(23) Design draftsman’s job (3/6).

Around 1974-75 I was relocated from the mechanical section to electrical as a design draftsman. It was the result of some internal reshuffle in the section, where a couple of draftsmen were promoted to design draftsmen, and somebody retired, or resigned, I think. All of a sudden I was where I more-or-less secretly longed to be, without anybody asking me whether I liked it or not.

At the time GM was planning to prepare a new car for production, a car designated HZ/WB. HZ was new only on the surface – new sheet metal, mainly. Inside everything was almost identical with the previous model, including all the electrical parts. I was supposed to work according to the time-honoured method: take components, including wiring, from the previous model, install it in the mock-up of the new one, and make them fit – meaning fit physically. I was working side-by-side with my “tennising” friend, the electrical engineer. I inquired ever so gently about the electrical properties, as distinct from the purely physical/mechanical ones, of our components. He showed no interest in the electrical properties, and, as far as I was able to ascertain, no deeper knowledge of any kind either.

In the meantime I continued to work surreptitiously on my version of electrical system of the previous car, LH Torana. In my opinion the wiring diagrams used by the GM to represent the electrical system, were totally unsuitable for calculations of electrical properties. What “diagram” should replace them I had no idea whatsoever, and I continued to peruse various electrical text- and handbooks in bookshops and libraries. Eventually I settled on a scheme that I judged as suitable for my purpose. It was a scheme of electrical installation in commercial building by Siemens, I think. I began to experiment with its shape and graphic representation of automotive components that are rather different from components in commercial buildings, such as transformers, isolators, consumers, etc. Nowadays, 28 years post-GM-H, I have no access to my eventual creation, which still exists in the GM archives under its original number 9942800 (the only one I remember from those days nearly 40 years ago), so I try to present some 5% of its shape as I remember it: 

Obviously, this little scheme was but a beginning. Slowly, the internal arrangements of electrical parts were being added, their electrical properties, thickness of interconnecting cables, designations of various contact points – and all of that was coming from my head.

At the time we had a bit of a fun as well. The cars’ top model was called WB Statesman. As a design draftsman I had the opportunity (and the duty!) to design wiring and other components according to my best judgment; the results were subject to approval by the electrical engineer and his superior, of course.

       Eventually a first prototype was ready for presentation to the top GM brass. In the workshop the local Managing Director (a Mr. Gibbs) and his counterpart from the US were sitting in the cabin, turning all the switches on and off, when between the two of them a red-hot smoking wire dropped from the roof and mini-exploded in a shower of sparks. The two gentlemen jumped out of the car, experimental workshop began to fill with acrid fumes, mechanics were running around with fire extinguishers - well, we, onlookers, had lots of fun that day.

What exactly happened? Wire, running along the roof lining and feeding the roof lamp was thick enough to serve one roof globe, as in the previous car. The Statesman, on the other hand, had three globes in the roof, and an additional couple of globes for the rear passengers. Since the two bosses turned all the roof lights on at the same time, the thin wire became overloaded, turned red hot and melted at the most inopportune moment. The fuse, from which the wire was fed, happened to be too large as well.

Subsequently there ensued panic in the electrical engineering section. It transpired that several hundred of these Statesmen were manufactured and distributed to dealers all over the country. The fix, consisting of replacing the thin wire with a thicker one, was not complicated; removing and replacing roof lining was a vastly more complicated, and costly, affair. At the time I did not know about the panic, I was not privy to such delicate information.

       It all ended well, though. Wiring in the offending vehicle was the only one that was “cobbled up” from the wiring of the previous model by the electrical engineer. Once the manufacturing drawings were consulted it transpired that the offending wire was of the correct – larger – thickness, and, therefore, all the several hundred vehicles released to dealers all over the country, were safe. And who changed the thickness of that wire? Charles Hatvani! Why did I not inform anybody? Maybe I did, maybe I didn't, but the manufacturing drawings were approved and signed off by both the electrical engineer and his superior. My calculations, under which I changed thickness of that wire, saved the company fairly sizeable sum of money, reputation notwithstanding. I was summoned on the carpet before the Chief Electrical Engineer, a tough-as-a nut old German, and told off for acting as an "maverick" , instead of receiving a word of thanks. Those were the ways of GM of old. “Were” – perhaps they are different these days (of which, knowing the overall GM culture, I have some doubts)…