1965 Dodge Dart Charger

Two top restorers has the same experience, nuts down!

But I got this interesting answer from Kurt (66Dvert) who used to work for a Chrysler dealership between 64 and 67.

ahh to get back to your question. let's say "yes". ok done being a smart a$$ but yes they were Mostly pointed down. depending if you were a short person or a taller person made the difference of the angle. taller = more angled shorter = yup down. the last year I was there I hear they were changing over to a different process so that you could rotate the unibody to get things like that done easier, working in a trench or elevated traversway "sucked". when I got to visit a couple of plants I saw 3 or 4 different ways of installing the same part on different cars. they used pit's trenches, elevates chain ways, rotating platforms and others. it seemed like Jefferson assembly, Dodge truck, Dodge main all did it differently by using different vendors for their machinery. nothing in those plants were ergonomic, just put the darn part on and do it AGAIN all day. whew.

At the dealership if we had to replace or repair the exhaust system we'd always put it down "ish" and have to use a paint marker to daub the nuts "red/orange" color showing that we (the dealership) did it., it was nice working on newer cars since they were not too rusty yet. some of the 60-63's were already rusting away in salty Michigan winters

I think the only one we HAD to do upside down and angled towards the driveshaft was the 67 new yorker/newport extension pipe in front of the muffler so it didn't hit the floor pan dimples for the rear foot well .
then they put me in the sheet metal section, (yahoo a pay raise to $1.21 an hour from $0.97). then Freuhauf trailers called me in to work at their plant in for truck trailers, better pay and $1.25 plus benefits. bought my first "new ish" car,less than 2 year old to me was new (yup a 66 dart convertible/6 auto with only 71 miles on it!!) after that I went to the Chrysler plants.[/QUOTE]

Thanks Kurt. That was invalueable information. Re the paint markings, were they made for the reason that Chrysler did that at the plant or just something the dealer should do?