Last Indian

11 hours ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

yes mate its the rod system on my 64, and that rod is linked at the carb and actuates a lever on the side of the trans 

it has adjustment sleeves but i am really finding it hard to get good information on how to adjust it..

my trans guy says, go drive the car adjust it and work from there as to lengthen or shorting  the rods action

the pontiac shop manual is really hard to get your head around as it talks about using a special tool.

i will keep googling and see if i can find an answer.... the problem with hunting through forums is there is soooo much not quiet right information!! or they are talking about caddy super hydromatics or buick jetaways and each has its own different tv rod system ..i am not finding a lot about pontiac jetaway transmissioins... guess we are special aye!!!!

Can you take a few pics of the setup at the tranny & couple at the carb? That said, I would say you need to lengthen the cable. By what you described the cable is short enough that the mechanism sees hard throttle, so it holds in gear, I.E. doesn’t upshift. Lifting your foot relaxes the mechanism allowing an upshift. So by lengthening the cable you reduce the tension on the mechanism. This will allow an earlier upshift.

This is how a vacuum modulator works. It sees Venturi vacuum when you accelerate. There are vacuum set points that trigger a upshift, but if you press down more on the accelerator you change the input signal, vacuum, which then holds the tranny in gear longer. Likewise if you lift your foot off the pedal some it will cause the tranny to upshift earlier.

Electrical is a good possibility, but my first reaction is carb. I love Hollies, but they a very temperamental carbs. In particular floats and power valves. And no, more often than not they don’t spit and spotter they just die. If it’s carb I would bet sticky float! Fuel bowls full, car starts fine, float hangs up carb runs out of fuel. Car sits a minute, float falls down because fuel is gone and residual pressure is pushing on the needle, bowl fills and it runs ok till the next hiccup.

14 hours ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

hi Guys, as you may know i have had my super hydromatic ( jetaway 315) in the 64 Bonneville rebuilt and i have an issue with it slipping when it tries to shift from first to second while in D selection. my trans builder thinks its the Throttle valve rod from the carb that needs adjusting but i have read the chassis shop manual on the issue and it goes on about fitting a tool but does not show any pictures of it or really how to do the adjustment.

 has any one out there mastered this adjustment and can help me out with advise on what to do ? 

 i think the trans guy is correct as when i take my foot off the gas pedal it will drop into 4th, and you have to remember my 64 was in a frontal smash, the rod will most certainly need adjusting as the whole motor jumped clean out of its mounts and was stopped from shooting out through the radiator by the cross member hooking on the sump !!!

Kiwi, presumably we’re talking about the same thing, there is a cable that attaches to the carburetor left side linkage. This runs to the tranny, but don’t confuse it with the gas linkage. This cable adjust the shift pattern of the tranny. The shorter you make the cable adjustment, the harder and later the shift. The longer the cable adjustment the earlier and softer the shift. This is to a degree the mechanical version of a vacuum modulator. Do not confuse this with a kick down cable. This cable will usually have a center wire that moves in a sleeve, like a choke cable. Changing the length of the center wire is the adjustment. There are many arrangements and variations of this cable and how it’s adjusted so I don’t know what exactly yours is, but I have no doubt you’ll be able to see how yours is done.

23 hours ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

Wow ! Great pictures last Indian!!! 

You did a ring foundation justA like I have done !

mostly these days they are pour in one foundation set ups 

but I wanted the foundation to look the same as the rest of the house footings 

i have a 2 week wait now till the frames and trusses arrive ! 

So I have locked in my digger mate for next week and I will lay stormwater drains back to the rain water tanks 

and while I am doing that I am going to get 4 x cad 6 data cables in the trench from the additions over to my garage to future proof for things like cameras etc back to my modem in the house 

currently my computer in the garage office is wifi back to the modem in the house which is not ideal 

New ideas are not always good ideas! Single pour foundations being one! With block work if for some reason there is a problem down the road they can be fixed. Up to and including actually taking a block or blocks or bricks for that matter, completely out and replacing it. Redoing mortar, and more, poured concrete? You’re screwed. Once it cracks you will never get it to not be there! It’s a stress point & no amount of any of their fancy adhesives or poly bonds or the like will fix it let alone make it look right ever again! I’ve seen lots of poured basements that really became a nightmare for people.

