CRG Discussion Forum

Camaro Research Group Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: x77-69z28 on February 28, 2011, 04:56:22 PM

Title: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: x77-69z28 on February 28, 2011, 04:56:22 PM
does anyone know when the change over to YH wheels took place? my friend has an 01B daytona yellow Z that had american racing wheels on it when he bought it 25 years ago. he's looking for correct rally wheels and is not sure which way to go.
thanks
buddy
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: Dusk_Blue_Z on February 28, 2011, 04:59:41 PM
Buddy,

My 01B has YH's. As far as dates go, they are all Dec 17.

Hope that helps.

Nick
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: x77-69z28 on March 01, 2011, 08:43:04 PM
thanks nick. now he knows what to look for! got any extras?
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: 69z28rsbilly on March 23, 2011, 07:20:45 PM
I have a 12C 1969 z28 . Would I have the Ad's or the YH's ?
I have one Yh dated 12 18 1968......
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: x77-69z28 on March 23, 2011, 07:48:51 PM
12-17 and 12-18 are both good dates. not sure exactly when the change over from AD to YH was.seems that 12-18 would be in the third week.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: 69z28rsbilly on April 13, 2011, 05:29:23 PM
Are Dec. 17 1968 "YH" wheels to late for a 12C 69 Z28 ?
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: red69 on April 14, 2011, 02:05:08 PM
My 12C California car came to me in 75 with a 12/18/68 YH wheel and original tire in the trunk. The other wheels had been changed.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: 69z28rsbilly on April 15, 2011, 12:46:48 AM
My car is a 12C Norwood built......
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: HOT3O2 on July 26, 2016, 09:38:44 PM
 The last AD wheels were dated 10-24 (68). And as mentioned the YH wheels started 12-17 (68).
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: X33RS on July 31, 2016, 03:58:08 PM
Mine is a 12D Norwood build and has original YH's on it.  I discussed this with either William or Kurt a while back on here and was determined to be a good date and it helped them determine the change over to YH at least was occurring 4th week of December.  I don't remember the dates on the wheels now and they have been removed and packed away, but that thread is on here somewhere.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: bcmiller on August 02, 2016, 06:38:52 PM
I am looking for some 12/17/1968 or 12/18/1968 YH Rally Wheels for my 01B '69 Z. If anybody has any please contact me/Bill at 785-456-2964 in Kansas. Thank you!!

Please don't put in requests / want ads for parts. Thanks!
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: jdv69z on August 15, 2016, 01:52:02 PM
How would the plant have handled this change? I'm thinking the broadcast copy would have "YH" on it where previously it would have had "AD". So the assembly line would change to the new correct wheels.Would there be some kind of internal plant change notice? What would have been done with any remaining unused "AD" wheels? Service parts or ?
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: firstgenaddict on August 15, 2016, 04:12:10 PM
How would the plant have handled this change? I'm thinking the broadcast copy would have "YH" on it where previously it would have had "AD". So the assembly line would change to the new correct wheels.Would there be some kind of internal plant change notice? What would have been done with any remaining unused "AD" wheels? Service parts or ?

I was wondering the same thing...
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: firstgenaddict on August 15, 2016, 04:18:03 PM
does anyone know when the change over to YH wheels took place? my friend has an 01B daytona yellow Z that had american racing wheels on it when he bought it 25 years ago. he's looking for correct rally wheels and is not sure which way to go.
thanks
buddy

Are they really American Racing wheels or do they just look like ARE's ?
Don Yenko had his own wheels cast at the ATLAS Aluminum foundry, the patterns were taken DIRECTLY from an ARE Torque Thrust. If they look like ARE's but have no manufacturer name cast into them they could be ATLAS wheels. I believe JOE on the Yenko site or Brian Henderson at SCW in Latrobe would be the best people to ask. 
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: 69Z28-RS on August 15, 2016, 09:10:53 PM
How would the plant have handled this change? I'm thinking the broadcast copy would have "YH" on it where previously it would have had "AD". So the assembly line would change to the new correct wheels.Would there be some kind of internal plant change notice? What would have been done with any remaining unused "AD" wheels? Service parts or ?

