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Posts posted by Last Indian
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2 hours ago, Frosty said:
A couple questions Frosty. You own this right?! Do you know what the soil type is under you? Sand, clay, etc? I ask because if you can’t control what happens outside of your door, possibly you can control what comes in on your side of the door!
To explain; when my house was built the city had a ordinance forbidding a garage drain. Which to some degree I like because I have a flat floor that is simply sloped towards the overhead door. Which makes it more convenient for working on, as opposed to a floor in a funnel arrangement towards a center drain. Still when my cars shed water from melting snow or for some other reason, it heads towards the door. Which in the winter is a bad thing as it will get under the door & form ice or it just lays on the floor & makes a mess till it’s mopped up.
So since I sit on sand I did two things. First, when I bought the vinyl for my floor I bought the vinyl bridge that you can use to transition from one floor to another. I use these pieces in two places one where I transition to the carpet & one at the overhead door. In both places it acts a as a blockade. It rises about 1/2” - 5/8” up & this is enough to stop a water flow. At each end I core drilled the concrete & than using 4” PVC pipe built a hole saw to core drill the soil below to a depth of about 3’. Now when water goes to the overhead door it is directed to those two French drains & the water I dispersed into the sandy soil. In you case even if you have clay you could do a similar arrangement. You would just need to have a auxiliary pump that would pump the water out to an other place once accumulated, but at least your interior floor would stay dry. JustA thought.- 2
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Yes, as both JustA & B52 said. So to expound on that, get the engine to operating temp. Check the fluid level while the engine is running. If it’s low, I.E. (as in the add range or lower)add the correct fluid, ( Dexron ). If it’s low but just in the add range or higher than it’s starting to slip. If it’s a 350 , which I doubt being a “67”, but if it is I would recommend changing the fluid over to Ford’s type f ATF. To do that you will need enough to do two complete flushes, about 4 gals. Fords type f ATF is compatible with old GM turbo 350 & their seals. Type f will help with a slipping tranny if it’s not to far gone & it will make a good tranny bite harder.
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On 1/18/2024 at 9:57 PM, Adam 240468 said:Thank you very much I have already searched everything that could be searched in Poland. I believe that these cars are no longer available in Poland. There was a moment when they drove, but corrosion took its toll. The subframe was damaged and the vehicle was scrapped. Or breaking the rear plastic spring. I take care of my car and do everything with it. I bought a DIGITAL odometer on eBay in the USA and I will install it. It looks very interesting The only problem is that this counter has a higher mileage than my original analog one. This is another problem to change this course to the correct one. But I'll ask you about that later.
Adam, I talked to three salvage yards that have the air box/cleaner you are looking for. I will give you their names & phone numbers. All of them said you would have to make the arrangements with a shipping company to get the part to you, as they do not do that. The yard in Michigan was the most helpful.
Pit-Mon auto inc 1-800-245-1203 (this is near Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. part cost - $35
Central Avenue auto parts 1-800-843-7580 (this is in Detroit Michigan. Part cost - $75
Jay’s Auto Wrecking 1-800-736-8214 (this is in Edinboro Pennsylvania. cost - $38
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50 minutes ago, JUSTA6 said:
Surgery seemed to go well... until it didn't. Have to go back in Tues to have the procedure done again. NOT at all happy. Start over with a sentence of another 6 week's of staring out the window.
Damn JustA, you got my kinda luck! Oh ! That’s called no luck! I feel for you buddy, I really do! Speedy recovery, fingers crossed. At least it’s crap weather.
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6 hours ago, JUSTA6 said:
Bought this right before my surgery. Still sittin on the trailer, haven't even got to start it. Son in law drove it on the trailer for me. Been killin me for weeks now, lookin out the window at it. All I can do is sit here online buying this N that's for it. Fav purchase? I had a decal made, It's OK ..... I have a winch. Back in the day, there was a pic of a truck buried to the windows in mud. On the top of the tailgate somebody wrote with a rattle can....It's OK...I have a winch. Been waiting forever to use that one!