3 hours ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

Ah that’s good thinking putting in a duct for future wires etc mate 👍

i will have a ceiling space that is acessable so I can do the same 👍

i will be running gas into the new room and doing another big gas fire .. and I will be doing a air ducting to transfer heat to the rest of the house 👍

Now tell me how you put a four inch hole in your arm? 

Stupidity & being cheap! I had the “74” subframe on the picnic table grinding it down to good bare metal so I could start welding up the new back section of frame and then be able to paint it all up. So I was grinding up around the front shock/Upper Aarm area where it’s pretty congested with pockets & vertical gussets. I had just put a new 16 grit 7” sanding disc on the body grinder. I hit one of the vertical pocket areas & it nearly tore the grinder out of my hands! Now I have a new disc with a Pac-Man style chunk out of it. I’m pissed, the hell with it I’ll use it! I turn it on 4000 rpm shaken like crazy I go back in! Only this time it tears it out of my left hand & while holding it with right it throws it back into my left arm at 4000 rpm! The Pac-Man cut out acted just like a one tooth blade. Laid my forearm wide open. About 4” long, more than an 1” deep. They said 1/6 deeper it would have cut the tendon. Needless to say my wife was not impressed. 

On 3/3/2022 at 4:01 PM, Jill Anthony said:

I got my Trans Am because I have always wanted one. My first car was a 1974 Pontiac Grandville convertible, and I loved her! 

I've also owned a 2000 Grand Prix and a 2003 G6. My TA, however, is my favorite Pontiac so far!

Any Pontiac is a good Pontiac & with enough love it can be a great one. Of a all the FWD’s the sixth generation was my favorite & the 2000 most of all, but I might be impartial?!

16 hours ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

Love this shot with the bbq table set up inside the frames and even a tree planted on the corner !!! 👍👍👍

Oh the stories that pic-a-nik table could tell! Should have bought saw horses, but I have always tended to make use of what I have! Part of growing up dirt poor, literally! 
That table is where I built the frame for my wife’s “74” Camaro! Ripped a 4” hole in my arm and some other goodie’s! Not to mention built my shop on the back of my garage and my front porch.

This a addition was a total of 755 sq. ft. Broke ground April 16 “96” had the whole thing finished on the outside & landscaped by the second week in Sept. Now I look back and say how the hell did I do that! Oh yeah I was only 45!

Anyway. Kiwi not sure what all you have planned for your addition, but one thing I did that really helped, was I ran 4” pvc pipe from the second furnace room, that was included as part of the addition, out of the structure, which exits the building just a little below grade. So any thing I needed to bring into the building after the fact could come through there. Likewise I made a similar connection from that room to my shop that shared part of a wall. Then from the furnace room there was access to the overhead vaulted ceiling. Running down the center of the ceiling. There is a 10” wide oak plate that finishes the ceiling, but it’s removable. All the wiring cabling etc. runs down the center of the ceiling. Then to it’s respective place so a additional adds can always be made. 

Welcome fellow buckeye! Thanks for joining, lots of good folks here.

Nothing like straight American iron, a set of five spokes & an arrowhead to brighten a day! Beautiful!

1 hour ago, slewis4645 said:

Thanks so much for the fast response. I am planning on working today on this issue. I will check both recomendations.  Google garage web sites indicated it could also be a oil press. sending unit or a oil level sending unit. How do you feel about those recomendations. I am trying to gather all intel I can as I only have one car and once you pull it apart your stuck. Anyway I do appreciate your input as well.............................Steve,

Obviously anything that involves oil could be responsible, but what you describe sounds like a none pressure side of oil! If this is the case the two things I described would tend to be my thoughts. Also both of those are technical service bulletins on the 3800 and well documented as a problem.

