Andy H

Shopping trip today down to OPGI , the body bushings came earlier than expected.

You guys have all these really cool Holdens that never shoved up here in the US, what is a 186 engine? straight 4? Mine is a 32 with a 489ci and tko 5spd, you got it will have no traction, so what😁 that is why the kids probably should not take it out so the Pontiac will work better.

Not finished a Pontiac got in the way😁

Sure thing, just got to paint a few more things so i can start putting the front end back together, picked the brakes up yesterday. There is parts everywhere, running out of space my garage i kind of small and my 32 is in there too.

A couple more pics, this is kind of where it is right now got most of the front suspension painted, cleaned and blasted the spindles and the control arms, installed new bushings and ball joints. it will also get all new steering linkages and body bushings eventually but they are on back order until April 😒 A lot of surface rust but no holes, only had to cut one lower bolt off for a fender everything else just unbolted with some lube. Nice with a CA car. Made a tub with water and citric acid and dipped a few parts and it works great. some stuff i brought to work and ran them in the big machine washing machine and some got bead blasted, i think i will have the inner fenders and core support powder coated that way i don't have to deal with those. After removing the evaporator and heater fan housing on the firewall i realized that the heater box on the inside is sandwiched with the pieces that i removed and the firewall so now is the time to remove the inside heater box also to replace all the seals and make sure everything works, after removing the inside heater box we found some small rust holes in the floor on the passenger side but nothing else inside the car except for some surface rust around where the heater box was mounted so i started sanding it down and we will have to see if i can just weld the holes in the floor or if i have to cut some pieces out and replace. Going to put disc brakes on the front,Had a long discussion with a friend of mine that builds cars for a living for a car collector and has tried a lot of the kits out there through the years oh yea he is pretty opinionated also 😁 after a lot of back and fort i found a kit at ABS power brake here in Orange CA that bolts right up to my stock spindles and uses calipers from a late 80s Cadillac and i am going to run manual brakes, got a brake master from a 72 Vega with a 3/4" bore and this is also something my friend had tried before so we will have to see how that works on this one. According to him he gets almost the same pedal effort with this as with a booster. I am still fighting with the rear "hidden" oil galley plug that doesn't want to come out might have to take the block back up to the machine shop, would really like to get this one out so i can clean it properly before i put it back together.

Good stuff, some of this will happen now and some is going to have to wait until we get it running. The steering box i have thought about before but what is your experience as far as feel? if i'm not mistaken around town these cars are not to bad but on the highway they tend to have to much P/S. Also did not know what the original box ratio is so i did not have anything to compare with. Just put LED bulbs in my wife's car the other week so yeas that is a easy one. I don't have a distributor so that is the one i had in mind, which they had a as cast instead of the shiny one, have one in my 32. Actually a friend of mine work for the exhaust side of Petronix, think they have Doug's headers an a couple of more brands. All the rubber is going to be replaced for sure, most of it is gone anyway. Got a little busy with family stuff but i will put up more pics when i get a chance.

Frosty. A lot of the things you mentioned are in progress and other will come later, please keep the ideas coming. When I get a chance I'll update som more

Frosty. And it's listed as 9.2 compression no way with high 80s cc

A couple of more pictures today. We started by pulling the engine and trans, put it up in the engine stand and pulled the heads and pan, OMG a total loss, everything way rusty, barley got the pistons out of it and they where brand new when parked. A coworker overheard that i was looking for an engine and told me he had a leftover 350 with th350 trans takeout engine for free, just come and pick it up so i did. Got the engine home pulled it apart and it is looking like it was a cheap auto parts store engine, it was 030 over, crank 020 020 and the heads where a mess, one replaced seat, had both positive style seals and also o rings on top,used the wrong valve looks, they where to long and covered the second grove from the top on the valves, the one that is supposed to hold the o ring and they are about 90cc so very low compression. Block of to machine shop and one cyl needed a sleeve and they bored it to 040, crank got polished other wise OK, bought some other heads in the mid 70's cc range to get the compression up a bit. going to tap the front oil galley plug holes this weekend if i get time then cleanup time and put back together. Plans for car? turn it in to a nice driver with A/C and hopefully a overdrive trans eventually so you can take some longer trips in comfort, have had cars in the past that i have added over drive trans to and it is so nice to cruise down the highway at 75mph and turning less then 2000rpm. This car can be used like a family car and the kids could probably take it out on their own eventually unlike my 32 coupe with 489 and 5spd ( not finished yet) Don't want to take it apart to much at a time, have sen to many cars totally taken apart and then the owner overwhelmed and the car never getting finished. want the car to become drive able and work out the bugs first and then working on getting it painted. The two last pictures are from the heads that came on the 350, any body got any idea what they are? could not make any sense of it, look like NO17 and casting date probably 1970 and the chamber size are almost 90cc? Any ideas? not that it really matters, just curious. More another day when i get a chance

Love this, great discussion guys, a lot of knowledge and experience here and also some opinions😄 Machine shops are getting hard to find especially good ones, used one for my 489 BB in my 32 3W but it is now gone, when i worked in the automotive repair shop we had a couple we used but also gone. Franks Pontiac that i got my heads from lists them as cleaned and magnafluxed and it looked like they had been bead blasted or similar. I think they will be fine for now, guides check OK and the pattern on the valves when i lapped them was good, they are flat, checked them with straight edge. basically the worst that could happen is i need another set of gaskets if i need something done later.

