Frosty

i cannot wait to see more photos SNOW! Bring them on!! What's your plan for the body repair? Do you have shops in mind in your neck of NC in mind? Or are you looking for recommendations?

That's certainly better than piston to valve contact. So are you thinking head gasket leak or worse? Correct me if I am wrong but those are iron heads with an aluminium valve cover, correct? Could a little magnafluxing be in order here just for some peace of mind?

Okay - I''ll bite. What all did you discover Sprint6? Cylinders #1 and #2 certainly don't look too good.

George Carlin's Class Clown album is a legend in my mind. Besides taking on the Catholic faith in a hilarious way, he gave us the famous "7 Words You Can't Say on Television" routine. In that bit he described there are "two way words". For example - You can prick your finger but don't finger your prick! No! No! No! No! I think the peenest word is one of these "two way" words, therefore it's a crap shot with him. Roll the dice and takes your chances. Oh but be sure to have a moist towelette or two on hand, just in case.

Please don't say "organist" in a thread. It will get notallthere excited and we are out of moist towelettes! A complete set of brake and fuel lines (front to back), including the mounting hardware, for Lucy. It includes new flex lines for the front disc brakes and rear diff, as well as a new proportioning valve. I decided that since I sprung a leak in the rear brake line last fall literally pulling into my driveway from West Virginia, I decided replacing the 40+ year old hard lines under the car now became a safety issue. If the brake lines are bad, I figured the fuel lines aren't that much better off. So I bought both sets of hard lines. I was going to buy from Inline Tube anyway. They just happened to be at this Hod Rod Expo show on Saturday and I got a respectable discount (between 15-20% on the big stuff, 25% on some things) if I ordered it right then and there. Deal.

I finally opened the box Ringo. There are more boxes inside it.

Perhaps. I had not heard that. I've also heard that things aren't going so well in Pontiac Illinois between the mayor's office, the downtown development authority and Tim and Penny. If you've ever been to the museum, you know it is very small. They don't have a ton of display space. They'd like to expand but they are rather land locked currently even though it is right off Historic Route 66

Yup. Actually according to the website I got these off of, the logos were part of a judged contest with the first one being the winner. I find it interesting that the first two logos include the 1908 The Pontiac High Wheel Runabout, the first car with the Pontiac name and built in Pontiac Michigan but it was not built by Oakland Motor Car Company. The scope is that Tim and Penny Dye, owners of the Pontiac Oakland Museum, in Pontiac, Illinois, have purchased a former elementary school just a block or two off the south bound loop of Widetrack Boulevard (a.k.a. Woodward Avenue) in Pontiac Michigan. Tim and Penny are working with a local car collector to help set this up. This new museum will feature Pontiacs, Oaklands, GMCs, Cartercars, and anything else that was built in Ponitac, Michigan over the last century. I have no idea when this will open but I've heard that September is the target but things could still delay this. I also have no idea what this means for the museum back in Pontiac, Illinois. Mind you, there has been no formal announcements or press releases on this. This has all been word of mouth.

I found these on the internet the other day. Care to guess what is going on here? I know that JUSTA, notallthere, and Jim Larson know the answer to this question. Finding this stuff out on the internet makes it more interesting.

I am happy to report that FCA has found a permanent home for all the vehicles that use to be in the now closed Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills. The museum was recently closed permanently and it is being converted into the US HQ for Maserati. So what happened to all the cars in the museum? Read the article. While its sad that you won't be able to view it (immediately at least), I am glad that FCA has kept the collection together and now has somewhere to permanently house it. http://www.hotrod.com/articles/collect-call/?wc_mid=4035:11520&wc_rid=4035:290323&_wcsid=FB184DAC699F0C926AFD21E3D84B34EC28409021BFCF5295

You are a my-membership-card-is-still-in-mail member of the Procrastinator's Club then! My apologies, I failed to appreciate the difference. Your income is fixed, just not your expenses. Makes you appreciate laissez-faire, don't it?