33 minutes ago, slewis4645 said:

Hello to all, I have a 2008 Pontiac Grand Prix. Traveling along I noticed blue like smoke, obviously I check it out.  There is oil all over the bottomof the car. I checked the oil level and was only about a quart low. The leakage appeared to be located to the passanger side. The smoke was hitting the exhaust piping, this is why I had blue smoke,however I can't locate the leak. If someone has had this issue or now of a location it could be leaking. I would so much appreciate it.  Thankyou......................................Steve,

Steve, the 3800 is notorious for two places. The first was valve cover gaskets, but the more obscure place is the intake plenum on the front of the motor. Which is the passenger side. It leaks where it is sealed at the block. Look for a oily wet area behind where the serpentine belt is. Likewise do the same at the font and rear valve cover. If you can’t tell where it is for sure, spray the Motor down with Gunk engine cleaner, hose it down let it dry and then run it. It should than become obvious.

On 2/20/2022 at 10:12 PM, 64 kiwi boni said:

Footing steel work in today 

Ah, the memories! Close to the same size I added to the back of mine. I had to take out a load bearing wall for the upstairs though & reverse it to the outer walls of the addition. Even than it was one man, one leg, a hammer, trowel & a lotta sweat😔!

Kiwi you guys clearly don’t have much, if any, of a frost line?! My footers are 48” deep. Have to be by code. Have fun! Always like building house & additions, but only second to cars though!

3 hours ago, Frosty said:

All I can say is I am seriously pissed off right at the moment. About three quarters of the garage mahal is flooded with water. It is either from the thawing of the frozen mound of snow and ice that the snow removal guy left in front of my (and everyone else's doors) or water is coming in through the cracks in the expansion joints in the cement. Either way it is no good. There is water underneath the steps to the mezzanine!

I've already spoken to owner of the property management company / association manager of the site. I told him this was completely unacceptable and he needed to correct it. He said he had someone salt the door and squeegee but there are no floor drains so I am not certain where the water would go in the first place, especially with the ice dam in front of the door!

I came back later last night and things weren't much better and I called him again and said try again, more needs to be done. He said he'd have someone on it in the morning. Doesn't help we just another 6 inches of new snow last night. My son took a 5-lb sledge hammer to the ice dam and didn't have much success breaking it up. I hope the snow removal guy gets a good talking to as well.

The pile of snow you see in front of the garage door is drastically reduced from the 1-2 foot ice mound that was in front of it earlier today. The mound is still there in front of the pedestrian door though, but now you could at least attempt to get a vehicle out if you had to. This is such BS.

 

 

Frosty, Wow! That is BS! My guess would be the snow mound. Door seals can only stop pelting rain water that is draining away. What you have with the mound would just go right around the end of each side of the door even if you have vertical outer door strip seals!

I can’t tell from the picture, but how does the garage floor transition past the contact point of the door? Does it slope immediately downward, straight or what? What is the driveway paved with? Concrete or asphalt? I have a reason for asking, as it might possibly help with eliminating the problem in the future.

My two cents, can’t stand anything coming out of LA! Nothing but Woke lies & evil! If I had to pick it would have been Cinci but , anyone who thought Cinci could win hasn’t paid attention to the NFL! They wanted LA to win and would make sure of it, however gently they need to push it that why! (Can’t make it to obvious)! Just like they did with Seattle against Pittsburgh! LA bigger market, leans way left & the epicenter of; well you know!

Other than NASCAR, I won’t watch sports anymore. All way to corrupt, all sellouts. Jason Whitlock explained it very well a few weeks ago and every word he said was dead on! Whether NASCAR goes that way or not only time will tell! If they do; they’ll be history too!

JustA my friend, I know you are a patriot, as am I! More so than most people know! Unfortunately most people have no clue of history, I mean real history!
I’ll stop here & leave it at that.

