Bonne61

Hey all,

I am wanting to purchase a set of poverty caps for the Bonneville, so I can occasionally swap from the full covers and rear skirts to just caps & chrome trim rings for a different look (thinking of painting the rimes the same colour as the car, too).

As far as I can tell the car is running standard original wheels (they're 5x5, 14x6, & are running Genuine Pontiac full wheel covers). The approximate measurements of the centre of the rim that a cap would need to fit onto is 260mm (or 10 ¼"). Photos attached of a rim, and the current wheel cover.

Can anyone advise me what style centre caps may fit (I expect nothing Chevy will?), & where they would be available?

If centre caps aren't a realistic option, would I be able to fit the smaller wheel centres that slip through the rim?

Thank in advance 🙏

Hey all,

A few outwardly minor improvements today, some of which will have a major impact on our enjoyment of the car!

In order...

1. Got my cigarette outlet powered and working, so we now have iPhone charging ability on long trips 🤙

2. Re-glued my front door lower carpet trims and rear carpet where it had begun to lift away

3. Maybe some of you have had this same issue, & have come up with a better engineered fix? If so, please share.

I have not been able to solve the way the car spews fuel all over my hand and the side of itself EVERY fcuking time I refuel it. Because these days the splash flange on all the bowsers is only about 2" in diameter, the fuel just sprays straight past them. No amount of technique change or adaptation has helped. So, I have cut down a funnel so it will slide over the bowser nozzle facing back towards the car and hopefully direct any splash back towards the fuel tank, rather all over the poor bastard who is filling the tank (me🤬). Hopefully the photos will help make sense of the job🙏

Hey all,

We took Miss Pontiac to GreazeFest Kustom and Kulture Festival this weekend 😎

It was our first time there, but what an amazing weekend. The weather was a bit damp on Sunday morning, but the enthusiasm wasn't!

For those who don't know, it's a Rockabilly Festival that had heaps of cool cars (see photos-credit to the 2x close ups of our car must go to Phil Kellow), live music early until late all weekend (I've included the lineup for those interested), food and market stalls, and just an absolute blast! 💃🕺

The car ran perfectly all weekend - it was nice to take to for a decent run. About 1 ½ hours south of home, plus we stayed closer to the City so a ½ hour run there and back each day. Even got to test out the new thermo fan, as we sat idling waiting to enter for about an hour on the Saturday morning, and didn't lose a drop of coolant. Who-hoo, yet another permanent solution to a pain in the arse problem 🤙

Looking good for summer here (South East Queensland), and the Cooly Car Cruise next year 🙏

10 hours ago, JUSTA6 said:

Don't know if you have been reading my fuel system woe's.  After having the tank in/out a number of times, replaced my in tank with an outside fuel pump. Then blasting past the carb gaskets with the new 7lbs pressure.  Have had it apart more times than I can count and now waiting on a fuel pressure regulator.  At least I'm glad your up N running again.

Yes I've read about your problems.

I actually swapped back from an outside tank electric pump to a Holley manual fuel pump with the rebuild. The noise of the electric one was annoying, and for my final specs we decided the manual fuel pump was up to the job.

Seems to be fine 😊

Hope yours ends well, & quickly 🤙

Some of you have probably been through this, but I'm sure I'll heal quicker emotionally if I share the experience 😂

It all started simply enough...

I finally found somebody locally who was able to calibrate my fuel sender/fuel gauge. As it happens I was supplied the wrong one - it fitted ok but according to the instrumentation technician the ohms range was incorrect 😡

Anyhoo...getting the arse of car high enough to give me some room to work was a bit of a challenge, although not as much as trying to balance the tank between jack stands, a trolley jack and my knees while removing the fuel sender. Nice to get an unexpected Premium Unleaded bath 😬

However when I went under the dash to remove the fuel gauge, I discovered that instead of it being an individual unit like the clock, it was part of the dash cluster. I should have known...🙄

It took me over an hour to work out the exact angle/method to extract it, by which time I was missing a fair bit of skin, and all of my patience 👿

2 days later I had my gauge cluster and sender unit back, then had to reverse the entire procedure which proved to be even more difficult. Of course the tank slipped and I ended up with it landing on my knees & chest, providing me with yet another fuel bath. After getting the tank end sorted, back I went under the dash. By the time I finally managed to reinsert the cluster, work out the location of all the bulbs, and wire in the module so my gauge would read correctly, over 2 ½ hours had passed.