I would BET that the change notice would have said something like 'Exhaust supply of 'AD' wheels and then change to 'YH' wheels...  I've never heard of an AD wheel being purchased OTC...  Has anyone else?  I'm not recalling the specifics but they made the change in the wheel to accommodate a change on another part.. was it caliper interference? or ??

Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: firstgenaddict on August 15, 2016, 11:21:45 PM
JL8... is why they were changed.
There is a specification for a primed wheel with a part number sticker so they were available OTC.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: KurtS on August 16, 2016, 02:57:01 AM
Any change notice that came thru had the part disposition noted.
Sometimes it's a coordinated change with another part(s) so all parts affected had to hit the line at the same time. Sometimes just exhaust the existing supply like this wheel change (a small dimensional change to clear the JL8 caliper). Sometimes it's replace immediately and scrap existing inventory or use for service.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: jdv69z on August 16, 2016, 12:46:32 PM
I guess what I'd be curious about, and will probably never know, is whether or not when the last AD wheels were being used up, a Z/28 Camaro with a combination of both wheels AD and YH was assembled and came off the line.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: X33RS on August 16, 2016, 01:40:21 PM
I believe that is what Kurt or someone here was trying to determine the last time this subject came up.  I submitted my info at that time to help with that question but I don't know if they ever came to any conclusions.  Might want to check with someone here that is keeping tabs on that stuff.  But like so many other things with these cars it's probably ongoing and ever changing with no definitive answer.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: X33RS on August 16, 2016, 02:06:39 PM
Since JL8 triggered the wheel change, I guess the question could be...and I'm sure most know...when did JL8 become available on the option sheet?  That would at least tell you YH's were in full swing by then.  That's my thinking anyway.  Knowing that option started in Feb I believe really throws a monkey wrench in that line of thinking, with YH wheels on production cars at least in Dec 68 already.  That's a widespread time frame.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: william on August 16, 2016, 02:52:25 PM
The earliest known JL8 car was final-assembled on or about February 24, 1969. By that time there were no AD wheels in production inventory.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: X33RS on August 16, 2016, 03:12:38 PM
Thanks William that clears up my foggy memory.  James' comment about the reason for the wheel change just got me thinking out loud.   I was just wondering about the date spread, with the wheel change sometime in late 68, knowing my 12D Z has YH's.  I was guessing GM must have had JL8 on the drawing board early on to implement the wheel change 2 months prior.  Makes sense.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: william on August 16, 2016, 04:22:23 PM
I have always suspected something came up in testing production JL8 parts that delayed availability. Early print ads for the '69 Z/28 mention it so it must have been assumed it would be ready. Chevy Engineering built a few '68s with JL8; one of them was tested in the July '68 Car & Driver. Engineering was done, parts were tooled up & available. Perhaps some "unintended consequence" came to light.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: X33RS on August 16, 2016, 06:04:49 PM
Interesting William, thanks
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: KurtS on August 17, 2016, 04:22:31 PM
And that's why this would have been an 'exhaust existing parts' change - it was far enough before JL8 hit production.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: HOT3O2 on August 17, 2016, 08:30:54 PM
It would be interesting to know if any 12C or 12D cars got a mixture of the two. One AD left on the rack, Install it along with 3 YH's plus the spare. You never know.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: X33RS on August 17, 2016, 08:46:11 PM
All mine including the spare are YH's on my 12D Z but that's an interesting thought.   William determined mine was a very late 4th week build based off the vin and data plate sequence.  Something around the 27th or so I believe is what he guessed at.   Nearly the end of the month really when you think about it.   So mine may not be the best example of the wheel change over.  The problem I'm told is that there aren't very many documents Z28's in this time frame to go by since it's a slow time of year for car sales.  So we may never know for certain.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: HOT3O2 on August 17, 2016, 09:47:26 PM
All mine including the spare are YH's on my 12D Z but that's an interesting thought.   William determined mine was a very late 4th week build based off the vin and data plate sequence.  Something around the 27th or so I believe is what he guessed at.   Nearly the end of the month really when you think about it.   So mine may not be the best example of the wheel change over.  The problem I'm told is that there aren't very many documents Z28's in this time frame to go by since it's a slow time of year for car sales.  So we may never know for certain.