13 hours ago, Fitzy said:

Dumb Question Time: I have replaced all my front end consumable parts plus a new steering box, etc so I KNOW my alignment is out. It was with much interest that I read the discussion on alignments at home. I thought I'd like to do a rough check on mine to see how out of whack it is. I collect a piece of straight bar to put behind the rear tyres and am ready to stringline the front wheels but the bodywork on old cars is outboard of the track. If I was going to stringline the centres of the wheels, there's no way it can be done with the protruding bodywork. 

I'm sure I'm missing an obvious point. It wouldn't be the first time! Would someone enlighten me as to how to string the centre of the front & rear wheels? Sure, I can string along the bottom but that's pretty rough. I suppose purely for toe in it's okay, but isn't toe in measured from the longitudinal centre of the wheel? A 'bush' method of measuring toe is by using 2 sticks and making a mark at the centre of the wheel at the back, then rolling the car forward and taking the same measurement when those marks have travelled 180°. I had a look at that too,  but the inner mudguards and other chassis structures prevent that method.

Actually Fitzy midline of the tire is not where you should measure for toe! Because camber has the largest impact on static toe, about 1” to 2”s off the ground is the typical point to measure. Since camber is an angle that accentuates with distance from the point of origin, that is where you measure. For instance, say you move the tie rod to see a millimeter.0397 of negative toe at tire centerline. If you now drop down to 1” off the ground the measurement, depending on camber angle could be far larger! And that point is near the tire tread so that is actually where the wear of the tire tread occurs. 

If all you wish to do is check that the rear tires are square to the front & check for a ballpark toe at the front. Do this take your jack stands or something similar and tie a string line longer than the wheel base. Move the jacks in towards the car, both front and back, but keep the sting taught. Do this until you get close to both tires. Than move back jack until the string touches the back edge of the back tire first. Now start to move the front jack until it touches an edge of the front tire. Now go to the back tire, pull the jack out so the string moves completely away from the tire, than move it back slowly till it touches the tire. If the back axle is square to the car the string should touch the front & back edge of the back tire. When you do this do it slow & watch carefully that string touch both edges at the same time. You can tell this by blowing on the string or lightly touching it, as when it contacts the tire you’ll see it doesn’t move freely. 
Now leave that jack where it is and go to the front and do the same thing! Unless you have zero toe you will see the string touch either the front or back edge of the front tire first. Now do the same thing for the other side.

On 2/9/2022 at 12:06 AM, 64 kiwi boni said:

fantastic!! well done my friend 👍.. thats how i SEE it but its really hard to explain!! you have done good !! 

 i could add to your comment about sway bars that the mounting points also affect the anti dive aspect of your front suspension. 

 i learnt this with the cortina from a rally car guru... his name is Don fenwick, raced and engineered for possum bourne ( top nz rally driver) 

 and he lives here in Taupo... we have had many chats in his garage about geometry, and for a dumb plumber i learnt lots !!  

 

Kiwi, that is dead on! If you go back and look at the first page of my FWD ground pounder progression post you’ll see I address this. End link structure, type and placement all have a substantial impact on the performance of the sway bar itself, which ultimately translates to body roll/nose dive. No matter how big or good a sway bar is, if the end links won’t let the energy be transferred because they are to weak and deflect than the energy is lost. This also includes the bushings, their design and material selection.

17 hours ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

when you talk about wheel alignment, its something that guys forget all about until they have finished their build and then try to drive their car... this really applies to situations where you change the suspension,,, ie, use aftermarket a arms/ dropped spindles etc.

as soon as you change anything in the geometry of your cars factory suspension ( like lowering your springs) you can alter the bump steer of that suspension... it can make a car extremely dangerous to drive... you can have the camber/caster correct, toe in/out correct but thats only at ride height. like you said Last indian with your wifes maverick .

move that suspension through its upper to lower movement alters the toe in/out... then you have a car that's all over the place !!

i am not very good at explaining, would you mind to explain Last Indian. 

i could draw a picture of what i mean but i am sure you could put that into words

I can give it a go, but this is so involved that I will only touch upon basic segments. Then if there are questions I can do my best to answer them. 

