I know exactly what you mean Fitzy. "Know honey, its actually in pretty good condition. I'll have it running by this weekend" I told her. lol. I did to. Gas can strapped to the hood, a new regulator and I limped it from the back yard where the tow truck dropped it to the front and up the drive. Called the wife out so she could "hear it run". The next day started taring it down lol. I bought it with intentions of getting it running and driving it as is. Almost 3 years later here we are lol.

You know, I've spent a LOT of time researching parts for that GP. I'm gonna end up old & crusty and a source of all things Pontiac. It wasn't supposed to end like this: all I wanted was something to tinker with in my 'spare time,' you know, the time I USED TO HAVE that was spare!

I'm gonna be as painful as a reformed smoker-Pontiac this and Pontiac that, blah blah blah...

Mind you, it has been immensely interesting and being a long time car tragic, it's not going away.

13 hours ago, Fitzy said:

You know, I've spent a LOT of time researching parts for that GP. I'm gonna end up old & crusty and a source of all things Pontiac. It wasn't supposed to end like this: all I wanted was something to tinker with in my 'spare time,' you know, the time I USED TO HAVE that was spare!

I'm gonna be as painful as a reformed smoker-Pontiac this and Pontiac that, blah blah blah...

Mind you, it has been immensely interesting and being a long time car tragic, it's not going away.

Your forgot one thing....the spare money you USE to have too.

Cars are insidous that way., but by gawd we love 'em.

Edited August 7, 20205 yr by Frosty

Goodness me, the MONEY. You've all heard me whining about money for months now. No more whining coz no more money! That's okay, I never had kids, am not married, own everything I have, make my own beer, have travelled extensively, so what else am I gonna do with money? I'm going to enjoy it, and if that means lavishing it on 2 tonnes of chrome & Detroit iron, then let's go!

I loved Wrongway's little ditty about his new project. He told his (obviously long suffering) wife that it was in 'pretty good condition' and he'd have it running by the weekend and then limped it from the backyard to the driveway. That is SO classic and I'm sure we can ALL relate to it. There must be an entire sub culture of suffering wives who quietly put up with hubby and his 'other love.' I guess as long as he's in the garage working on his baby, he's not out with his boozy friends getting toasted in some sleazy bar. He can always have a drink in his sleazy garage!

I have been known to have restored a piece of chrome trim by polishing it for ages, and then running over to her like a 10 year old and showing her how good it looks - upon reflection I believe this to be a confirmation reflex that lets her know that the car is worth all the time & money I'm spending on it. How sad.

Since I’m married, I agree with your rationale Fitzy. I also justify my toys against the gobs of money my wife spends on her hobby, scrapbooking! We are talking about a seemingly endless parade of Amazon, Creative Memories, and other boxes to supply scrapbook albums, custom paper, page protectors, tape, dies, stamps, ink, scissors, ribbon, card, card stock, blah, blah, blah. 

Lets just say I get one box for about every 10-50 she gets. Mind you, she has slowed down since we had a basement flood a little while ago. We are still trying to line up contractors to fix things. We had to clear out her scrapbook room in the flood. We ended up renting three 10’ x 10’ storage units to house most of it. Paper is heavy!

6 minutes ago, Frosty said:

Since I’m married, I agree with your rationale Fitzy. I also justify my toys against the gobs of money my wife spends on her hobby, scrapbooking! We are talking about a seemingly endless parade of Amazon, Creative Memories, and other boxes to supply scrapbook albums, custom paper, page protectors, tape, dies, stamps, ink, scissors, ribbon, card, card stock, blah, blah, blah. 

Lets just say I get one box for about every 10-50 she gets. Mind you, she has slowed down since we had a basement flood a little while ago. We are still trying to line up contractors to fix things. We had to clear out her scrapbook room in the flood. We ended up renting three 10’ x 10’ storage units to house most of it. Paper is heavy!

My wife could easily top that.  Whole room, floor to ceiling.  NOT the craft room....it's the CRAP room.

What do you think I emptied? The storage units are literally full of furniture and boxes of...stuff.

I have to have 5 different shades of white paper............ Yea right.

5 hours ago, Frosty said:

Since I’m married, I agree with your rationale Fitzy. I also justify my toys against the gobs of money my wife spends on her hobby, scrapbooking! We are talking about a seemingly endless parade of Amazon, Creative Memories, and other boxes to supply scrapbook albums, custom paper, page protectors, tape, dies, stamps, ink, scissors, ribbon, card, card stock, blah, blah, blah. 

Lets just say I get one box for about every 10-50 she gets. Mind you, she has slowed down since we had a basement flood a little while ago. We are still trying to line up contractors to fix things. We had to clear out her scrapbook room in the flood. We ended up renting three 10’ x 10’ storage units to house most of it. Paper is heavy!