That makes sense. Mine is a 12B. I'm sure the 5 AD's were some of the last ones installed.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: Shirlwtt on August 20, 2016, 07:03:29 AM
I have talked to people who had '69 Z/28 cars that they bought new that had wheels with mixed dates and or YH and AD wheels on the same car during the transition. It is my understanding that GM exhausted stock as they made the change. Bill from Kansas.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: william on August 20, 2016, 02:14:36 PM
Since you didn't personally experience this I'll chalk it up as an old wives tale. Mixed dates wouldn't matter but codes did. Wheels were coded on the BBC [box 133] for a reason. IF that occurred it was an assembly error and maybe involved a very few cars built late Dec.

Decades ago someone theorized that '68 DF wheels were used on early production '69 Z/28s. Not one '69 is known to have been built with them but it took years to get that out of everyone's brain.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: bcmiller on August 20, 2016, 06:15:09 PM
Right Bill.  I have even heard of leftover MO engines used in place of DZs in early 69 Z28s.  That didn't happen either.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: KurtS on August 21, 2016, 03:40:20 AM
Dates never mattered in the plant. They were just there to track & contain issues if necessary.
Mixed codes were possible. If they wrote the change notice as interchangeable and use/exhaust, then the line would be notified when the change was actually occurring and would know how to handle the last ones.
The broadcast sheet codes could lead/lag the actual change by a little bit, depending on how quickly they updated the system. There is evidence of this occurring. There are broadcast sheets with the new side terminal cables, but the cars had the top terminal cables.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: jdv69z on August 21, 2016, 03:36:14 PM
So it is possible that one or a few Z's could have been built with a mix of AD and YH wheels? Not that it's really a big thing either way, but it is interesting. And also informative as to how the assembly plant worked.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: william on August 21, 2016, 05:08:26 PM
This discussion belongs in the speculation section along with '69 Z/28s built with black standard grilles. Possible?  Maybe. How many are known to have been built that way? None.   

Since there is a dimensional difference in the wheels I question Engineering allowing it.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: X33RS on August 21, 2016, 06:00:12 PM
I never say never but in the case of the wheels, with dimensional differences, I doubt they were mixed on one car.  My grandfather worked and retired at Fisher Body, and my father had a very close friend that retired from the Norwood plant.  Worked there from the 50's and into the mid 80's.  Even toured the plant before they closed and learned a lot of interesting things with inside knowledge.  Weird and unusual things did happen but a lot of this stuff is pretty cut and dry.  After all this time passed, and original untouched cars getting more scarce,  we may never know the answer to some questions. 
   My feeling, having a late December car with it's original wheels, I feel comfortable saying that at least the last couple weeks of December you likely had YH's.  Before that time I don't think it's out of the question to have either AD's or YH's on a 69 Z.  My opinion is that either would be acceptable.  How early on the transition appeared is the question.  With so few unrestored untouched cars from this time frame, especially non original owners, it may never be known.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: KurtS on August 21, 2016, 11:34:22 PM
That is a question - what was in the original change notice? I never did any for a set like this, but since the offset and size are the same (same fit and function), they *could* have mixed them. The plant could handle the change however it was written. The big thing was to get the AD's out of there before the JL8's came down the line...
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: X33RS on August 22, 2016, 02:48:02 AM
I'm guessing Kurt, with that question, and the original question that started this thread, that we don't have a copy or draft of the change notice?  Are there any factory records at all about the wheels? 
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: KurtS on August 22, 2016, 04:14:25 AM
Not that I've seen.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: X33RS on August 22, 2016, 12:46:21 PM
Thanks Kurt, I figured there probably wasn't but thought I'd ask anyway.
Title: Re: AD or YH wheels.
Post by: william on August 22, 2016, 02:07:02 PM
There is a copy of the engineering drawing for the AD wheel on page 318 of "Chevrolet By The Numbers 1965-1969."