even made public until 1969, and the World Wide Web that people incorrectly call the Internet today didn't exist until 1991 and not really used to much extent until the later 90's. Co-ordination of production schedule and thus inventory to meet that schedule was done by mainframe and mainframe access communicating via low speed modems. So there was no real means to make all VAP locations do things identically, and there was little reason to do so. In the capital cities most cars would be sourced locally, and 99% of people would never notice that this car had a painted body tag but that one is nude, or that GTS327 has a raw gearbox but this one is painted. Once the cars were 12 months old and out of warranty GMH didn't give a damn, the only money they would make out of the cars after that was to supply parts for another few years and get a kickback from GMH dealer licencing.



basically yeah HK.... all of that

Pagewood tended to do their own thing, even VD Commodore build plates on VC bodies (true!)
but
back on topic... basic manufacturing in Australia was done in 2 places , Mechanical (Engines, diffs etc) at FBend and
body stamping and misc ( Interior Trim, Trimatics etc) at Woodville

VAPs (vehicle assembly plants) did just that .. assemble vehicles. Even CKD Bedfords, Chevs and then Isuzus from large
boxes. they did not paint wheels or engines or suspensions, they were used as received from the external supplier or GM/GMH plant of supply
They did paint bodywork and some hard trim

The paint? GMH had a contract with Dulux (had for years) and they supplied what was on the paint supplies chart for each particular model
(see pic )

Imported GM stuff (say varajet from France or Quaddie carbs, T350s from the US etc) all got delivered by the Australian
import agent/shipper GMH used to where they were needed in my day


apologies if this pic is not super clear, it is a piece of paper dating back to 1979!






ps... I learnt to type on TELEX machines there and I kill keyboards these days as a result Applause
Club circuit racing...the best fun you can have with your pants on
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