General Motors in Detroit 1960's

[starfire man]

Any information on General Motors on about 1960 to 1962 .My question is did General Motors make factory mufflers for the 1961 and 1962 Oldsmobile Starfire . I have searched for over 50 years .

[13606Cedargrove]

I recommend you consult suppliers advertising in Hemmings Motor News and Hemmings Classic Cars.

[Burnsie]

Oldsmobile *probably* didn't make its own mufflers. It *might* have bought them from Chevrolet, which for decades built them at its Flint Manufacturing Division- Pressed Metal Div. Aside from this operation [[in later years run by Fisher Guide and AC Rochester) I don't know where else at GM that might have made mufflers.

A major muffler supplier at this time was Walker Manufacturing Co. of Racine, WI. It had plants in Racine, Aberdeen MS, Jackson MI, Harrisonburg VA, Lake Mills IA, and Galt, Ontario. These all built mufflers except for the Iowa plant. The Jackson factory was the largest OEM muffler supplier plant in the US. Walker is now the Walker Exhaust Systems division of Tenneco. Maybe you should contact them to see if they still have records of whether they built for your Oldsmobile model in your time period. I doubt they would know, but who knows.

Another muffler builder in your timeframe was Nelson Muffler Co. of Black River Falls, WI.

[starfire man]

Thanks for the information . I did contact Walker and GM some years ago they said they have no records I even gave the part numbers 584895 and 585182 . GM 's replacements were Arvin with the same st

[shovelhead]

Oldberg Mfg. was at one time a supplier to Pontiac Motor Division in the 60's and 70's. Not all but some mufflers and resonators, varied by car line and options.

GM generally would not give out supplier information to dealerships or to consumers unless it was necessary for identification of a part with a design change. The would cite "Contractural agreements" as the reason for this.

Also, once a part was discontinued generally all information regarding it from supplier, fitment, specifications and pricing from GM to the dealer and MSRP would be purged from the system accessible to customer service, technical assistance and the dealer base. There were exceptions to this but they were few and far between.

GM does have approved restoration parts available through select vendors, parts manufactured to original factory specifications, generally higher volume decorative parts but there are exceptions to this too.

Retired GM dealer partsman of 47 years speaking here.

[starfire man]

Thank you for all the information For some reason the factory mufflers did not last 2 years or about 11,000 miles GM changed the part number and Arvin became the replacement