Massena Castings Plant (also known as the Central Foundry Division) was a

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...

casting Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a ''casting'', which is ejected ...

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

located in

Massena, New York Massena is a town in St. Lawrence County, New York, United States. Massena is along the county's northern border, just south of the St. Lawrence River and the Three Nations Crossing of the Canada–United States border. The population was 12,8 ...

. The plant utilized the

die casting Die casting is a metal casting process that is characterized by forcing molten metal under high pressure into a mold cavity. The mold cavity is created using two hardened tool steel dies which have been machined into shape and work similarly t ...

and

lost-foam casting Lost-foam casting (LFC) is a type of evaporative-pattern casting process that is similar to investment casting except foam is used for the pattern instead of wax. This process takes advantage of the low boiling point of polymer foams to simplify ...

processes, operating from 1959 to May 2009. It was originally built to cast

engine block In an internal combustion engine, the engine block is the structure which contains the cylinders and other components. In an early automotive engine, the engine block consisted of just the cylinder block, to which a separate crankcase was atta ...

s and

cylinder head In an internal combustion engine, the cylinder head (often abbreviated to simply "head") sits above the cylinders and forms the roof of the combustion chamber. In sidevalve engines, the head is a simple sheet of metal; whereas in more modern ov ...

s for the

Chevrolet Turbo-Air 6 engine The Chevrolet Turbo-Air 6 is a flat-six air-cooled automobile engine developed by General Motors (GM) in the late 1950s for use in the rear-engined Chevrolet Corvair of the 1960s. It was used in the entire Corvair line, as well as a wide variety ...

used in the

Chevrolet Corvair The Chevrolet Corvair is a compact car manufactured by Chevrolet for model years 1960–1969 in two generations. A response to the Volkswagen Beetle, it remains the only American-designed, mass-produced passenger car with a rear-mounted, air- ...

from 1960 until 1969. Aluminum parts included the block, heads,

flywheel A flywheel is a mechanical device which uses the conservation of angular momentum to store rotational energy; a form of kinetic energy proportional to the product of its moment of inertia and the square of its rotational speed. In particular, ass ...

housing,

crankcase In a piston engine, the crankcase is the housing that surrounds the crankshaft. In most modern engines, the crankcase is integrated into the engine block. Two-stroke engines typically use a crankcase-compression design, resulting in the fuel/a ...

cover,

clutch A clutch is a mechanical device that engages and disengages power transmission, especially from a drive shaft to a driven shaft. In the simplest application, clutches connect and disconnect two rotating shafts (drive shafts or line shafts). ...

housing, and

piston A piston is a component of reciprocating engines, reciprocating pumps, gas compressors, hydraulic cylinders and pneumatic cylinders, among other similar mechanisms. It is the moving component that is contained by a cylinder and is made gas-tig ...

s. of aluminum was used in each engine.

Overview

New casting and machining techniques had to be developed to produce the light-alloy parts. The aluminum parts were cast with a low-pressure casting technique using machines built and installed by Karl Schmidt GmbH of Neckarsulm, Germany. All of the engines were assembled at GM's

Tonawanda Engine Tonawanda Engine is a General Motors engine factory in Buffalo, New York. The plant consists of three facilities totaling and sits upon . The factory receives cast engine blocks from Defiance Foundry in Defiance, Ohio and Saginaw Metal Casting Op ...

plant. It was represented by UAW Local 465, Massena, NY. It contributed to the casting needs provided by

Saginaw Metal Casting Operations Saginaw Metal Casting Operations is an automobile engine foundry plant in Saginaw, Michigan. Opened under GM management in 1919, the factory produces engine blocks and cylinder heads for General Motors vehicles. The factory currently occupies 1.9 ...

and Defiance Foundry. After the Corvair was cancelled the factory switched to casting the engine block and cylinder heads for the

Chevrolet 2300 engine The 2300 is a inline-four engine produced by the Chevrolet division of General Motors for the 1971 to 1977 model years of the Chevrolet Vega and Chevrolet Monza. It featured a die-cast aluminum alloy cylinder block. The high-tech block features ...

used in the

Chevrolet Vega The Chevrolet Vega is a Subcompact car, subcompact automobile that was manufactured and marketed by General Motors, GM's Chevrolet subdivision from 1970 to 1977. Available in two-door hatchback, notchback, station wagon, wagon, and sedan deliver ...

GM H platform The H Platform, or H-body, name has been used twice by General Motors. The 1970s H-body was an inexpensive rear-wheel drive compact automobile platform from the 1970s, used for the Chevrolet Vega and Monza and their Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac ...

, the

Iron Duke engine The Iron Duke engine (also called 151, 2500, Pontiac 2.5, and Tech IV) is a Straight-4 piston engine built by the Pontiac Motor Division of General Motors from 1977 to 1993. Thereafter GM's 2.2 L OHV 4-cylinder replaced it across the enti ...

used in both the

GM N platform The General Motors N platform (commonly called the N-body or N car) was a front-wheel drive compact automotive platform produced from 1984 to 2005. The GM N platform was based on the GM J-Body and replaced the GM X platform. First generation Th ...

and

GM L platform The General Motors L platform (commonly called the L-body or L car) was a front-wheel drive compact car automotive platform that was produced from 1987 through 1996. The L platform was very similar to the GM N platform however the 1st generatio ...

, and the

General Motors 122 engine The 122 engine was designed by Chevrolet and was used in a wide array of General Motors vehicles. The ''122'' was similar to the first two generations of the General Motors 60° V6 engine; sharing cylinder bore diameters and some parts . The ''12 ...

for the GM J-body cars. The facility was in close proximity to the

Alcoa Alcoa Corporation (an acronym for Aluminum Company of America) is a Pittsburgh-based industrial corporation. It is the world's eighth-largest producer of aluminum. Alcoa conducts operations in 10 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primary ...

factory and was next to a border entry point between the United States and Canada. The locations boundaries were the

St. Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connecting ...

to the north, the

St. Regis Mohawk Reservation St. Regis Mohawk Reservation is a Mohawk Indian reservation of the federally recognized tribe the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, located in Franklin County, New York, United States. It is also known by its Mohawk name, Akwesasne. The population was ...

to the east, the

Raquette River The Raquette River ( moh, Ahná:wate), sometimes spelled Racquette, originates at Raquette Lake in the Adirondack Mountains in New York. long, it is the third longest river entirely in the state of New York. The river is a popular destination ...

to the south and property owned by Alcoa and CSX to the west. The address is 56 Chevrolet Rd, Rooseveltown, NY 13683. The factory was closed despite efforts to renegotiate a labor contract.

References

General Motors factories Former motor vehicle assembly plants Motor vehicle assembly plants in New York (state) Buildings and structures in Franklin County, New York {{Auto-factory-stub