Hopefully it will be a nice driver i will post some more pictures when I get a chance.we have torn it down quite a bit by now.

So i figured i start a tread about the progress on our car and start adding as we go. We bought this 64 LeMans from a coworker that had it sitting in his backyard for 20 years, his dad bought it from the original owner. The engine was rebuilt 20years ago, newer started and sat with out intake or spark plugs. When i initially looked at the car i thought it was to rough and needed to much work but the more i thought about it i just could not let it slip away.

Frosty- Have you had or seen any heads that has been severely damaged due to this? I have seen this discussion in several palaces through the years but really not seen any heads that had severe problems with the seats/ guides. I am not sure what it would cost to replace all the seats and guides and also with the price of purchasing the heads it must be getting close to just buying new aluminum heads? I remember when they started with unleaded gas that this was a big topic, all old engines was going to die but don't think that it exactly worked out that way. Yes these heads have the original seats but I'm not going to worry about it for now, it is not to bad to pull them off in the car if i have to and it will not be a daily driver so it will probably be OK

Frosty- think i got i figured out, Pomona is something i did not think about and that's i good idea, have not been there in years and we also have Long Beach swap meet but not sure i want to do that right now with everything going on, to many people. Found three cyl heads on Franks Pontiac's web site #15, #46 and #47 so i drove out there and brought my stuff to CC the heads right there (two hour drive) and they where very cool to let me do that right there, Checked the #47 heads first and What i found on line is that they are supposed to be 72cc or 73cc but not, they where right around 80cc so no. Next up was a set of #46 heads from a 69 428 and what i found is that they are supposed to be 10:1 or 72cc and they turned out to be around 74cc so those are the ones i got, paid $450 That should put my compression right below 9:1 witch should be OK. The heads turned out to be really nice and did not have to have a valve job at the machine shop, seats where nice and not to wide and the guides OK, the valves needed to be ground but the valves in my old head( same size) was good so i just used those instead and hand lapped them. (I used to do valve jobs at a dealer i worked for a long time ago) Got the block back from the machine shop, one cyl sleeved and had to go from ,030 to .040. Now i just need to pick a camshaft.looking at a comp cam xtreme energy 51-221-4 potentially. Currently working on tapping the front oil galley holes. I'll post some picture of the progress with the car when i get a chance ( and figure out how to upload pictures) Thanks for replying

Thank you Frosty, Wow that was a lot of good information,What is the difference between A/T and M/T heads? chamber size? and can you tell on the head? You are listing a few 1967 heads was that a split year for open/ closed chambers? What is thoughts on open vs closed chambers? Looking on Franks Pontiac website here in SoCal and all the Big valve heads go for around $800 or more but found two sets 1.94/1.66 heads with smaller chambers for $200-$400 is it worth the extra $ for the big valve head for a almost stock engine? Also read somewhere about valve shrouding with big valve heads and a small bore 350, any truth to this? The Edelbrock heads would be the way to go but comes with a pretty steep price tag unfortunately. Any god ideas about other places to look for used heads?

So i have a 350 Pontiac engine that is bored 030 over that was given to me and i´m trying to piece this thing together for my -64 Le Mans, its going to be a almost stock street engine with perhaps a small cam also have a Edelbrock performer intake that i intend to use with a 600cfm 4bbl carburetor. I CCed one of the combustion chambers and it is 92CC so the compression ratio is going to be very low, probably around 7.5. I would like to se something around 9.0-9.5 if possible and what i probably need is a cyl head with a chamber in the low70s cc so any idea what head to look for? Found a pair of 1969 #47 heads from a 350 that i think is supposed to be 72cc. 67 #140 heads from a 326 is closed or open chamber and what size? all i find is a listing of 9,25 comp no cc numbers. So what heads to look for and what to stay away from? whats better closed or open chambers, does it matter?

Thanks The 326 would probably have required sleeves on all cylinders so i´m going to see if i can use the 350 i got and put the front cover and all the rest of the sheet metal so that my accessory drives fit. The 350 need one sleeve and i might have to go to 040 over if the adjoining cylinders get to much distorted when they put the sleeve in (its 030 over now) I may want to try to find some other cylinder heads since the 350 heads cc´ed at 92cc and i like to bump the compression up a few notches.

Thanks, it might be a while before we get this one back on the road. Got the engine block at the machine shop right now but it appears that everybody is playing with their toys so they are really swmped.

Just got a 64 Lemans that had been sitting in my coworkers backyard for 20years it was bought by his dad from the original owner, it had the 326 engine rebuilt 20 years ago and never completely reinstalled or because of this never started, sat with intake off and no spark plugs so lots of rust in the cylinders and probably a total loss. Another coworker gave me a 350 engine and transmission and are currently working on getting that engine pieced together.