Because Roadkill, -or- I bought an old ugly domestic car
- Thread starter TurboMinivan
- Start date
RogueJeepr
Here!
- Location
- Utah
"The smack talk has begun"
[emoji1]
I love it .
We should do a RME day at the midnight drags (RMR) this summer.
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[emoji1]
I love it .
We should do a RME day at the midnight drags (RMR) this summer.
Sent from my H1611 using Tapatalk
- Location
- Bountiful, land of rocks
I'm in with the G8
(just for the record, I'd build this Gran Prix----I've thought of this build for YEARS...Cutlass Supreme with an Olds 455, Buick Regal with a Buick 455 or an '83-88 Gran Prix with a Poncho 455---FAT tires on all the corners and low like the front of Dempsey's
LOVE this build)
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NYCEGUY01
Well-Known Member
- Location
- Willard, UT
smartass_kid
Well-Known Member
- Location
- Cottonwood Heights, UT
- Location
- Bountiful, land of rocks
you're kind of a douche
LEAVE the paint on that beast
, probably fix up the interior a little, put a rear axle that's worth something in there, find a '70 Pontiac boat for a powertrain donor and start working 
TurboMinivan
Still plays with cars
- Location
- Lehi, UT
Sounds like a great idea!
That car has been on and off KSL for probably six months now. They have lowered their price accordingly. Now that they'll clearly take less than a grand for it, I'd say it's a pretty good deal (though I haven't seen in the car in person).
In other news, yesterday I removed the left header to address the exhaust leak. At the same time, I pulled the trans pan to repair its leaking gasket. I took both pieces to work, and put the pan in the parts washer. While it was being cleaned, I grabbed another salesman (who was formerly a tech) to look at the header with me. Using our dealership straightedge tool, we analyzed the situation and brainstormed a solution. We used the hydraulic press to tweak the flange in a couple spots, then we used a large hammer for some 'finishing' work. After all that it still wasn't perfect, but Dave was quite confident it would seal properly.
So I grabbed the now-clean pan and the header and went back home to reinstall them. I refilled the transmission and started the engine. Lo and behold, the driver's bank is now silent! Well, it's as silent as a big block is gonna get, anyway.
As a test drive, I took it and went back to work so I could dump some fluids into our recycling containers. Now that the annoying exhaust tick is gone, I feel the car is much less embarrassing to drive in public. It does get attention at stop lights. While in gear and holding the car completely still with the brakes, the engine drops to 500-550 rpm. Combined with the fact that (at least one) transmission bell housing ear contacts the body makes the entire car quiver noticeably at red lights. I gave my co-worker Dave a quick ride, and when I stopped at a light he said, "I think it's angry we're not moving."
This thing is gonna be a lot of fun.
RogueJeepr
Here!
- Location
- Utah
At cruisenights people have been telling me about a
"All Pontiac carshow" .
I'd like to go to this.
I haven't found any info for this year's event , other than I heard it's at Wheeler Farms in Murray.
Maybe someone that does Facebook can find some info.
Im holding off some projects on my 32 till then, so I can make it. Hope y'all can too.
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"All Pontiac carshow" .
I'd like to go to this.
I haven't found any info for this year's event , other than I heard it's at Wheeler Farms in Murray.
Maybe someone that does Facebook can find some info.
Im holding off some projects on my 32 till then, so I can make it. Hope y'all can too.
Sent from my H1611 using Tapatalk
RogueJeepr
Here!
- Location
- Utah
Trying a few contacts I made at carshows, I was able to get in touch with the president of the Pontiac owners club of Utah and he will let me know any info on this year's event as soon as it's set in stone.
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Sent from my H1611 using Tapatalk
- Location
- Bountiful, land of rocks
Hmmm, have Indian, will travel (I've put 10k on that poor car since July)
TurboMinivan
Still plays with cars
- Location
- Lehi, UT
Last night, a co-worker and I dug into my front suspension to install my new springs and shocks. He had recently done a spring swap on his '84 Camaro, so we both figured the process would be the same. It was similar, but we did need to adopt a couple different procedures to make it work.
We put the car on a lift, disconnected the sway bar, and unbolted the bottom of both shocks. We placed a transmission jack under each inner ends of the driver side lower control arm, then removed those two bolts. Now we slowly lifted the entire car, allowing the control arm to slowly drop down from the inside until the spring was loose. The new spring was put into position, then we gently lowered the car and fiddled with the jacks until the arm ends went back into place. We reinserted both bolts and got the nuts started. Not bad, we both thought.