The geometries of a suspension are critical! In handling as well as stability & safety. That simple statement is by far much more complex than the singularity of its appearance. 

Bump steer! In a nut shell! Positive toe on the load wheel! That’s it! But, what causes positive toe on a car that is set negative? That’s the very complexed question to discuss, because so many things effect suspension geometry!

The simple basics for determining bump steer is knowing the centerline of both upper & lower control arms with respect to the ball joint centerline intersecting the centerline of the Aarm shaft centerline. This imaginary line is carried towards the center of the cars horizontal midline. When this is done to both Aarms these two lines should intersect each other at some point. Next a line is drawn through the horizontal axis of the tie rod centerline. This line should intersect at the same point as the two Aarm’s intersect, for a zero bump steer.

While I’m at this point let me say that a good suspension setup not only strives for this, but if you draw a imaginary midline through the center of the car, (front to back) the point at which both intersecting lines, from both sides of all the Aarms & tie rods should intersect at the midline! Yet a near perfect setup will also find the intersection will occur not only at midline , but at or above CG! This is a truly balanced suspension.

To a degree this is why bigger sway bars are very advantageous! The more front nose dive in a corner the more likely a change in suspension geometry could cause toe to go positive.

On 2/2/2022 at 11:42 PM, 64 kiwi boni said:

best i have done Last indian is a string line down the side of the car to at least get the wheels pointing the right way... then drive it to my mates tire shop and get him to Really set it..

 i justA had the little mk 1 cortina done and they where super happy with how it came out considering i had removed all the steering box system and replaced it with a rack and pinion and complete conversion to mk2 escort system with McPherson struts late model disc brakes and adjustable tca 

i even made the front sway bar adjustable , and lowered its front mounting points to help with anti -dive geometry 

 they also preformed a bump steer test and recorded all the results as i need it for when the car gets certified for the upgraded suspension  

this is 8 pages deep report just on bump steer, and as you can see it relates to ALL 4 wheels

Kiwi, bump steer!? That’s a tough one! I don’t know the MK1 very well. I know it only enough to say I would have to differ to someone else who knows it’s geometry. But, as a basic rule, not many of GM’s cars were given to bump steer! Ford on the other hand, whoa. When I meet my wife she had a 1970 Maverick. Which when we married we kept at first, talk about a piece of junk, sorry to any fans I offended, but among many of the issues I had with it, it was bump steer. Once while driving on the freeway at about 65 mph I hit a small pot hole I didn’t see. In one instance I was in the other lane 100%! A whole lane and never moved the wheel! 

Bump steer occurs normally only when either the geometry of the suspension is not designed right, as was the case with the Maverick. The suspension is altered, either through physical changing components in such a way that the proper geometry is lost or through modification of components that in turn loses such needed geometry. Also extreme wheel alignments can also cause bump steer, but that is actually pretty hard to do. 

On 2/2/2022 at 11:46 PM, 64 kiwi boni said:

so Last Indian... i see you posted a picture of the rusty one and a replacement... what have you done to the replacement to stop it rusting the same as the stock one ??

tell my why this bolt would have grooves in it ??? 

I make up a mixture of pure silicone vacuum grease and anti-seize and coat both the bolt shaft and bushing. Than I paint the outside of the bolt head and nut.

Question, how many of you guys do your own wheel alignments? If so, what is your practice? I’ve always done my own, but most folks I know do not do their own.

What prompted all this is a recall on what is called a rod link. Basically this link adjust the toe on the rear wheels. GM say that the link was over electroplated causing it to chip and corrode and break! Bullshit! The fact is they put a junk cheap black paint on the part so it rust just like the rest of the suspension parts, except for a few. The real failure is the stupid adjusting bolt. Zinc plated with two grooves that allow corrosive material into the bolt/bushing area that than rust the two together causing failure of the link. See pics.

I plan to do my 2012 as well so I’ll try to take good pics of that build.