Well the shop found a bad lifter after getting it back together and fired up this weekend, It is going back together a second time today, hopefully we will make it to the lights and siren Parade on Friday. Fingers crossed!

I hope we see you there Jeff!

Well the Enforcer sprung a fuel leak last night and did not make the show, but as a consolation the shop let use drive their 1990 Caprice in the show and parade, I will upload some pictures later this weekend

That sucks but at least you got some consolation out of it.

A few pictures from my cell phone, The 1st one if of the Catalina, engine back together, running, but leaking fuel back by the tank. Then the Catalina at Chase Restorations with their cruisers and some customers cars.

The 1990 Caprice Cruiser they were nice enough to let me drive. This is before it was dressed up for the show and Parade.

Then the Caprice Dressed up

And finally a bad shot out the windshield while we were lining up for the parade. Had a great time, fingers crossed the The Enforcer will be ready for the show next year!

Thats very cool that you got to use the Caprice Jeff ,it dressed up very nicely

i bet you had fun !!!

Very cool Jeff!!!!

Did you make it out onto Woodward yesterday???

Yes I did make it in the afternoon, but was busy and had to meet my boss for Dinner so I was only there for about an hour with the Mallett Solstice

We need to hook in the near future. Either at the PTM, M1, or somewhere on Woodward. We justa need an excuse.....and good weather.

I am up for it, but I will be out of town for work except for Labor Day weekend until late September

Well I got a call from the Shop and the Enforcer is now considered road worthy, only 1 week late for the Parade. I hope to get to test drive it Labor Day Weekend! Then it will go off for body and paint. Hopefully to be ready for next springs Dust off!

They sent me some short videos of it running around the streets near the shop today, They are impressed by the 455's torque, But there usual police cruisers are from the late 70's or early 80's so the 71 455's torque should feel fantastic even compared to their 77 fury's 440. Is there way to post video's on this site?

Maybe I figured it out

Great to see it moving under its own power. Now hopefully I can drive it next weekend!

Jeff - it’s great to see the Enforcer moving and grooving! You will have you baby back soon enough!

Well good news/bad news on the enforcer. The good news is I got to drive it today and actually run it up to 60mph, The engine feels very strong, the transmission shift well into all 3 fwd gears, the steering is tight, and it tracks straight, and the suspension feels good for a stock 50 year old car. The brakes are about what I remember from a 4000lb 1971 car.

The bad news is that after the shop stripped off the vinyl top we found the rear window channel is pretty rotted out. And found the original hole for the Police Radio was on the filler panel just behind the rear window on the drivers side.

Strangely there is no sign of a hole being on the roof where the rotating beacon was mounted. We were hoping there was a bolt pattern to determine what make and model beacon was mounted. No luck there,

One of the 2 body shops that chase uses for body and paint work came by to look at the car when I was there, and the rust around the rear window concerns him, as there are no patch panels available, and he does not have the tooling to make the complex curves that would be needed to make the piece, he is not ruling it out but he is going to ask his partner if they think they can do it.

It is the same concern I experienced 8 years ago when I tried on my own to get the body and paint done, Not a GM A or F Body, no patch panels available.

So I stopped by the Pontiac Transportation Museum on the way home, Phase 2 looks good. I have not been inside the place for at least 4 years. I will add pictures later as my phones battery is dead at the moment,

show us the panel in question, jeff.

all you really need is justA good metal man , there is no such thing as a hard job when it comes to our pontiacs !

if you cant find it.... make it !

Well here they are, mostly confined to the lip around the lower rear window edge, but some heavy surface rust and pin holing along the entire area below the rear window. I circled the drilled hole (in Red) where the radio antenna was mounted. For some reason the image of the drivers side with the antenna hole will not upload?

The last pictures were taken during the test drive.

Ok I removed the circled area of the drivers side and the picture uploaded.

Edited August 31, 2025Aug 31 by cammerjeff

Yes Jeff, a good metal man can fix that

Well another set back that I was not expecting, the car started running very rough and would not idle. We determined it was a fuel issue and after pulling the filter found it almost clogged with small rust particles, removed and inspected the carb, same issue.