How did the surgery go? You gonna be ready to rock & roll this spring? 4 wheeler going up north? JustA sayin.
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10 hours ago, JUSTA6 said:
What are you waiting for? Do I see a garage addition?
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13 hours ago, Adam 240468 said:
Currently my Pontiac is in the garage and I won't drive it until April. This car does not drive in winter, only from April to November :)) Of course, I could repair it, but I don't want to, because I need a part that will not be glued and repaired. I think that since I repair and renovate engines, automatic transmissions and deal with electronics, I can also repair this casing. I only want to buy what is in the picture :)) and only the upper part. It is truly surprising that this filter housing was in so many types of GM cars and is nowhere to be found. I have a request: if you have the addresses of scrapyards in the USA, or those that have their own websites, I would be grateful if you could give me some addresses. I will write to them and present my problem. Maybe we will be able to find such a housing Thank you very much for your help so far. I am very grateful.
Not the most plentiful of parts. That said I have found a few that are around in neighboring states. Unfortunately I can’t tell you if they really have them or not. Or what condition they are in. Give me into next week to see what I can find. If I find that there is something worth chasing I’ll let you know & we’ll go from there.
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1 hour ago, Adam 240468 said:
I know that the photos don't show these damages, but believe me, they are there. The housing has broken fasteners, they were only glued to take a photo. The upper part is also broken and glued. The damage occurred when the alternative fuel, LPG, detonated. In Poland, it was quite popular to convert a car to run on a different fuel, such as LPG. It was also popular in Western Europe, e.g. Italy, the Netherlands etc. Sometimes, due to ignition errors, the gas and air mixture in the intake manifold detonated. The effect of such detonation is the destruction of the filter housing. It looks undamaged but is cracked in many places. I removed the LPG gas supply system a long time ago and now the vehicle runs only on gasoline. The filter housing is made of a material that cannot be glued with any glue, even specialized ones. That's why I need a second one that would be intact. I only need the upper part, because the lower part is undamaged. I know that this housing is also found in other vehicles and that's what I was looking for. Unfortunately, without any positive result :(( This part is probably unattainable for me
Adam I do understand your problem, so obviously the real fix is a replacement. That said I do believe you can repair your current top, at least for the time being, if you can get the right materials.
You need .020 - .025 thick aluminum. This material is very workable, I.E. easy to shear & easy to form. Than you need a good quality construction adhesive. The type they use to glue woods together, like wood subfloors to floor joists. You will need to form the aluminum to contour to the shape of the inside of the lip of the box & extend the aluminum up the inside of the box a couple inches. Run the aluminum the entire side of the box & on each side where there is a broken ear.Take a 120 grit sandpaper or something close to that & rough up the inside of the plastic box where the aluminum will attach. After you rough it up take some lacquer thinner & wipe down what you have sanded. Now you will need some thin pieces of wood or something like that so you can cut pieces to go on the inside & outside of the box to sandwich the aluminum using C clamps to clamp the entire aluminum piece in place. Spread the construction glue on to the plastic box where the aluminum plate will go. Put the aluminum piece in lay the wood over the aluminum, put the wood pieces on the outside & clamp. Leave it clamped over night.
Frosty is correct you should be able to find something here in the states because the box was the same across GM’s platforms for those years.
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Figured 8
Next would be front connections. You can make these connections how you wish. This is how I made mine. I kept the original basic connection concept for several reasons. One if I ever wanted to go back to a front mount battery, it would be easy. And secondly the original positive cable setup incorporates the supply to the main under hood fuse box & starter cable. Which if removed meant making some other setup, which just didn’t make sense to me. So below are pictures of how I made mine.
Figure 9Above in fig. 9 is the original battery tray & the original positive & negative cables. The positive cable: I made a Nylatron stanchion, this is a nylon with a molybdenum material, which makes it a better insulator. This stanchion is about 4.5” tall. It has a stainless steel wrap at the top with a 3/8 through hole that allows the new positive cable from the rear battery to connect on one side to the original positive cable on the other side.
