AUTO INDUSTRY : Walkout Closes 2 More GM Factories : Cars: Missouri and Michigan assembly plants run out of parts from the struck Lordstown, Ohio, stamping facility.

Two more General Motors Corp. assembly plants shut down Tuesday because of a strike-caused shortage of automobile parts that has idled more than 30,000 GM workers nationwide.

Financial analysts said the No. 1 auto maker could lose $50 million a week if the 6-day-old United Auto Workers strike at the Lordstown, Ohio, metal stamping plant continues.

GM said production stopped Tuesday at its Wentzville, Mo., and Flint, Mich., assembly plants, which produce the company’s best-selling large cars, the Buick LeSabre and Park Avenue, the Pontiac Bonneville and the Oldsmobile 88. A total of 8,400 workers at the two plants were idled.

About 2,300 workers walked off the job last Thursday at Lordstown, citing lack of progress in a dispute over job security, the shift of work to outside suppliers and health and safety issues.

John Fredrick, vice president of UAW Local 1714 at Lordstown, described the talks as “intense” for the second day Tuesday and expected them to go into the night.

Both the Wentzville and Flint plants receive only one part from the Lordstown metal stamping plant, a housing for the cars’ rear shock absorbers.

Previously GM had halted work at its Saturn plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., and assembly plants in Lake Orion, Mich., Baltimore and Lordstown.

The strike threatened to shut five more plants. If production at GM’s Oklahoma City mid-size car plant is interrupted, GM’s lost profits could reach $60 million, said Stephen Girsky, an analyst at Paine Webber Inc.

“They only make money when they move cars,” he said.

The strike also threatened GM’s high-volume compact car plants in Wilmington, Del., which produces the Chevrolet Corsica and Beretta, and in Lansing, Mich., which builds the Pontiac Grand Am, Oldsmobile Achieva and Buick Skylark.

If the strike interrupts production for much more than a week, GM will be unlikely to make up that lost volume before the end of the third quarter, analysts said.

Other analysts noted that GM has plenty of capacity to make up lost production in the fourth quarter. “All you’re doing is shifting earnings from one quarter to another quarter,” said Dean Witter analyst Ronald Glantz.

But the strike could cause GM to lose customers in the short term to competitors that have more cars available, especially Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp., analysts said.

Ford would likely benefit from a reduction in GM small-car availability, while Chrysler’s launch of its larger LH sedans this fall could be aided by a short supply of GM’s large cars.

Investors may be willing to look past the strike, especially if GM maintains a tough stance and sticks to its original plans to close a tool and die shop in Lordstown and shift more work to outside suppliers, the analysts said.

That would boost faith in GM’s commitment to cutting costs. GM shares ended down 25 cents at $34.375 on the New York Stock Exchange.