Originally Posted by
rckid74
A little story about John Dow (second in charge at die cast plant #17 - Pete Able was plt manager). ----- It involves the first new die for the "Black Max" V6 block. Now this is one huge die. It has a number of slides pulling out in all directions, is some 15 ft long, 10ft high 8ft wide, weighs probably 20 tons and cost hundreds of thousands. Anyhow, I (up in Oshkosh) get a call from John (down in Fond Du Lac - 25 mi) and he says "Jerry I think you better come down right away. We just got the block die parts in and the liners won't load onto the pins, the blisters interfere with each other". WHAT!! I'm sure my heartbeat jumped from it's normal 75 to 150! I was certain I had checked that out as had Al Tyner (the block designer-detailer). If those liners wouldn't load, the whole die would probably have to be scrapped. I got in my '58 Vette and peeled out for FDL - heart in my throat all the way. When I got there John took me into the room where the die parts were, took a liner, slid it onto one pin and then attempted to slide a second liner on the adjacent pin but it hung up part way down. Sure-nuf the blisters interfered. We tried different liners on different pins but no luck. I thought, oh man, I better start looking for a new job. Then, all of a sudden one of the combinations worked. We had two liners on side by side. I said wait a minute John, what did you do there. We tried it again and they interfered. Turns out it depended on which one went on first. If you did it in the right order (top to bottom) they went on OK. Bottom to top - no go. Phew!! I still had a job!!