Figure 10Above in fig. 10 is the negative cable connection it is made at the alternator. I made this the grounding point for the rear ground cable because the biggest issue for long run cables in a DC condition is voltage drop. So the biggest drop will be under engine cranking conditions. Since the original stock cable is still connected, fig. 9 the rest of the system is adequately supplied.
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1997-2003 Battery Relocation Project
I’m posting this because several folks have asked me about this & just how to accomplish it.
First of all I need to preface this with the edict, that this project is quite involved! If done in this manner. It will require, if done as described in these instructions, more than one day. & at least the partial removal of the interior.
You will need at least 25 ft. Of 2/0 welding cable for the + side & at least 30 ft. of 1/0 welding cable for the – side. I would recommend you make accurate measurements of both first before you buy, as welding cable is not cheap. You need welding cable because it well deliver the most power with the least loss of amperage over these long runs of cable. This is due to the fine strands of cooper wire. Additionally welding cable is very flexible, which you will need for this installation. You will also need high quality lugs that will be crimped on to the ends of the cables so you will need a crimper or a means that is big enough to do that. You should also consider heavy gage shrink tube to seal the lug ends to the cable. You’ll need a 300 amp mega fuse & holder that will mount in the trunk area. This is needed for safety, just in case something shorts for any reason! Even an accident could cause this occurrence. That fuse will blow keeping the battery from shorting & causing a fire!
I mounted the battery, which is a Odyssey battery PC925, under the spare tire. This batteries specs are more than sufficient & is the only style that will fit in this manner, which is to have the least amount of impact on the aesthetics of the trunk compartment. This configuration works very well, but requires the removal of the jack & it’s components, but not the spare. The jack & it’s components we’ll need stored elsewhere. You will need a battery hold down setup that can be bought at most auto parts stores. The following materials will be approximately the length of the bridge/brace you see below in fig.1 & by a width that will hose the battery. So the following will be needed, a 12”x?”x1/2” sheet of nylon, a 12”x?”x1/4” sheet of nylon & a 12”x?”x1/4” sheet of neoprene. These will be used to make the mounting base for the battery. You are going to remove the large styrofoam disc that the spare sits on as well as the threaded shaft assembly that holds the spare down & set them aside for now.
So starting with trunk mounting setup, I’ll use some pictures. (Figure 1 below)
This is the bare spare tire area, above. The factory bridge/brace is used as the anchor point for the mounting.
I do not have the dimensions that I used for the nylon plates, but you should be able to determine them based on the pictures that will be provided & the basic spare tire floor configuration & battery footprint. The 12”x?”x1/2 nylon plate should be cut so there are two pieces. One goes on one side of the bridge/brace & the second piece goes on the other side. When cut to their finished size, their combined dimensions, plus the width of the bridge/brace front to back, will determine the dimensions of the upper 12”x?”x1/4”nylon plate. Which will end up the size you determine.
(Figure 2 below)
In this picture you can see the corresponding screws that attach the assembly to the bridge/brace as shown in fig.1. You can also see that the ½” piece of nylon adjacent to the two rubber knockout plugs is relieved to clear the trunk floor upsets it lays over. What you can’t see is that those two pieces of ½” nylon are attached to the ¼” nylon piece with screws on the underside, so that this becomes a one piece assembly to install.