Yes it is, it gives ME something to do and get out of her hair. No heated garage. No indoor workshop. No luxury of being retarded (spelling?) and on a fixed income (yet but it feels like it all the same. Sorry - that's marriage in general. My bad!). I know I am a working ho. Somebody has to pay for your social security sex. It certainly isn't mine yet. According the the government, not until I am 67 1/3 either. Bastichs (thanks Pro I like this word)!

Clearly I did not. I have 48 hours to open the box according to my wife, who did read the box. I took my wife out for her birthday instead of checking out my new box.

This 6' box showed up at my door step yesterday. I haven't opened it yet. I will open it up tonight after dinner.I wonder what could be in it?

Thanks Last Indian. I appreciate the support. Let me know where to send the apple! Two Lane, the choice is clearly yours. You have to weigh your options. However, if it were my car and I already have the funds I need, I would completely re-paint the car, front to back. I would hire the best paint shop I could find. I would consider applying a couple more layers of clear coat (than normal) to be added, since the cutting and buffing process will take some layers down anyway. The added layers will help provide a tad more UV-B protection than what the factory gave you. I don't think the re-spray will hurt you long term value wise unless someone is looking for an absolute survivor. I think an potential buyer will understand why you repainted the car, especially when you show them the "before" photographs. That's my opinion.

The Janesville plant is finally going to be torn down, and with it, any hope that GM may return to manufacturing cars in Wisconsin. However, it appears that bricks from the site will be set aside for former employees and families to purchase as keepsakes. This is a tradition that has been done at other plans across the country. I personally own two bricks from former Flint, Michigan plants. The first is a brick from the building that built the first 300 Corvettes. The second brick is from the Buick City complex, where I worked for nearly a decade. https://www.channel3000.com/news/community-will-be-able-to-keep-bricks-from-former-gm-plant/721688197

It's hard to believe that this thread was started in 2011. Most of the posted pictures have been move/removed. Here is a Detroit Free Press article regarding the GM Heritage Collection. I have had the honor to have been there 4 times over the years. It is here where Mac McKellar personally told me his story about the OHC6's development. Enjoy. https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2018/03/24/general-motors-museum-history-car-culture/420434002/

I am curious for Last Indian to respond since chemistry is his forte. However I will give it a shot. I hope a getting passing grade. Color dyes and pigments in paint work by absorbing certain wavelengths of light and reflecting or transmitting the rest. When a dye molecule absorbs a photon, an electron is excited to a higher energy state. Most of the time (neglecting fluorescence), the molecule de-excites by giving off heat and returns to the ground state intact. However, because the excited state is a high energy state, it has the potential to undergo a chemical reaction, breaking a covalent bond or otherwise irreversibly reacting with another molecule. This changes the electronic structure of the molecule, which changes its absorption properties (e.g. many dyes that absorb visible light have large systems of conjugated double bonds and if these are broken, the absorbance can shift to much shorter wavelengths). How likely this kind of destructive chemistry depends on the nature of the dye. Organic dyes tend to be more susceptible to photo bleaching than things like quantum dots and inorganic pigments. Red paint can often degrade faster because it absorbs higher energy (e.g. shorter wavelength) light, your metallic blue is on the opposite side of the visible light spectrum (plus the some metallic flake might reflect some of the energy back out before anything can occur, thus reducing the total amount of energy somewhat). The more energy that is available, the more likely that a reaction will occur. This is more pronounced when we enter the UV wavelengths, which is why UV-B exposure can cause thymine dimers in DNA, which can lead to skin cancer in people. For outdoor signs and such, UV-blocking clear coats are often applied to extend the life of the color dyes or paints. How did I do Professor Indian?

Good to see you back on the forum. We were afraid that notallthere was going to rule the moderator roost. Are you settled in now that you are in Minnesnowta?

