PLANTS’ ANNUAL OVERHAUL

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30958, 14 January 1966, Page 7

PLANTS’ ANNUAL OVERHAUL

QPRING cleaning in January is not as silly as it sotmds —at least, not in the motor industry. Although the production clamour and din of motor vehicle assembly processes dies from Christmas to midJanuary in the big motor plants, they do not become empty, echoing shells.

Teams of maintenance experts methodically move through the plants, checking equipment that has been subjected to tremendous stress throughout the year, and renovating apparatus that is resting from its vital role in the assembly schedules. “You might call it our

10,000-mile check,” said a spokesman for the Austin Distributors’ Federation, whose assembly plant at Petone is one of the Hutt Valley factories that assemble most of New Zealand’s cars and trucks.

At the plant, which will reopen with the others in midJanuary, maintenance staff have been overhauling hardworking electric motors and dismantling spot-welders to examine, and if necessary replace, components that have helped assemble hundreds of ear and commercial bodies during the year. Paint booths have a specially thorough face lift, and the paint shop's primary and

secondary air filters and ductings are cleared of the residue of thousands of gallons of undercoats and enamels. Electrical connexions and contacts, airways and waterways throughout the plant are opened, cleaned, tested and readied for another year's continuous service. Conveyors and conductors are checked, and the 32 welder timers in the Austin plant devices which, controlling duration and temperature, are the most vital elements in spot-welding —are checked for efficiency. When the assembly plaints’ employees return, they will find that the factories have taken on a new lease of life.