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"From Design to Production"  

(The following article and images were kindly contributed by Rinus van Leest - Netherlands)

A description of the various stages taken in the the production process.

The designers, people like Phil Walker, Charles Udall etc., would produce a general idea and lay out of what sort of motorcycle the company desired to produce. If the board approved the overall design, the design needed to be detailed to be able to manufacture the desired motorcycle.

The drawing office would make detailed drawings of all the different parts that would be assembled to eventually form the new motorcycle. The drawing office would also take the manufacturing possibilities, available machine tools, metallurgy processes, etc., of the parent factory or manufacturing partners into account. These detailed drawings were thoroughly checked by different design and drawing office officials before they were released for manufacturing purposes or buying parts from other manufacturers.

The drawing office also would need to design special tools and fixtures to be able to assist in the manufacturing of the parts. They would also need to advise how the factory would be able to check the manufactured part being made against tolerances and other specifications as laid out on the detailed drawing.

A detailed drawing of a simple part like a bracket would include all the information to be able to manufacture the part: starting material, form and tolerances, tools, fixture, treatment and finish.

A detailed drawing of a more complex part like a timing side crankcase would contain the basic information like starting material or semi-finished part, form and tolerances but the drawing would be accompanied by “Workman’s instructions”.

These instructions elaborate about the complete process of manufacturing to be able to finish the part correctly and incorporated starting material or semi-finished product,such as a forging for a camshaft, tools, fixtures, gauges, treatment and finish but also information about which machine tools would be used to manufacture the part.

Fixtures for manufacturing purposes were made by the tool room. The tool room was also held responsible for managing and maintaining sets of gauges. There were sets of gauges for the machine tool operators to check their work during the process of manufacturing. There were also separate sets of gauges for the factory inspectors who checked the parts being made by the manufacturing personnel or sub-contractors.

It is obvious that it was very important that all the parts being made would be within specification of the detailed drawing before assembling them together. Failing to do so would lead to unwanted disturbance of the manufacturing process and expensive warranty cases.

The AMC factory outsourced a substantial number of parts to sub-contractors meaning that drawings, tools and gauges were transferred to these sub-contractors for manufacturing purposes. The process to make sure that these out-farmed parts were made according to specifications meant that the process for checking the results was as thorough as the custom for the parts AMC made themselves.

Based on this information one can conclude that AMC had sound engineering practice and therefore was able to produce excellent motorcycles .

Note: You can view enlarged versions of many of the above images via copies on the Design, Tool Design, Capstans, Tool Room and Inspection pages of the website