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Pontiac of the Month

FBIRD69's 1969 Firebird

2024 March
of the Month

Last Indian

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Everything posted by Last Indian

  1. I hear ya! I’m really bummed because I JustA saw that Mr Potato Head is no more! Real! Now it Potato Head neutral gender! No kidding!
  2. Copy that times two buddy! Don’t forget letting anybody in to the county JustA because they want to! No waiting! JustA come on in! Drug dealers, rapist, murderers, you name it! No I.D. Required!
  3. No, an oil change, nor an exhaust leak would not cause the engine to not run! But reading through your thread, quickly I might add so maybe I missed something, I see you say you changed your plugs! So I have to ask, did you gap them correctly for your engine? Did you by chance not get the spark plug wire put back correctly? Have you checked the spark to know that the coil packs are working? Cold weather can have a nasty impact on old coil packs! The other question to answer is Frosty’s about the fuel! You need to put a pressure gage on the Schrader valve and see what the pressure is! Even if you have fuel flow if the pressure is to low, I.E. usually a bad fuel pump, the engine won’t stay running!
  4. Voltage drop is just one test, but there are so many test you can run the real question is which test for what problem! The voltage drop you show in the video for starting for example really is inconsequential in the big picture of starting. More relevant battery cranking voltage drop! Typical battery cranking voltage drop on starting with a good battery will be from 12.6, for a well charged battery, down to 10. 2 to 10.4 volts. Anything lower than that means there are issues with the system, either on the plus side or the negative side. Now when you get into the less power consuming components like gages, heater, lights, etc.. Those need checked differently, but again newer cars are a whole different animal in what you check and how! For example the Indian (2000 Grand Prix) has five 12 volt supply wires to the ignition switch! But these 12 volt wires that supply the switch once inside the switch is divided into 20 small finger contact tumblers that in turn distributes that power to smaller wires that supply 12 volts to things like the heater, radio, wipers, gages, etc! If you mistakenly leave an accessory on like the radio, heater, etc. this, through repeated occurrences causes the finger contacts to burn, like a set of points! When this happens you can go from 12 volts to 1 volt! So a voltage drop at a component that doesn’t work or doesn’t work properly does little good!
  5. What JustA said! Love seeing you back buddy!
  6. Grounds for a car are usually the number 1 overlook problem with electrical troubles for cars! You should see the grounds on the Indian! I added 6 additional new grounds & changed all the high voltage/amperage grounds to 02 welding cable, because welding cable is fine strand copper, which carries electrical current much better than standard large stranded electrical wire! Remember electricity runs in both directions and the ground side of car electrical systems is almost always the weaker side! As an example you can have 30 to 50, 18 gage positive wires to lights & heaters etc. as an example, but just one 16 or 14 gage wire as a ground for all of them!
  7. More than likely the vent cap is the issue! Usually what you described is actually a vacuum, not pressure, but it happens so fast when you loosen the cap it seems like pressure.
  8. Ahh! If we could only go back! Would have been so cool to have gone both and bought one!
  9. Kiwi, the sludge that you described and showed is typical of short run cycles! This type of sludge is made up of a heavy emulsion of water condensate and engine oil vapor, mixed together and most often deposited in the upper end of an engine! I did lots of work and testing in this area looking for the best additive remedy to deal with short cycle, cold weather driving! This is or was a major problem in the northeast US; as well as areas with similar weather characteristics! Since you really don’t know the condition of the motor, one additional step you could take to try and reduce the cost and labor duration would be this! For the initial startup get a bottle of Amsoil engine & transmission flush. Fill the engine with a good oil & new filter! Start the engine and let it idle only! When it is at operating temperature, shut it down. Add the Amsoil to the oil and restart! Let it idle for 15 minutes and vary the rpms between idle and 1500! Then shut it down! Let it sit 15 minutes! Then restart run it 10 more minutes, shut it down and drain it! Then do your oil & filter change! Run it 100 miles and do another oil change, note how dirty the oil is for just a 100 miles! Then follow that up with two consecutive 1000 mile oil changes and see what the oil looks like on the last oil drain vs the first oil drain that was done at the 100 mile mark!
