Even Good Companies Mess Up. Let’s talk General Motors.

Several of my Blogs have focused on Johns-Manville and the historical documents which evidence egregious misconduct in the 1930s and 1940s which even today cost people their lives. That is why historical facts are useful and historical documents which prove those facts bring transparency and the opportunity to understand and learn.

Some of the issues in asbestos, however, arise more from just plain carelessness. For this discussion, I am going to rely on an October 1976 Delco Division of General Motors Manual as discussed below.

When designing and manufacturing a product, a manufacturer typically follows a three step hierarchy when confronted with a potential hazard: (1) eliminate the hazard in the design process, (2) guard against the hazard, or (3) if the first two steps are not practical, then warn and instruct the user against the hazard. Once a manufacturer decides to go the warnings and instructions route, they need to ensure that the warning as provided is effective, consistent, and understandable. In addition, manufacturers do not provide warnings against risks which do not exist as they would detract from other warnings.

So, when General Motors said on the inside cover of the October 1976 Manual not to sand, grind, brush or blow out the brake linings with air because of the potential airborne asbestos dust, General Motors was being right up front on what it believes to be the hazard and how to prevent exposure. Certainly, General Motors didn’t seem to be trying to hide anything. In fact, the front page of the manual has an expansive list of car models to which the manual applied when using Delco parts including:

Vega, Astre, Monza, Sunbird, Starfire, Skyhawk, Open, Maverick, Pinto, Volkswagen, Dasher, Rabbit, Scirocco, Chevette, Capri, Datsun, Toyota, and Colt

As such, you didn’t need to own a General Motors car for this manual to apply.

Let’s show some of the pages.

This warning against grinding, sandy, brushing or using compressed air when working with the asbestos containing brake linings, like all warnings, should be consistent within all applicable section of the manual. It was put there for a purpose: to communicate the hazard and instruct how to avoid it.

Unfortunately, that is the problem. The manual in other sections ignores the inside front page warning and tells the mechanic using the manual to take actions contrary to that warning. You be the judge reading the following pages.

The manual instructs the mechanic to sand the friction material when the lining gets glazed (See Number 6 below).

The manual instructs the mechanic to file high spots on the edges of the friction pads (Section 7, second paragraph).

The manual instructs the mechanic to blow out all dirt from the brake assemblies when replacing brake shoes and linings (Section 6).

As this manual is 45 years old, it is certainly possible that mechanics who are getting asbestos related illnesses today would have been working on those car models and using this manual as a guide.

So, my words of wisdom. If you are an OEM or parts supplier, appoint a person or team responsible to review manuals for this type of internal inconsistency before the product goes to market. The life you save may be … well, you get the picture.

Let me know if you agree or disagree by leaving a comment or emailing me at TheAsbestosBlog@gmail.com.