Ok, I have seen everything you guys are saying with the guys I know! And I’ve said this before! Man I am one lucky bastard! 48 years of marriage and I can honestly say she has never done any of that! Me on the other hand, not so much so! She hates, I mean hates clutter and dirt! She saves very little that’s not going to be used. She makes a home that anyone could walk into anytime and never find it but perfect, not bragging, this is her not me!

True story! 20 years ago she see’s an add for one room free carpet cleaning. She tells me about it and I say if you want to call them go head. The day they are supposed to come at 1:00, I come home from work at 4:00. I pull in the drive there’s a car, not a van, in the driveway! This can’t be good! I walk in, it’s two guys from Kirby vacuum! They’re trying to sell my wife a Kirby, and of course it can shampoo carpet! Now I’m sorry but you can’t sell my wife anything, she is the ultimate skeptic! She is as sweet as they come, but anything but gullible! They’ve been there an hour, obviously late! Now they’re going to demonstrate how dirty the carpet is! This was hilarious! Where the bag would go he puts a white filter cloth and starts to vacuum! He stops takes the filter cloth off! No change, no dirty, no nothing! Now he goes to the couch, same thing! He turns to me and says, you are a very lucky man! At which I said, I know!

So when she complains to me from time to time, but honestly not very often, I just think, I’m a lucky man! And try to be a little less me the car guy!

Edited August 8, 20205 yr by Last Indian

6 hours ago, Last Indian said:

Ok, I have seen everything you guys are saying with the guys I know! And I’ve said this before! Man I am one lucky bastard! 48 years of marriage and I can honestly say she has never done any of that! Me on the other hand, not so much so! She hates, I mean hates clutter and dirt! She saves very little that’s not going to be used. She makes a home that anyone could walk into anytime and never find it but perfect, not bragging, this is her not me!

True story! 20 years ago she see’s an add for one room free carpet cleaning. She tells me about it and I say if you want to call them go head. The day they are supposed to come at 1:00, I come home from work at 4:00. I pull in the drive there’s a car, not a van, in the driveway! This can’t be good! I walk in, it’s two guys from Kirby vacuum! They’re trying to sell my wife a Kirby, and of course it can shampoo carpet! Now I’m sorry but you can’t sell my wife anything, she is the ultimate skeptic! She is as sweet as they come, but anything but gullible! They’ve been there an hour, obviously late! Now they’re going to demonstrate how dirty the carpet is! This was hilarious! Where the bag would go he puts a white filter cloth and starts to vacuum! He stops takes the filter cloth off! No change, no dirty, no nothing! Now he goes to the couch, same thing! He turns to me and says, you are a very lucky man! At which I said, I know!

So when she complains to me from time to time, but honestly not very often, I just think, I’m a lucky man! And try to be a little less me the car guy!

Last indian, you my friend have a 1 in a million lady mate 👍

My wife is just like JustA wife 😄 Hahaha, and i dont mind that one bit 

57 minutes ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

My wife is just like JustA wife 😄 Hahaha, and i dont mind that one bit 

Not a thing wrong with that mate!  All of them are one in a million if you love them! I was JustA saying I can’t complain and I’m lucky for that! She’s kind of use to it because of her dad! He was a famous WWII pilot and post war, race pilot! So she use to get dragged around to racing events and fly-ins and such. So the only think is she really has no desire for car shows or such, but that’s ok as I was never big on car shows either.

1 hour ago, Last Indian said:

Not a thing wrong with that mate!  All of them are one in a million if you love them! I was JustA saying I can’t complain and I’m lucky for that! She’s kind of use to it because of her dad! He was a famous WWII pilot and post war, race pilot! So she use to get dragged around to racing events and fly-ins and such. So the only think is she really has no desire for car shows or such, but that’s ok as I was never big on car shows either.

Yes under stand about the car show seen, i used to be a judge.

am over that part of life 👍

Goodness me, what a response. 

Frosty's storage sheds full of, what was it, scrapbooking??? THREE sheds? And Last Indian's Kirby vac story - hilarious!

I'll add that my missus also keeps our hillbilly shed absolutely spotless, despite me trudging detritus through the ahem, living room en route to the Pontiac room. It's not all one way though - I defend the place by keeping the bears & wolves at bay, so I'm worth having around, right? I said RIGHT, honey?

I keep waiting for Ringo to intervene and make us stay on topic, which was apparently my GP. I'll post something once I get home and actually physically see the car again - it's been a while now. Actually, here's a new topic. I want to somehow lock the external hood latch lever as some attempt to stop someone hot wiring the car. If anyone has successfully and neatly done such a thing, let me know, will you?

14 hours ago, Fitzy said:

I keep waiting for Ringo to intervene and make us stay on topic, which was apparently my GP.

Topic? What’s that?

22 hours ago, Fitzy said:

Goodness me, what a response. 