  10. I agree 100% Two Lane!! But unless Kiwi wants to pull the motor and tear it down to the short block he has limited options! Most of the motor flush’s don’t have enough contact time with that type of sludge to do much to it! Plus most motor flush’s if run long enough to have any impact on that type of sludge, there is always a concern about small pieces breaking loose and blocking small orifice, like valve lifters! What I described above will tend to have the best results! Clean as much as you can, than use the TBN of a high quality oil to literally clean the inside of the motor over time! But in this process you have to keep the oil fresh, I.E. oil & filter change every 1000 miles max till you see the motor is clean, I.E. pull a valve cover! Another way you will know this is happening, pay attention as to the length of time it takes for the oil to get dirty! When you first start the oil will get dirty almost immediately, but as time goes on this occurrence will increase!
  11. That’s what we call dried sludge/mayonnaise! Yeah that’s ugly! This will take some, unfortunately, tedious work! Obviously clean the valve covers off the car, because you can clean those beautiful! Do this with either stoddard solvent or kerosene! The heads will be much harder, unless you want to pull them?! If you pull them you would be able to complete disassemble them! Clean them really well, lap the valves, replace valve seals and clean passages you can’t get to without removal! Again you would use stoddard or kerosene! You are indicating that the oil pan is off, right? So if you don’t want to take off the heads I would suggest the following. Plug all the drain down holes as best you can. Again take stoddard or kerosene and a brush and clean everything you can, valve springs, rockers, inside head area, etc! This will get messy so protect all the surrounding area because you are going to create splatter! As you clean it, yes you will have to sop up the liquid mess! Once you get the inside area of the head somewhat clean; stop! Now wipe all you can dry, especially the gasket sealing surface! Put the motor back together when you are ready! When you are ready to fire the motor use a 10w30 or 40. Run the motor for about an hour after it gets warmed up! Shut it down drain the sump as soon as you can! Change the filter once it’s cool enough to do so! Refill with new oil! Run this oil about 50 miles, than drain the oil again while it’s hot! Change the filter refill with new oil! Now I would use 10w40 or 20w40 oil! From this point on I would change the oil every 1000 miles! When you get 5000 or so miles on the motor since this time frame pull a valve cover and see how the head condition has changed! So take a before picture so you have something to compare the later timeframe to!
  12. Buddy I hear ya! I suppose it’s not the place, but the fact is these action affect everybody at every level in every way!! When they started all their emissions crap in the late “60”s I didn’t like it! But I said if it made the air cleaner, produced less pollutants, I could deal with it! Then they kept adding and adding, but you know they figured out how to make it work, and work pretty darn good! Yet this truly is a whole different animal! Number one! You literally can not produce enough electric for wind, solar or hydro! Even if you combined them all! You can look it up if you doubt it! All of the green energy in this county right now is 11%! Of the 11%, 43%, of that 11% is still a form of combustible, AKA burn, material! Solar is 9% of that 11%! That’s .99%!! Biden says he’s going to double that by 2045! Seriously! Hold me back! Understand, there is only one purpose here! Destroy crude oil infrastructures and equipment related to crude! Once that is done big energy can write their own ticket and prices! Once that’s done they will resurrect crude for their use to generate electricity, but they will control the price of crude at that point! Because no one else will be using it! And there’s the rub!
  13. To quote Dan Bongino! There are the stupid/stupid & the smart/stupid! The first one knows he’s stupid, the second one thinks he’s smart, but he’s really stupid! They are the dangerous ones! And we know where most of them are! Also you are right from the perspective that if they are effective at moving everything to electric, than they can control everything you own! How much energy you use! And once they moved everyone away from natural gas, gasoline Oil and the like it’s over! All the infrastructure would be gone! We would all be screwed!
