Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

There's what appears to be a very nice survivor 72 Blazer on BAT now with paint on the door latches. Per the dealer handling the sale, paint meter readings indicate the paint is all original. The door latches are painted and appear to be medium blue. Listing is here: https://bringatrailer.com/listing/19...let-blazer-44/

Does anyone have an original paint K5 with painted door latches that would support a claim that these were indeed painted at time of assembly?

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Flint 72 original medium blue. Not painted but door latch bolts are?

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Early 72 Flint original ochre, no paint.

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Uncertain plant (likely St Louis given the white rear top to bedside brackets) 72 medium olive, painted.

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

St Louis 69s (no door latch reinforcements), no latch paint

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Late 72 Flint, no latch paint

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Flint 72 no paint

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/19...let-blazer-20/

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Perhaps a factory re-spray? I think I've seen Keith Seymore talk about fixes of assembly line goofs. Otherwise no reason for paint on these pieces. Body comes out of paint, door latches put on. But let's say either something gets damaged or dinged on the line or there's some other QC issue and they run it back around. Maybe you leave the latches on.

I went to BaT and looked...it's a tough call. It's got a pretty good wrinkle in the VIN plate under the Rosette rivets.

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Another St Louis 72. Paint?

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Was just thinking of you while squinting at thumbnail images on Rust Free Classics. Good points. Maybe I can loop Keith into the conversation. I need to root out the original door latches from my St Louis 72 and see if there is any demonstrable factory paint. If I still have them.

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

But who knows what they were doing in St. Louis. They were cranking out basically everything GM made at the time. That's why there was so much writing on everything. You know they were having to have a lot of staff meetings because of something Robert or Harv kept goofing up. So finally they were like, "Look Harv, I know you aren't reading the build sheet...but geez, can you at least read it off the truck?!? We wrote the color and all the options right here on the firewall!! Help me out Pal! You know I'm catching it from the Corvette foreman at the plant picnics. We look bad over here...this is the third Blazer re-spray this month!"

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Attachment 2088361

All original 72 ochre paint minus rockers and lower B pillar corner.. St. Louis on vin tag

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Funny. St Louis used two RH armrests on my rear seat and omitted one of the two horns.

Good point on the VIN plate for the Blazer in post #1 btw - how would that be creased like that? Factory damage = respray?

It seems odd that one plant for one year would shift the assembly process where a door component would be placed upstream from the paint booth leaving other components of door assembly to follow. I’ve seen low mile survivor original paint square body Flint K5s that do ha e factory door latch paint.

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Thanks for sharing. Can you add detail photos of both doors when possible? Is the blue LH door decal present and unpainted?

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Forgive the dirty screw heads and abuse I drive this good 4 days out of the week.
Attachment 2088403

Attachment 2088404

Attachment 2088405

Attachment 2088406

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Thanks for adding those! It's getting interesting.

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Lol. This is probably actual audio.

K

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Good on ya Pete...you've teased out another one. This seems like a for real thing. Fast forward to 9:52 on this 2016 video. St. Louis Blazer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS9Q3Ormju4

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

It's possible. There was variation in the process between assembly plants and even variation within the same plant across model years.

There was even variation within the same plant within the same model year: when I started at Flint the front end sheetmetal was installed as a preassembled unit (ie "buck built") on Line 2 and as individual pieces ("Piecemeal") on Line 1. Same product, two wildly different processes under the same roof.

Keep in mind these plants were all build differently, with their own unique footprints, typically in the 1920's, 30's, and 40's. This can drive different process just based on the available real estate and where significant "monuments" (hardware or equipment that you are really loathe to relocate during a product or process change) were placed. Sister plants, or plants with the same basic architecture, weren't built until much later, like the GM Orion, Kansas City and "Poletown" (ie Detroit Hamtramck) plants in the 1980s.

Also keep in mind there is a constant creep to add parts later in the process. Everyone wants their part put on in the last station on the final line, so you have to be forever vigilant to keep pushing the work farther upstream, trying to keep the work load generally leveled for each production operator. As a result there is always a little bit of tuning going on.

