Mikewags and Mike B

I am curious if when you finally got the dash out if you found any Japanese Kanji (script) on the bottom side of it? When I did my dash a couple of years ago I found it in my car. I understand it was common for assembly line personnel to do this. I had mine translated and it meant "Spring Time". Here is picture of it.

I hope everything goes well on the re-install.

This photo and sketch are showing the Tram station. This is where the alignment is done by the man below in the pit. After the driver has positioned the vehicle and shut it off, the man below sets the caster & camber. Meanwhile the driver typically performs the headlight adjustments by aiming them at targets not seen in the photo. There is no better time to do this because the car is perfectly positioned. There were different targets/specs for different markets. This is true also for toe in/toe out adjustments, compensating for the crown in the road which is different depending what side of the road you are driving on.

I was just looking at those pics trying to figure out what was going on. Thanks for the insight, Ron.

I was just looking at those pics trying to figure out what was going on. Thanks for the insight' date=' Ron.[/quote']

My pleasure, but we sure did stray from Zulaytr's original topic. I would continue with my opinions of the other photos, but maybe these photos & discussion should be moved?

omg, now im curious...i doubt it tho...ima go look sometime this weekend...

Sorry to deviate a little bit. Perhaps this photo helps get us back in the general direction. I suppose, Ron, that the yellow paint was applied at this point when the alignment was set? 26th had yellow paint as this photo shows except there was a dab of red on the left compression rod.

I can only generalize the use of these various markings. I am not knowledgable in the ways of Nissan. These cars were built long before the inception of ISO, so each manufacturer more or less had their own methods of verification. Basically, in an assembly operation such as the S30, where there are a number of model variances, vitually every part that had a counterpart for use in another market or every part that had an optional replacement for it, a method of ease of identification was nessesary. Picture a vehicle assembly line with work stations spaced along it. The stock needed for each and every possible build requirement was on hand. To aid in the proper part selection a variety of methods were used. It could be code stickers, paper tags, paint dabs, chalk marks, grease pencil, markers etc. Whatever method was used, it was meant to be highly visable and recognizable by all other workers stationed downstream from this operation. A mistake or wrong part installed doesn't usually get by without being noticed. Most of these markings came into the plant from the vendors. It was a design specification.

This didn't address your question Chris but I thought it would help to point out some of the reasons for various markings.

All auto assembly operations I have seen or have been a part of, used a method of marking the underbody/chassis components in a somewhat permanent manner. I have sandblasted my share of chassis components in my own restorations and some of these markings, paint dabs/slashes are still there after blasting. For the most part, other than part identification, the majority of underbody/chassis markings are used for torque verifications. I really don't recall any other reasons.

All we can do is continue to share & compare what we find.

I just went and looked at the 3 dashes I have, and they all have writing on them. I took a quick pic of each. I'd love to know what it means if anyone knows. I dash is an early '71 and 2 are 72.

I took a quick pic of each. I'd love to know what it means if anyone knows.

I hope you don't mind' date=' but I took the liberty of copying your photos and adding some notes to them.

One of them doesn't seem to make any sense other than to read it as the number '17'. The natural 'flow' of the three strokes seems to support this - but who knows? It could be shorthand for something else.....

Another [i']could be read as a number '4' if you rotate it 180 degrees - but the two strokes are not a natural 'flow' for a Japanese writer, and I believe it could be the Katakana symbol 'Ka' ( which means nothing on it's own ), or the Kanji for the word 'Chikara' ( meaning 'power' ). Interesting.

The third is even more confusing. The first character is obviously Kanji, but I think it is impossible to read properly ( it's weirdly shaped at the top ). Also, is there part of another unseen character lurking in the shadows on the left there? I see what seems to be something....

The character on the right is the classic Kanji that reads 'Yama' ( meaning 'mountain' ) and this is often seen as part of a name ( a family name, or a place name for instance ). This would seem to point to the writing here being somebody's name - although not completely legible.

There's also a curious and fainter pattern underneath it, which I do not recognise as writing at all. Is it some kind of descriptive drawing / diagram? Don't know.

What strikes me - after looking at quite a few of these column support mount panels - is that none of the writing seems to be all that natural, and is quite hard to read. It looks 'forced', and it makes me wonder whether the writing was applied when the dash panel was situated in a difficult-to-reach area, or at a difficult angle? Maybe when the dash was actually installed in the body - but ( rather obviously! ) it would have to be before the column support bracket had been attached. Does that make sense? I just get a strong feeling that this writing is unnatural, and writing 'blind' or at an awkward angle might account for that.............

I don't know about anybody else, but I've never installed a dash in one of these cars without the column being in-situ and loosely attached to the firewall. Would it make sense for the dash to go in before the column during the initial assembly process?

Alan,

Thanks for having a look at them. There is another character in the upper left. I thought I got the camera low enough but didnt. I will move all my carefully placed parts so I dont have to tiptoe around it so I can get a better shot on the weekend.

Zak: Is that the beautiful pristine early '71 dash you showed me at the swap meet last year? You haven't sold it yet?

Alan: Your observations fit exactly with what I am familiar with. Right up to my retirement almost 8 years ago, the same type of overhead line, supporting a fixture was used to convey the instrument panels during their build. I have seen both the ones used by GM and Chrysler. They are the same design. I will try to describe them and how they work.

The IP skeletons came from the Vendor in large racks holding more than a hundred, hanging lengthwise and nestled together. They were seperated by various protector strips which were removed and returned to the vendor for reuse. There were as many as a dozen different IPs so that made for a lot of racks taking up a lot of space.

As I mentioned before, these IP lines were circular or oval. so once an IP was removed from the carrier jig and installed into a car it continued on and was reloaded with a new IP blank to be built.

The carrier jigs consisted of no more than 2" square tube frames with locating pins at either end. There were 3 fixed camlock design hand clamps used to lock down the IPs. When loaded onto the carrier jig and clamped they were in the same natural, horizontal position, as if they were mounted in a car.

On the ends of these square tube frames the fixtures were equipt with bearings so that the complete fixture and IP could be easily rotated while suspended by the uprights at either end. There was a spring tension cog & pin mechanism operated by a hand lever at one end, to release and lock into the desired position. This made it possible to place the IP safely in about a dozen positions on the horizontal axis for ease of assembly. In an overhead view you would see all these carriers in many different positions. So in conclusion, I can see how writing on the panels could be awkward and strained as it wasn't feasible to position the panel just for the purpose of writing on it. There could be someone else working on it while someone else is trying to write on it.

I will comment on the steering columns later.

Zak: Is that the beautiful pristine early '71 dash you showed me at the swap meet last year? You haven't sold it yet?

Ron, I've had a few good offers from the U.S. but didn't want to risk shipping it. I also want to wait til I get mine together, I can always fall back on this early dash if something happens to mine during re-assembly. If all goes well I'll try and sell it next year.

I think the early dash is the one that has the '17' written on it.

Since this thread has meandered a bit, I thought I would post this photo. It is of the underside of my center console. While my dash has some writing on it as well, I didn't take any photos while it was out of the car so I'll just have to wait on getting them.

Anyway, this writing was certainly not intended for anyone to see, other than those assembling the car.