  14. You hit the nail on the head my friend! And drove it clean through the 4x4! Bidien’s not at the helm! The other guy with the big O to start his name is running the show! If any doubt that; it’s your right! There’s a novel idea! Free choice, free speech! Wow! Who knew! But, there is actually a large amount of proof that he is! The saddest part of the whole thing relevant to the article is the big big lie! And nobody I mean nobody with any real power will step forward and make the people in this world understand! There is actually scientific proof that CO2 doesn’t effect global warming, fact! Through core samples at the Antarctic & fossil analysis from around the world we know that there have been many periods of increased CO2, and guess what earth temperatures actually went down! Guess what else? Our current CO2 reading of 410ppm is actually quite low compared to other previous times history when they have been as high as 9000ppm! Did you know that as recently as 1000 years ago Viking were raising cattle, sheep and goats on Greenland were they had extensive grasslands at that time! Yet 200 years later they started abandoning them because Greenlands temperatures started to fall! All true! Still believe greenhouse effects cause climate change? Still believe car emissions, industrialization and CO2 cause climate change!?
  15. Two Lane, my two cents worth would be as follows! Get the engine hot, but first take some WD40 or liquid wrench and spray it into a bottle or jar. Then take a syringe or eye dropper and squirt some on each spark plug thread at the cylinder head, but get the engine hot first! Then let it cool completely! Then start the engine again! Let it run till you can’t touch the heads without getting burned! Turn it off and remove the spark plugs! Do you need to do this? Your guess is as good as mine, but there should be a wicking action of the WD40 as the engine cools as well as when it is re-started when cold! Also aluminum (cylinder head) has a thermal expansion rate of about 1.75 times that of steel (spark plug), plus an object with a hole (spark plug hole) when heated out expands a solid (spark plug)! So while none of this is perfect, in theory it should be the best case scenario!
  16. Good job Two Lane! I forgot about the difference between the two door which doesn’t have the sharp turn down and the 4 door, which has that shape turn down at the rear fender/rear door!
  17. Yea! JustA saw this! If you’re speaking of the blue car in the picture? That’s not a Pontiac! That a Chrysler! Pontiac never built anything that had a rear quarter rear door configuration that had that kind of sharp body line turn down! Only Lincoln, Ford & Chrysler. And of the three I only remember Chrysler having an individual stand alone turn signal side marker that high up in the front fender!
  18. That’s a good point about the expansion rate! Quite often those are overlooked issues by manufacturers! I have seen that many times in my working career. So that prompted me to look at the MSDS sheets! Interesting enough the difference between the copper, black, red, blue & gray is enough to possibly make a difference in sealing! The red is the softest shore A 20, copper 26, black 30, blue 30 & gray 30-40! The elongation was close to the same for all except the gray, it was much lower! The shear strength was the lowest on the copper and the highest on the gray! So what does that mean? I’m not 100% sure because I don’t know the failure mechanism for sure! But if thermal expansion is part of the equation, which in turn creates the possibility of vibration? Than the red or the gray jump to the top of my list! Why? Well a softer durometer material with a ok elongation number might survive those demands! Still a harder durometer with a better shear strength might be tough enough to withstand both demands. But if it were me I would put my money on the red RTV!
  19. Frosty, I understand that, and this is just my opinion, but I don’t believe GM says to use the copper! But if they do, I can only say they also say to use Dex-cool! And that crap is the worst s"?!t on the market! You might as well pour acid in your engine! While I never have built any of the LT1’s I have had a lot of interaction with the guys who were building them for our engine lab! They always used the red RTV! These engines ran hundreds of hours under some of the severest conditions! The one thing I remember they would tell me they always did was to put a blob of rtv in each corner at the cylinder head! Then run a bead on the rail! Also it was imperative that both the manifold & rail of the block be very very clean! I.E. all RTV removed, cleaned with brown scotchbrite & then wiped with an aggressive solvent like a carb cleaner! below the first one is using the red RTV! The bottom pic is using a white, which I’m not familiar with, but it’s off of a Hot Rod build article!
  20. I believe this is the product Two Lane is using! And if you look at the picture you posted it is clearly listed as exhaust and 700 degrees F! Thus why I’m saying, I don’t really believe that is the right product for the application! That type of sealant usually does not have the proper composition for flexibility, ductility, shear strength or adhesion! It is usually has a composition more so for expansion, contraction. And while I know they say it’s oil resistant, I believe that is more from a exhaust oil perspective, not an engine oil bathing perspective! Otherwise why would you make any of the other products? You would JustA need one! Right?