Frosty's storage sheds full of, what was it, scrapbooking??? THREE sheds? And Last Indian's Kirby vac story - hilarious!

I'll add that my missus also keeps our hillbilly shed absolutely spotless, despite me trudging detritus through the ahem, living room en route to the Pontiac room. It's not all one way though - I defend the place by keeping the bears & wolves at bay, so I'm worth having around, right? I said RIGHT, honey?

I keep waiting for Ringo to intervene and make us stay on topic, which was apparently my GP. I'll post something once I get home and actually physically see the car again - it's been a while now. Actually, here's a new topic. I want to somehow lock the external hood latch lever as some attempt to stop someone hot wiring the car. If anyone has successfully and neatly done such a thing, let me know, will you?

Well, that becomes a little difficult as basically on the old cars you can lay on your back reach up and pop the hood! No latch lever required! 
That said there are a couple things you can do! First take the coil wire going to the distributor run it into the cabin of the car. Take it to like the glove box! When I did mine on my Camaros I actually built a hidden compartment that you accessed through the glove box. I ran the wire to a toggle switch in the hidden compartment. The other side of the switch I ran back to the distributor. With the switch off even if they try to hot wire it won’t work. The other, but I don’t know if your Grand Prix has a nutral safety switch? But if it does you break one side of the switch and run it to a momentary switch! Without the momentary engaged while starting the car, it won’t start.

Edited August 10, 20205 yr by Last Indian

Thanks Last Indian - nice simple elegant solutions. I shall dive into my engine bay with wire & pliers and see what irreversible damage I can do.

Wanna hear something funny? I thought "wow, I'm having a great time on Forever Pontiac, let's try an additional forum." So, I joined another and it was so benign and vanilla, much like sitting in a doctor's waiting room. I have since given up and shall stick with the gaggle of online like minded chaps here. I have transgressed and beg forgiveness, never to stray again.

 

Edited August 10, 20205 yr by Fitzy
Better prose

2 hours ago, Fitzy said:

Wanna hear something funny? I thought "wow, I'm having a great time on Forever Pontiac, let's try an additional forum." So, I joined another and it was so benign and vanilla, much like sitting in a doctor's waiting room. I have since given up and shall stick with the gaggle of online like minded chaps here. I have transgressed and beg forgiveness, never to stray again.

 

* We're

 

Don't stray again and all will be fine    

38 minutes ago, Ringo64 said:

* We're

 

Don't stray again and all will be fine    

Ohhhhh....you've been scolded !

Yeah, Ringo did a good thing here. The people on here are so helpful and respectful. This really is a great place to call home. Its the 1st forum I've EVER joined (and still the only). I did look at a few others a few years back while working on a friends K1500. They lack respect, and just talk s%^t to people for the simplest questions. Example, this guy was asking about the firing order of a 350. Pretty basic question unless your totally new to cars. One guy answered that it was written on the manifold and something to the affect of if you cant read numbers he shouldn't be working on cars (don't remember exact wording). Then they went on for the next 2 pages cracking jokes and talking trash. I seen that on multiple forums. I looked at this forum, read all kinds of things before I joined. Seriously spent a good month reading questions and reply's before joining. Y'all on here are a totally different breed. I'm proud to tell people I belong to Forever Pontiacs. Of course I'm the guy that HATES social media and has never had a Facebook or any of that so nobody believes me lol.

It's nice to be back home with pockets full of overtime pesos, and there they go! Goodbye heard earned pesos. So, I keep ordering stuff. My front end rebuild kit turned up, the CORRECT springs are apparently coming, my steering box is coming, all my crap from Ames is...gathering at their warehouse. I bought a spring compressor and ball joint remover - stay posted for gruesome injuries. I had my headlining bows welded so they are now the correct lengths. I POR15'd the floor and the windscreen surrounds, I prepared inside the front cowl for POR15, I painted my air cleaner tough looking matt black, 389 decal is coming to finish it off. Next time I'm home I'll POR15 the trunk weatherstrip channel,  front cowl and battery tray. I repaired the fuel tank, POR15'd the top and bought some heavy duty rubber strips to ensure it never rusts again. I got a POR15 tank sealer kit. That damn car is NEVER gonna rust again! I found the correct pitman arm for fullsize GM manual steering Saginaw 525 box and have added the photo as a reference for anyone else lunatic enough to follow in my steps. Goodness me, THAT took weeks of research.

A question: 14 x 6 Rallye 1 steel rims. Nobody wants them, except me. If anyone has a set of 4 that run true and have bolt holes in good condition, perhaps we can do a deal. Their cosmetic condition is unimportant as I can resurrect them.

Great info Fitzzy.Thanks mate!

Glad to see you making progress.

Alot of work N cash, but sooo worth it!   Keep on wrenchin............

Love POR15. Great stuff bro. Thanks for the update.