The irritating thing is I had pulled the tank and supposedly had in cleaned and seal several years ago (the shop that did the work is now out of business) had the fuel sender cleaned and rebuilt, replaced all the hard and flexible fuel lines, replaced the fuel pump, and had cleaned and rebuilt the Q-jet.

All that because I had found the tank had sat for years 1/2 full of water, the upper part of the tank looked like the day it was made, and the lower part of the tank was extremely scaly (inside of the tank). Frustrating as I thought I had done everything possible to overcome the problem.

After talking it over with the shop we have agreed to pull the tank and have it redone at a radiator shop they have had good luck redoing several tanks in the past. They cut several round holes in the top of the tank so they can blast the tank clean, seal it, and weld up the holes.

It would be a lot easier if a reproduction tank was available, but they are not for the 71-76 full size cars, and the Police car has a baffled tank around the fuel sender. That I suspect may have caused the issue of not getting all of the scale and rust out of the tank the 1st time.

well its only $$$ and time. Unfortunately it is going to be almost an additional $3k I did not plan on spending to get it done. Flush out the new hard lines, replace the flex lines, clean out the carb, and add a fuel filter in the flex line in front of the pump just in case.

Sorry to hear about the latest set back Jeff. They all suck, for sure. Still you have a viable solution. Is some sort of rust sealant / inhibitor going into the tank as well or does the restoration shop feel that just eliminating the scale is the answer? Obviously no one wants to see the problem occur again - especially at $3k a pop.

Not all of us can afford $40k for a new van to fix a bad spark plug like Kiwi.

Sorry mate - that was too easy.

Edited October 6, 2025Oct 6 by Frosty

Take a few measurements of the available space for a tank and then go to the web site for "Tanks, Inc".

https://www.tanksinc.com/

They might not have an exact fit tank but its a sure bet they will have something that will fit and for a reasonable price. They certainly did for my Catalina.

Rick

3k sounds out of line to me.

Joe I just looked at the invoice, it is actually $2750 and almost $1200 is work the have previously done, like removing the Vinyl top, and replacing suspension bushings, and the gas tank resealing estimate is basically $800 so the rest of the work is around $1000 in labor for R&R of the gas tank, cleaning the lines, and carb. At $150 an hour shop rate it ads up fast.

So not as bad as I originally made it out to be, but still $2K more than I had planned to spend getting the car Mobile.

Just disappointed that the same work has to be done a 2nd time, not the shops fault as they just installed the gas tank I had previously removed and had "Cleaned & Sealed"

i hate doing stuff twice. i guess the invoice isn't too bad then.

Well the body shop scheduled to do the body and paint is going to be delayed about 6 more months due to current projects running long. So I had to get the Enforcer out of the shop now that the mechanical work is complete. So the plan was for Today to drive it the 65 miles home (sold my trailer this spring due to space issues) well on Wednesday the Master cylinder went out, the shop managed to get it replaced and the brakes bled on Friday Morning. So the trip was on again! It is actually the longest I have ever driven the car sense I owned it, and we beat the Rain/Snow mix expected for Tomorrow!

The trip started out well the car was driving well, then the blower motor quit about 10 minutes into the trip, good thing I wore thick Socks! 45F at 12:00 pm when we Started out with my wife in the Chase car. I even passed another Ex-cruiser on Grossebeck. Then just as I was approaching 8-mile road the Temp light came on about 15 seconds before the steam started coming out of the hood. Pulled into a Fast Food parking lot and assessed the issue. At first I thought the heater core had blown, but when the steam cleared I could not find a leak, all the steam seemed to have come from the overflow line so I deceided to let the car cool down and get some coolant, rags, funnel, and RTV, and remove what I hoped was a stuck thermostat (almost brand new by the way the shop put it in about a month ago) With the thermostat removed and 1 1/2 gallons of coolant later we were back on our adventure. Made it home with now other issues. Now to do some interior and suspension work while I wait for the body shop to be ready for it.