You also need to drill a clearance hole for the spare tire threaded shaft assembly. Now cut a piece of the neoprene to a dimension that is slightly larger than the battery footprint. Next you need the battery or at least the battery footprint & the spare tire styrofoam. Cut a square out of the center of it, but much smaller than you need & Install the styrofoam back in place using the tire threaded hold down as a locating guide. Lay the neoprene in the styrofoam & center it in the middle. When you are sure it’s where you want it mark the styrofoam for cutting, fig. 4. After cutting the styrofoam mark the nylon like you see in figure 3. Remover the styrofoam & place the neoprene on the nylon as in fig. 3. Referencing to fig. 5 you will see the type of battery hold down I used. Using the top piece of the hold down as a guide, mark where you want the holes for the threaded rod to be used for the hold down. I used 1/4x20 all thread, drilled & tapped the top nylon plate & used a double nut on the backside. You can see I made brass L brackets to use on the battery terminals to keep the profile low. I also needed to carve some of the styrofoam out of the spare tire styrofoam to allow access to those L brackets. Fig. 6 shows the assembly without the clamping bracket in place. Fig. 7 shows the entire assembly with the spare tire styrofoam installed.
(Figure 3)below
Next is the 300 amp fuse/holder installation & location. If you remove the trunk liner padding you will find the rear valance bracing panel. Within that panel is where you can place this fuse & it’s holder. From the battery I recommend that you run 2 negative cables. Both will run into the valance brace panel. A shorter one will route to the far left & attach via a bolt to that panel. The other will run inside of this panel as well, but will go to the right (passenger side & exit the panel out the end. Then you will run a 2/0 + cable from the battery to the inside the panel to the 300 amp fuse holder located on the far right (passenger side). On the other side of the fuse holder you’ll connect the main long run 2/0 cable that will run all the way to the front of the car. This cable will also exit out the end of the panel. These two cables positive & negative will run together. Snake these cables along the floor where the floor & inner fender/body panels meet. Using aluminum tape, the type they use on heating ducts, attach the cables to this area in a continuous manner. In this way you create electronic noise shielding, cable protection & assure yourself it stays put. These cables will run inside of the car. So this is where you’ll need to remove the rear seat, top & bottom the front passenger seat & the carpet. Either remove the carpet, which will require the removal of all seats & console or lift up the carpet & hold it out of the way while you do the work. You will want to attach the with the aluminum tape to the vertical portion of the inside rocker panel, but near the floor. You need to run it this way all the way to where the floor starts to transition into the firewall.In the picture below (fig. 😎 you can see the two cables exiting through the plastic body plug. You need to locate this plug, which is just inboard of the subframe at the firewall & remove it. Than reference it location relative to it position inside of the car. You will than need to drill two holes large enough to put in rubber grommets that each cable can pass through. You need the rubber grommets to protect the cables from getting cut by the sheet metal over time. Than these cables will pass through the opening were the plastic plug was. Cut two holes in the plastic plug, put the cables through each hole respectively & reinstall the plastic plug.
More to come!
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Pete’s correct. Unless you have a distributor machine, which I did in the day, it’s very difficult if not impossible to get the advance curve you need or want. It’s also very time consuming, as you need to know the torque/hp profile of the engine. Plus for a basic stock motor like yours it pretty self defeating. You also need all the pieces parts to do that work. Different strength springs, weights that are different in weight so their centrifugal force activities at different times/speed. Even a mill or drill press if you need to modify an advance plate.
These are things you do for racing just to gain a half second or for big cam street engines that can take advantage of that, as well as drink a lot of fuel! It’s not really something you need for a cruiser.
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Paul, as I said whatever you do I wish you well! That said, it didn’t sound like you were lowering the car so much for looks, but for handling. Is that right?
If you like the look of the car lowered that’s fine, but if your main reason is to get a better handling car than lowering, 2” will have some impact on body roll, I.E. weight transfer because you will have lowered the CG, but effectively done next to nothing for the RC. Changing the RC is by far the more effective way to increase handling/cornering.
Remember, most folks think you control the suspension through the sprung weight of the car above, I.E. high or low body, weight of the sprung mass, body bushings etc… that sits on the suspension. That is completely wrong! A suspension controls the movement of the unsprung parts. Upper & lower Aarms, spindles, brakes, tires, rims. Is there an interface? Of course, but that is controlled by the unsprung suspension design, not the other way around. The single purpose of that design is to keep the tires planted on the ground, firmly! All of that said I think, I could be wrong, but I think you want a sweet spot! One that gives you a good ride, but doesn’t make you sea sick in cornering. Those things are controlled at the unsprung level & the only caveat to that rule are sway bars! They are truly that interface! They have virtually no impact on ride comfort from a stiffening standpoint. Yet can, if properly designed & installed, reduce body roll to a barley negligible effect, without changing CG or RC.