So - back to the subject at hand: Door Latches. Yes - it is possible for St Louis to be an outlier, installing the door latches before paint while everybody else was doing it after paint. Also - I seem to recall a move was made once the use of the ELPO dip tanks became more prevalent. In some plants, like Pontiac passenger car assembly, latches were installed before paint but were getting gunked up from the ELPO dip. The installation of the latches was moved to the trim area as a result.

K

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

If this conversation took place in Flint it would be "Arkie", or "Tex" that were screwing up.

K

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

72 Flint no paint

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

HA!

Here's another 72 St. Louis Blazer (best shot available), purported original paint (except on repair panels, ie rockers and such). BTW...what is in that ochre paint? It is indestructible.

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Keith thanks a ton for weighing in with your valued insight and anecdotes.

Guys thanks for all the posts and please keep them coming! Evidence is accumulating. Would be great to see a couple more before proposing a motion.

Here's a candidate. I've sent a PM to Mel to check if he has any details about the paint/plant of the K5 from the photo.

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

I'm thinking that's the same Blazer as Tmend's post #15 above buddy :)

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Doh...what an idiot. Pulled it from an old for sale ad. In my defense, 90% of original paint trucks are ochre.

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

'71-not smart enough to know where it was built :(

Had not realized how dirty that is either......

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

St Louis (S in the VIN) - thanks. I’m thinking now the door latches are the least photographed component of a truck :)

Here are original paint yellow 71 and white 72 examples from St Louis and Flint respectively. Thanks Keith and Steve.

Still chasing more 72 St Louis examples....

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

I dont have any direct info on Blazer/Jimmy's however I do recall when doing research for a '69 Camaro I did, that there was confirmed "oddities" like you are finding. I dont recall to be able to recite them but it was very similar...this plant, that plant, before this date/after that date, ect ect. There were some "for sures" that were either right or wrong but somewhere in there was some maybes. What I do remember was the basics. If the latches were painted, so was the striker. If the doors were painted, so was the trunk latch/striker, ect.

The one photo posed that I kinda have trouble with is the one Blue one with the painted bolts but not the latch...that would typically be a no-no. This would mean the guy on the assembly line put the latch in & then masked off the latch poking through the door or was already masked off, installed & then later peeled off (more likely). Now in a way the idea isnt completely wrong...we want the latch in place but someone realized that the paint will peel, stick the latch ect. so a masking operation was added. My Two Cents, Lorne

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

I have two flint 72 blazers, both grapefruit original paint with no paint on the latches. Sorry, no pictures.

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Here is one of mine.
Original paint, 1972, and St.Louis built.

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

I move that we recognize at least some and possibly all K5s assembled for the 1972 model year at St Louis had painted door latches. Anyone second that? Nays?

We could catalog sequence numbers to try and determine when the painting began.

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Second. I make a motion we move to collect serial number data.

Huzzah for recognizing this manufacturing anomaly and for gathering the evidence to support it. Information! I love it.

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

👍👌

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Not a blazer, but a 72 St. Louis truck.

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Thanks for posting. That’s really helpful. Looks as if St Louis was painting trucks in a similar manner for 72. It’s fun teasing out these plant specific variations.

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

My truck K20 is a St Louis build and mine are painted as well

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Maybe this thread is becoming a dead horse, but I haven't seen a 1970 model yet...

1970 St Louis Blazer

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/19...t-k5-blazer-4/

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Thanks for posting and keep ‘em coming. That 70 I’m skeptical about as it’s been repainted.

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

1970 GMC Jimmy St Louis no paint

Re: Does anyone have an original paint Blazer or Jimmy with painted door latches?
 

Here's an original paint St.Louis truck. One of the things this truck got me thinking about was production rate. The VIN on this truck ends in 195XXX. That's a big number at the end of the model year. We know that from the forum's build date project thread that St. Louis built trucks got to at least 202XXX in '72. It was obviously the last MY of this generation and they produced the most units of any year 67-72. And St. Louis appears to be uniquely prolific. Normally a VIN ending in 17XXXX would put you in June or July on average for 67-71. However in St. Louis in '72 they were in the 190s in May. That is churning out some trucks. I think the youngest example on this thread is 140XXX or there abouts. So it seems to me Pete, this may be a mid year process mod at St. Louis (probably one of many) that reflects the pressure of executing this level of production.