I paused to take a photo of one old spring next to one new one. I expected the new ones to be shorter (unloaded) than the old ones, so I was quite surprised to see this:
The passenger side would not be so easy. The biggest problem was that one header tube runs right below the arm mounts, ie directly in the path we wanted the control arm's rear end to take. Instead of just letting the arm ends drop straight down, this time we'd have to get them to move outward at the same time... and, if we were lucky, the spring wouldn't fly out and kill us in the process.
We got the old spring out, put the new one in place, and started to move the arm ends back into place. This is where things got difficult, as this arm fought us every inch of the way. We would stop, analyze the situation, lower it back down, adjust the jacks, and try again. We must have done this six or eight times, always with it stubbornly refusing to go where we wanted. Dallin came up with an idea of just trying to get the front arm partially into position--just enough to get its bolt through the forward-most hole. We managed to pull that off, which at least made us feel less unsafe since there was now another anchor point holding the compressed spring in place. Now we could focus on just getting the rear arm mount high enough to be in the correct plane, though it was way too far outside its frame mount. That's when my co-worker Dave passed through to see what we we up to. "If you guys had a ratchet strap, you could pull that outer arm end rearward and it would go right into place." I went rummaging through the shop, found a ratchet strap, and followed his suggestion. Like magic, it went perfectly into place. Wow! At last, we were able to properly insert both bolts on this side.
By now it was past the time when Dallin had promised his wife he would be home. Oops. We quickly reattached the sway bar and torqued all the control arm nuts. He thought we could quickly swap the shocks and be done with the entire operation, but of course the 37-year-old upper nuts were pretty much rusted in place and didn't want to budge. Dave came back out and suggested we grind off the top. We started to do that on the driver side... it was taking forever... and we ultimately had to break it off after the grinder had cut it halfway through. I told Dallin not to worry about it any more tonight; I would just park the car outside and have Dave take me home. So that was it.
This morning, I was able to get a photo in the light:
I only moved the car about 100 feet, so I'm sure the springs will settle a little. Even still, I am thrilled to have the nose up at stock height. There is still a slight bit of rake, which is also fine by me. This turned out about as good as I could have hoped.
Now, to get the shocks installed....
We put the car on a lift, disconnected the sway bar, and unbolted the bottom of both shocks. We placed a transmission jack under each inner ends of the driver side lower control arm, then removed those two bolts. Now we slowly lifted the entire car, allowing the control arm to slowly drop down from the inside until the spring was loose. The new spring was put into position, then we gently lowered the car and fiddled with the jacks until the arm ends went back into place. We reinserted both bolts and got the nuts started. Not bad, we both thought.
I paused to take a photo of one old spring next to one new one. I expected the new ones to be shorter (unloaded) than the old ones, so I was quite surprised to see this:
The passenger side would not be so easy. The biggest problem was that one header tube runs right below the arm mounts, ie directly in the path we wanted the control arm's rear end to take. Instead of just letting the arm ends drop straight down, this time we'd have to get them to move outward at the same time... and, if we were lucky, the spring wouldn't fly out and kill us in the process.
We got the old spring out, put the new one in place, and started to move the arm ends back into place. This is where things got difficult, as this arm fought us every inch of the way. We would stop, analyze the situation, lower it back down, adjust the jacks, and try again. We must have done this six or eight times, always with it stubbornly refusing to go where we wanted. Dallin came up with an idea of just trying to get the front arm partially into position--just enough to get its bolt through the forward-most hole. We managed to pull that off, which at least made us feel less unsafe since there was now another anchor point holding the compressed spring in place. Now we could focus on just getting the rear arm mount high enough to be in the correct plane, though it was way too far outside its frame mount. That's when my co-worker Dave passed through to see what we we up to. "If you guys had a ratchet strap, you could pull that outer arm end rearward and it would go right into place." I went rummaging through the shop, found a ratchet strap, and followed his suggestion. Like magic, it went perfectly into place. Wow! At last, we were able to properly insert both bolts on this side.
By now it was past the time when Dallin had promised his wife he would be home. Oops. We quickly reattached the sway bar and torqued all the control arm nuts. He thought we could quickly swap the shocks and be done with the entire operation, but of course the 37-year-old upper nuts were pretty much rusted in place and didn't want to budge. Dave came back out and suggested we grind off the top. We started to do that on the driver side... it was taking forever... and we ultimately had to break it off after the grinder had cut it halfway through. I told Dallin not to worry about it any more tonight; I would just park the car outside and have Dave take me home. So that was it.
This morning, I was able to get a photo in the light:
I only moved the car about 100 feet, so I'm sure the springs will settle a little. Even still, I am thrilled to have the nose up at stock height. There is still a slight bit of rake, which is also fine by me. This turned out about as good as I could have hoped.