The second most effective way to increase handling is to widen the cars stance. You say you are running 14” tires with 215R70s. So for instance if you were to change to 15” rims, increase the tire to a 245R60 & change the off set by .720, combined with the wider tire x2, you would now have a track width 1.625” wider than you had. That may not seem like much, but at ground level that’s a pretty good impact on cornering. All without really changing much with the car. The biggest impact would be the speedometer, which would read less than 2 MPH slower than you would actually be driving.
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10 hours ago, Bonne61 said:Hey @Last Indian, how does this sound to you?
Paul, spark plugs & distributors, those are Both a kind of you need to be there to see & answer, but I’ll do my best. First do you know why you run colder or hotter plugs? I always ran the coldest plugs I could get away with, even if I needed to change them or clean them more often. Why? Colder plugs deliver the hottest spark/energy to the combustion mixture. While hotter plugs give the coldest spark/energy to the mixture. Sounds backwards I know. That’s basically it in a nutshell. Their single purpose for that is the deposits that buildup on the porcelain around the electrode that can cause fouling & pre or post ignition. Those two occurrences are much more typical with leaded fuel than with non leaded. So unless you run a lead additive or burn oil a hotter plug is really counterproductive. People run them for other reasons, but the variation of the whole design is to deliver a weaker or stronger spark to control deposits.
Distributors, what you described your wizard to indicate I would agree with. There are way to limit the internal advance of those distributors & I never liked vacuum advances so I always delete them if I ran a Delco, which wasn’t often. Non leaded fuel & a normal cam profile will not like a lot of timing initial or advanced. So I would look at 8 – 12 for initial & 28 – 32 for total. My “69” Z/28 was a big lift cam, lots of overlap & duration. Big carb! I ran 20 – 25 initial & 45 total, which was all mechanical & full advanced @ 3500 rpm. I could run that because the fuel charge was so dense & fresh detonation just didn’t happen.
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Well while you didn’t ask me l’ll give my 2 cents. Pete is correct the suspension geometry plays a pivotal role in this process which nearly everyone ignores! Where you place the suspension axis impacts everything! Toe, caster, camber, turning radius, roll center, CG, weight distribution in braking & tire wear & so on! You can lower a car to the ground or raise it 5 feet in the air, but what are the repercussions that most ignore or except?
I won’t carry on about it, but I never really got any of it. In my humble opinion a car looks best with a stout stance! Cars set down look weak! Just like car wheels that are thin spoked or blacked out (that just blends into the black tire etc. all just look weak in the same way, IMO. But beyond that if your goal is to make the car handle better lowering it is not the way to get there. I have built car of many varieties, including lowering ones. All of them took an enormous amount of computation to know what I would need so I knew what I would have in the end.
To kiwi’s point, the best bang for your buck would be sway bar setups front & rear, & bigger is better. And the shortest link ends as possible. Nothing & I mean nothing will effect handling more than sway bars of the most optimal size, with the right bushing material & the correctly size end links!
Whatever you choose, I wish you the best!
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Finally managed to get at least the aluminum cover plate done for the right side, which is the reverse of the left. All in between 2 solid weeks of multiple fix it projects for the kid, neighbors & ourselves! Just crazy!
In the process I decided I need to rethink the polycarbonate bottom plate design. So I don’t know what that’s going to look like yet.- 5
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Ditto, Ditto & triple Ditto! Beautiful work, beautiful machines! The picture really just doesn’t tell the story, or due justice to the scope or the attention to detail.
Very well deserved!