  21. I must admit I have not built any of the Gen2 LT1 motors! That said, and I know it’s easy for me to say since I would have no vested interest, but I would still try one of the following two methods! First of all the copper rtv to me makes no sense! This is typically used for high temps like exhaust manifolds, cats, etc! I don’t know why they would want you to use that? Ok, so you clearly have to make the call here because you have the most experience with doing the work and seeing the failure! First, the easiest way is to use Permatex Ultra synthetic it comes in a purple tube! It is for oil applications! The other is their Ultra black, also for oil applications! Both have temperature ratings of -65 to 500F. Where as the copper is rated for 700F, but if your intake sees 700F you have other problems to worry about! Part of the failure may be due to the 700F rating! To get to that temperature material must be incorporated into the chemical composition that to some degree actually compromise the integrity of the structure with respect to oil exposer! If you are going to pull and clean the manifold & the area of the block & heads that needs resealed, I would suggest this! Clean everything, reinstall the intake to head gaskets? Place the intake in place with no rtv, tighten the bolts just enough to make snug contact, no torque! Take feeler gages and measure the gap at manifold and block sealing surface areas! If it is more than .010 get back to me and let me know! If that is the case you might try something else I have in mind!
  22. Two Lane, I don’t know what your approach has been to try and resolve this, but my thought would be this! Also I don’t know what end gaskets you are using,I.E. cork, neoprene or just rtv! You might try the following. I would use cork end gaskets with the red rtv! Put a thin layer of the red rtv on the block, than while still wet place the cork gasket into the rtv, but don’t press it in to the rtv hard, and let it cure over night! Next day put another thin layer on the top of the cork gasket! Set the intake manifold in place while wet, install the bolts to align the manifold properly, but don’t bolt it down, just tighten them till they engage the manifold surface! Again let it cure over night, than torque down the next day!
  23. Which Rotella, as there are several different series of which all have different additive packages! In general Rotella is a good oil to run in your car though! Most all of the T series use ZDDP, with the exception of T6, and since your “63” doesn’t use a cat they are all excellent oils! Then the only difference is conventional, synthetic or synthetic blend! I run Rotella T4 10w30 in the Indian even though I run a cat! I run the 10w30 because the 3800 is still for the most part an old skool motor!
  24. With respect to your “63”, I personally would use the 10w40! Unless you’ve done something special with the bearing tolerances in some manner, of which there are several, but I presume you didn’t do any of them, so that would be my choice! I live in northeast Ohio! For many years I drove my Z year around! I ran 20w50 racing oil! The car sat outside! Between 1977 and the mid “80”s we had some of the coldest winters on record! Sometimes -20 without wind chill! Never missed a beat! One very good way to tell just how good your oil is with regard to viscosity is to run a mechanical oil gage! A good oil pressure for cold start, say ambient temp is 30 will be about 65 to 70, if you have a good high volume pump! Once warmed up in cold weather it will run around 40 in an idle. Warm weather the cold startup won’t be as high! If you get used to a mechanical oil pressure gage you can actually tell a lot about what’s going on with an engine, including when the oil has been sheared or contaminated enough to start to increase in viscosity!
  25. There are all kinds of ways around that dilemma! If you what to keep it as a overall stock look, you add a little longer threaded screw to the carb and flip the top of the air cleaner upside down! Or you find and buy the same diameter air filter but a little taller add again a longer screw and raise the top up! You can also get a second top to your air cleaner and cut down the outside diameter which opens up a gap around the air filter! Or you can go aftermarket air cleaner that is opened all the way around! All of these maximize volumetric efficiency! In each case you need to assure the the top cover seals to the air filter! So in the case of cutting the top cover outside diameter, you cut it back as far as you can while still leaving the sealing point of the air cleaner intact. Also always make sure you check the clearance between any changes you’ve made and the closing of the hood!!
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