Last Indian does make a compelling argument for going the wrap route, IMO. I have seen wrap jobs that I thought were paint until I touched the car and felt the actual vinyl material. So wraps are rather inexpensive (compared to a complete paint job), you maintain your original (e.g. survivor) paint job underneath, and you get a killer / consistent look for a lot less money. What's not to love other than its not real paint? It's your money and your car. Do what you feel is right.

Spint6 is spot on with his response. The chassis of a Canada-only built Pontiac like the Laurentian were Chevy-based. Some Catalina/Bonneville body parts do interchange but others don't. Therefore you must be careful. So to answer your question about Catalina parts being interchangeable with the Laurentian, the answer is no, they are not 100% interchangeable. As for the engine, it should either be an inline 6 or a Chevy V8. If it is a V6, it is definitely not the original motor as the venerable Buick V6 aluminium 215 cu in wasn't developed until 1963. All other V6 engines from GM were developed much later in the 1970s and beyond. That said, don't let this diamond in the rough dissuade you from buying the car if you are that interested. Even at an all Pontiac show here in the U.S., you will probably be the only one. There are Canadian Pontiac clubs that can help you find parts. Also the Pontiac Oakland Club International (POCI) embraces these cars too. So you can reach out to their technical advisers and try to use them a a resource to find unique parts.

I know I am late to this discussion, but I wanted to think about it first. The clear coat is definitely gone on the hood, front bumper and failing else where on the car. So as everyone is in agreement, the clear coat definitely needs to be re-sprayed. Care will need to be taken when wet sanding the exposed base coat, we don't want to burn through it, just create some mechanical adhesion for the clear coat to grab on to and bring back the color. Its been my experience that clear coat and paint fail for one of two reasons: First, the long term exposure to extreme UV rays breaks down the UV protection in the clear coat, or there is imperfections in the chemicals of the base coat/clear coat that reacts to the sun's UV or heat over time and causes it to break down. The second reason is a chemical reaction of dissimilar chemicals between the primer, base cost, and clear cost. This is the problem that caused so many GM trucks and cars to have their paint peel down to the primer back in the 1990s and early 2000s. Full size trucks, SUVs, and Grand Prixes were especially susceptible. In these case, the vehicle must be completely sanded down to clean metal and the primer, base coat, and clear cost must be totally re-applied in order to prevent the chemical reaction from starting all over again. I am not suggesting this is the case for your Firebird. Rather I am making a point about potential problems. I hope you can get by with just a clear coat re-spray. I am worried that the amount of damaged base cost that is exposed on the hood and bumper, is it too much and might force a base coat re-spray? I don't know. Definitely talk to your local paint guys. While in the long run it may cost more money, a total re-spray might be the best option for the car for the sake of the looks. I doubt you will lose much or any value by re-painting it since it is a 1LE car.

1977GPX, welcome to FP and the madness! Nice looking GP. Of course we'd love to see more pictures. While I have no experience with a '77 Grand Prix specifically, most guys I know usually go with one of three brands of headers for the traditional Pontiac A/G bodies. They are Hooker, Hedman, and Doug's. I think there are a few other brands out there, but these are the most common and most likely to fit. You can order these either thru Jeg's or Summit Racing, or directly from the companies themselves. Also, catalog companies like National Parts Depot, Original Parts Group, YearOne that carry G-body parts should also carry headers. I am not clear what you mean by a 988 # on the block. Where is that on the block? Can you take pictures of all the numbers on the block and post them? That will help immensely.

Somebody just blew the biggest "trust me" in the auto industry today. The implications are staggering. Can you imagine flawed autonomous vehicles randomly hitting and/or killing people nearly every day? Would this be acceptable to society? I doubt it. Who would the NRA-equivalent scapegoat be in this case? The automobile companies, the software/sensor developers, or companies, like Uber, that run and manage the fleet? This is the biggest argument against autonomous vehicles. Not saying that people-driven vehicles don't kill people, but there is an understood perception of who's in control.

Once you are certain your timing is set correctly, check to see if you are getting fuel to the carb, and spark to the plugs. A faulty coil, or a dirty fuel filter are sometimes the simple fix.