I'm not giving up my mini starter! i may have a heat shield you can have.

33 minutes ago, Wrongway said:

Yumminess ol'buddy.

No way !!!!!!😜

On 5/19/2025 at 6:51 PM, indymanjoe said:

I'm not giving up my mini starter!

Chill Joe! I won't be an Indian GIver and ask for the damn thing back. Sheesh!

Edited May 21, 20251 yr by Frosty

3 hours ago, Frosty said:

Chill Joe! I won't be an Indian GIver and ask for the damn thing back. Sheesh!

Recon Joe is getting in frosty head ! 

I must be an Indian giver as i have given out a lot of parts through the years LOL

6 hours ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

Recon Joe is getting in frosty head ! 

AKA...brain freeze?

6 hours ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

Recon Joe is getting in frosty head ! 

7 minutes ago, indymanjoe said:

I must be an Indian giver as i have given out a lot of parts through the years LOL

3 minutes ago, JUSTA6 said:

AKA...brain freeze?

This post ^^^^^ reminds me i need to clean the rear bumper for someone. 

I spent most of the afternoon cleaning and detailing Lucy. Power Tour starts next week and ends on Friday, June 13th, in Norwalk Ohio. The Widetrackers Dust Off is the following day, on Saturday June 14th, at Golling Buick-GMC in Lake Orion, Michigan  I will have no time to clean and detail the car if I don't do it now.

I did the wheels, tires, rear chrome bumper, the stainless trim. I cleaned up under the hood. I vacuumed and applied interior cleaner to the seats, doors, dash and console. I wiped RainX on Lucy and Violet's windshields. I covered the car up to keep the dust off of it while I am gone.

Edited June 2, 20251 yr by Frosty

After the Dust Off, I got Lucy home with no issues. However, I did notice the power steering squealing more than usual. On Sunday, I wiped Lucy down. I check the power steering fluid. It was way down, I overfilled it (like a dummy). I have to suck fluid out because it was so over full. I need some oil too. I checked the brake fluid, it's good. I still need to double check the transmission fluid.

Next thing for her is cleaning up the wiring under the dash with zip ties and washing and clay barring her and Violet.

I finished the cleaning up of the wiring today - in the heat.

A buddy has convinced me to go to a car show in nearby Corunna Michigan tomorrow (Sunday). Local Strawberry Festival car show. I am hoping to score some fresh strawberry pie! Yum! Yum!

I just placed a $200+ order for a couple of mountable flag poles for Lucy (and I can use them on the other cars as well). I've wanted to have some sort of mounted flag pole for parade duty. We use to regularly use Lucy in Memorial Day and 4th of July parades near our house. The Memorial Day parade is no more. However we still do the 4th of July, weather permitting.

While on Power Tour, I ran into a man who had flags suction cup mounted on either side of his Buick Roadmaster wagon. He ran the entire Power Tour with them. He runs 70-80 mph in them too. The company is know as Bad Flag .com.

The were running a 4th of July special - $119 gets you two suction cups, a carbon fiber flag pole and a heavy duty flag of your choice. I got 2 such kits with an American flag each and then I ordered a third flag, a POW/MIA flag. I hope to use these in a couple of weeks.

Here is their link if you are interested in something like this.... https://badflag.com/

Those are pretty cool man. Can't wait to see the pics of them on Lucy.

do they stick to rust? askin for a friend.LOL

May have to field test it to answer the question. I suppose I could ask the Michigan Roadkill dude to be my test specimen since I don’t know anyone with a rolling tetanus special.

Michigan Department of State e-Services

TETNUS

taken..

Here is the Badflag.com flag kit. Its suction cups which mounts a carbon fiber flag pole. The flag is held with aluminum clips snugged up with an allen wrench.

Those look awesome Frosty, and look really well made bro.

Lucy got another visit by the hook today at the garage mahal. She is back to misbehaving with another no start-no crank situation. I had her towed back to Flint Ignition, the same place that last year found the burned up wire between the neutral safety switch and the fuse block.

The mechanic/owner of the shop called me within 2 hours. "I think I found your problem....".

I am not a great mechanic but I am pretty sure this solenoid is not suppose to look like that. In fact, this is the same solenoid that I replaced 2 years ago because of a hole in the solenoid that looked like Apollo 13.

Here is the same starter 2 years ago.....

Clearly nothing is protecting the solenoid/starter from the engine heat - either from the underside of the exhaust manifold or the block. I am not sure why, after over 20 years, this first solenoid went bad.

I had purchased a spare replacement starter and solenoid 2 years ago. That new starter was installed along with a DEI starter heat shield wrap and metal zip ties. So hopefully this will be prevent this from happening again. I also hope this will also help my slow crank - hot start issue too. Otherwise I will have to switch to a mini torque starter.

The mechanic theorizes this is happening due to the inferior materials that this Asian knock off replacements are made of. Nothing matches an original AC Delco solenoid for longevity in his opinion. The problem is there aren't any NOS solenoids for these starters anymore, according to him. They practically don't exist. I am going to research AC Delco replacement solenoids and see where they are made.

One last thing....the timing is off. The engine dieseled and pop for a second once I got it back to the garage mahal this evening. I will need to check it tomorrow.

Edited September 20, 2025Sep 20 by Frosty

I always keep a few old AC/Delco Solenoids on hand, I have only had 1 fail in almost 50 years of driving. I would have no problem using a used one over a new Chinese one.

Also when I used to go yarding I found that almost every GM V8 engine from the late 1970's and later had factory heat shield. I may still have a couple laying around if you are interested Frosty

Thanks for the offer Jeff. I may take you up on that offer if this DEI wrap fails me.

Yes frosty , a heat shield is a must !!!

I gave up on replacement gm starters years ago for that very reason

Road runner brand alllllll day for me !!! Think I have 4 now and the oldest is 22 years old and never let me down

https://www.roadrunner-starters.com/

I took Lucy out for a quick trip to my local Saturday cruise in. She started just fine. I still need to check the timing but she ran smooth!

While at the Golling show this weekend, I ran into Bob Thompson. Most everyone in the SE Michigan Pontiac community knows Bob. It was Bob's GTO that was selected many years ago to be the poster car for the Woodward Dream Cruise. He is our local living version of Milt Schornack. Bob is an excellent mechanic.

I was describing my hot start issue with Lucy to him. He told me straight away to replace my battery cables with 1/0 AWG or welding cable copper battery wires. He said the the factory used 6 or 4 gauge wire back in the day but as it gets older, possibly semi-corroded, the wire can't carry the current it needs to while starting under hot conditions and resistance builds up. He also said that the knock off replacement battery cables (especially from Asia) use less copper and thicker rubber coating. So you are not necessarily getting true 4 or 6 gauge wire either. So now I am looking for some place to source 1/0 cables.

Edited September 29, 2025Sep 29 by Frosty

yip very good investment Frosty !!