Now, to get the shocks installed....
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- Location
- Bountiful, land of rocks
Looks pretty good! You keeping the patina or going to get a Mello Yello NASCAR wrap put on it?
TurboMinivan
Still plays with cars
- Location
- Lehi, UT
I definitely dig the patina. Whenever somebody asks me when I'm going to paint it, my standard answer is, "that's the last thing I would ever do to the car."
- Location
- Bountiful, land of rocks
I dig the gold wheels. You going to have the 8.8 axles redrilled to GM bolt pattern? (is that 5 on 4.75"?)
TJDukit
I.Y.A.A.Y.A.S.
- Location
- Clearfield
TurboMinivan
Still plays with cars
- Location
- Lehi, UT
That is precisely my plan. (And you're correct on the bolt pattern.)
TurboMinivan
Still plays with cars
- Location
- Lehi, UT
I've put close to 300 miles on the new engine by now. Things seem to be working reasonably well. There are still carburetor quirks, of course, and those just make me want to install my EFI sooner rather than later. But I need to shift my focus to Jeep prep for EJS, so I doubt I'll do anything else of significance to the Pontiac until after Easter.
I did record another clip at idle, just so you all know I really did fix my header leak. (I wish my phone would record at louder volume.)
[video=youtube;7pzGpxMyTpU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pzGpxMyTpU[/video]
Driving this thing makes me happy. As I've mentioned, the EZ-TCU provides firm, solid shifts even without telling the computer to go overboard. If I gently roll into a bit of throttle from a standstill, it will reliably bark the tires on the 1-2 upshift. This controller is much more aggressive than the OEM programming in my Suburban.
[video=youtube;2tK_PM3yLPc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tK_PM3yLPc[/video]
Anyway, I'm having fun.
I did record another clip at idle, just so you all know I really did fix my header leak. (I wish my phone would record at louder volume.)
[video=youtube;7pzGpxMyTpU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pzGpxMyTpU[/video]
Driving this thing makes me happy. As I've mentioned, the EZ-TCU provides firm, solid shifts even without telling the computer to go overboard. If I gently roll into a bit of throttle from a standstill, it will reliably bark the tires on the 1-2 upshift. This controller is much more aggressive than the OEM programming in my Suburban.
[video=youtube;2tK_PM3yLPc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tK_PM3yLPc[/video]
Anyway, I'm having fun.
- Location
- Grand Junction, CO
That's awesome, I love a muscle car with a firm shifting auto! Car sounds real good, too.
RogueJeepr
Here!
- Location
- Utah
Rrrrrrrrrmmmm///////Skirt////////
[emoji41]
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[emoji41]
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TurboMinivan
Still plays with cars
- Location
- Lehi, UT
Brain fart! This morning it dawned on me: in last night's post I completely forgot to mention curb weight.
Yesterday while on a casual drive in the GP, I realized I was in the general area of the recycling yard where I weigh my vehicles. The car was relatively empty as far as needless cargo goes, and the gas tank was essentially full, so I decided it would be a good time to find out my "after" weight so I can compare it to when the car was stock. Without further ado:
Stock (all iron 231/3.8L V6, 3spd auto, 7.5" axle, single soda straw exhaust): 3,320 lbs
Modified (454 w/iron heads, 4L80E, Ford 8.8 axle, dual 3" exhaust system): 3,740 lbs
Amazingly, it seems I've picked up enough extra power to overcome the additional 420 pounds of mass.
And speaking of full tanks of fuel, for the first time with the V8 I calculated my mileage when I filled up yesterday morning. That fuel was used nearly 50-50 between city and highway driving; I managed 11.75 mpg.
Yesterday while on a casual drive in the GP, I realized I was in the general area of the recycling yard where I weigh my vehicles. The car was relatively empty as far as needless cargo goes, and the gas tank was essentially full, so I decided it would be a good time to find out my "after" weight so I can compare it to when the car was stock. Without further ado:
Stock (all iron 231/3.8L V6, 3spd auto, 7.5" axle, single soda straw exhaust): 3,320 lbs
Modified (454 w/iron heads, 4L80E, Ford 8.8 axle, dual 3" exhaust system): 3,740 lbs
Amazingly, it seems I've picked up enough extra power to overcome the additional 420 pounds of mass.
And speaking of full tanks of fuel, for the first time with the V8 I calculated my mileage when I filled up yesterday morning. That fuel was used nearly 50-50 between city and highway driving; I managed 11.75 mpg.
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