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Welcome to the madness! The MS2000 platform was the last great FWD made in the USA! It can be come an unparalleled FWD with the right work. Enjoy it!
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On 12/27/2023 at 3:40 PM, Frosty said:I can indeed answer that question Last Indian.
The first production use of red dash lights on a Pontiac was the 1979 Tenth Anniversary Trans Am (sometimes referred to as the TATA). They were not available on any other Pontiac that year. They finally became standard on all Firebirds in 1982 (with the 3rd generation Firebird). They were later integrated into all other Pontiac models during the 1980's. Interesting to note that the 2004-2006 GTO does not have red dash lights since it was built in Australia.
Thanks Frosty! I could have sworn that I remember way older Pontiac’s having them! Must be olds timers! Or maybe it’s just because I’ve never had anything but red dash lights in anything. As I always change them. That is until the Lacrosse’s! Not even going to attempt that dash! What a nightmare!
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On 12/27/2023 at 9:21 AM, 31pontiac said:
I agree with you 31, but everyone seems to like red! Although I would say as I did before, that what these look like in person is much different in the pictures. That said I still have a long way to go before I’m done. Still have the other side to do, plus the two back sills which will be different, but I don’t know how yet. And of course there is still some playing around to do!
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Merry Christmas all & a Happy New Year as well!
JustA, the best to you & yours this season!
Ringo, thanks for all you do! Even those things we never see! Have a great first holiday season with your new bride!
And 31, JustA keep us drooling all year long, happy holidays!
The holidays have not always been kind though.
One totaled Z/28 Christmas night 1977
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I’m sure most Pontiac faithful know some of the history of Pontiac’s red dash lights! They are of legend. And while I can’t find specifically when the first Pontiac used it, I can’t think of a time they weren’t. Why & where the decision to use red came from I can only speculate! Perhaps Frosty knows? Or can obtain that info, but till then I would argue for my usually reason; the old timers were pretty damn smart. You see, because of the wavelength of red light, it offers some distinct advantages that came in very handy, noticeably so during WWI forward. Red light does not night blind, but all other colors do, but in various degrees depending on their wavelength. This means when you glance up from your gages that are not red your eyes have to adjust to the darker conditions around you. It may only take seconds, but that may be all the difference needed between seeing a deer coming from a darkened area or not! Also when you look forward out the windshield, above the dash, the red lighted dash basically disappears from your peripheral down vision. So you are not distracted by that light. That is not the case with the brighter greenish or blueish etc. dash lights.
Today in cities & most urban areas you don’t really notice the night blindness issue as much as you did 30, 40 or 50 years ago. One, most of these areas are well lit now! Way back even 20 & 30 years a lot of these areas had no lights at all! Yet when they did start to light them they did so with white light. Over time it was realized that the white light not only cased certain visual problems, but we’re less effective! So, do you realize that the principal behind those red dash lights are why most street lights started changing over to amber/reddish street lights we have today.
Anyway, long way around to my purpose. What light color to use for the sill plates? JustA’s Pontiac down light that I have shining on the front carpet is red! My side dome lights are red! When is red to much red? So take a look & tell me what you think. And it is really hard to get a good representation of what these sill plates look like when lit!
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On 12/16/2023 at 4:46 PM, Ringo64 said:
Someone needs to grab this that’s going to respect it.
You should grab it Ringo! South Carolina not that far away! You could drive it home!
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Frosty's Garage Mahal
in Pontiac General Discussion/Questions
Posted · Edited by Last Indian
What I’m speaking of has to be done inside. Outside would be a futile wasted effort. That said it works very well. Water never goes past the vinyl bridge & drains into the to French drains. Mine is to keep any water from getting to the overhead door, causing ice to form in the winter. Because no matter how good of a weatherstrip you have on the bottom of the door, water will still get by it.
In Frosty’s case he needs it to work in the opposite way. Keeping whatever water comes in from going any farther than the vinyl bridge than into the drains. It’s just a matter of whether a French drain will work or if he needs it to perform as a crock.