Ecstatic to have it all complete, I dropped it down and attempted to start it up. Nope, that wasn't going to go to plan either. The only available fuel I had was soaked into my clothes, skin and the garage floor, so I wound it over hoping it would draw enough fuel to run until my new battery was all but flat 😟

Next day I took the battery to get checked and charged, and was lucky enough that it hadn't completely died. Back in the car  and away it went - after everything it ran just fine. And after filling the tank my fuel gauge is actually reading full, so it seems to have been all worth it 🤷‍♂️

And today - a neat label for my new fuse box lid😎

It's even colour coded for my Bonneville😀

No problem knowing what's what now, thanks to my mate @jvdesigns2020 (check him out on IG🙂.

Been tossing around what to do about an overflow canister for my '61 after the rebuild...sorted!

Powder coated aluminium, blends in, hides underneath the top plate when looking into the engine bay, 1.5l capacity, overflow/recovery system.

Pretty happy with how it turned out😎

5 hours ago, Frosty said:

What size wheels are you planning on running? Many brake kits required 15 inch (or larger) wheels. IF you are running 14 inch wheels, then this greatly reduces the possibilities.

That's the issue - I want to stay with the original 14's...

1 hour ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

Paul, Fitzy  is doing the brake upgrade on his 65 as we speak !! 

back in my thread you will find, i had sorced a dual master cylinder from rock auto out of a later 1960s' chev , they have the correct bolt pattern and bore size for drum/drum set up.....sooooo.

keep an eye on Fitzy thread ! 

i have not fitted mine yet as i need for the 64 to be stock when it goes for its compliance checks, then i will swap out the single outlet master cylnder with the dual circut one.

it will make your brakes wayyyy safer, and brake better too !!

hopefully Fitzty sees your question 

Thanks for that - I'll check out Fitzy's thread

1 hour ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

Paul, Fitzy  is doing the brake upgrade on his 65 as we speak !! 

back in my thread you will find, i had sorced a dual master cylinder from rock auto out of a later 1960s' chev , they have the correct bolt pattern and bore size for drum/drum set up.....sooooo.

keep an eye on Fitzy thread ! 

i have not fitted mine yet as i need for the 64 to be stock when it goes for its compliance checks, then i will swap out the single outlet master cylnder with the dual circut one.

it will make your brakes wayyyy safer, and brake better too !!

hopefully Fitzty sees your question 

Thanks for that - I'll check out his thread 🤙

Hey there,

I'd like to improve safety a little on my '61 Bonneville, without breaking the bank or modifying the car too much.

It is fitted with a single reservoir master cylinder behind the power booster (see attached photo) & has drums all around (standard set up, I believe).

What I'd like to do is fit a dual master cylinder, to provide some redundancy in case of a failure in the system. If I also gain some additional braking power that would be great, but not entirely necessary ( a the car brakes are fine for the way we drive it - it isn't a muscle car, rather a cruiser).

Due to cost/benefit, I don't want to go down the path of discs. While I know they will provide much better braking, by the time I buy/fit the kit & source new wheels/tyres to suit (I'm currently running the original 14's!), the cost is around $4000-$5000. 

My questions are:-

1. Does anyone know of a dual master cylinder that would fit? If so, am I able to buy one new or will I need to source a used one & take my chances with the condition?

2. What else would I need to fit in addition to the master cylinder, if such an upgrade is possible?

3. Are there any other recommendations you may have for me?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated 😊
 

Hey there everyone,

After a ridiculously long wait for the Edelbrock to arrive & a supply mix up with my distributor, the car is back on the road & running beautifully 😃

I've also managed to source a replacement generator, which is in - keeping the original as a working spare.

And after much deliberation, I've followed some advice & had a thermo fan installed. I expect the purists among you probably won't agree with the decision but I now have some piece of mind that if I'm sitting in traffic or idling around in hot weather, I'm not going to destroy my brand new engine 🤷‍♂️
It's set up as a push fan on a manual switch so the original fan is still in there & working, which keeps the original look right.

The car was first set up with 6 degrees initial timing, but it pulled so hard it was forcing the transmission to slip. Great fun but I don't have the funds to either replace or rebuild the transmission right now, so changes had to be made! We've settled on a happy medium that still lights up the back wheels if prodded in anger, but isn't too savage on the rest of the gear. It is a cruiser after all...
It now cold starts first go, drives away easily after a few minutes warm up, & is silky smooth at any revs 😎

Even my daughter loves driving it, although she seems to be a little too keen on the throttle 😬😂

I've dropped in a couple of photos too 🤙

We're back safe and sound from Cooly's (see separate Cooly Rocks On post for some pics), and barely a hiccup.

The car ran pretty well, all things considered...

The distributor bush evaporated a coupe of days before we were due to leave, but after having it looked at we decided to take the car anyway - seems it was going to be somewhat noisy but otherwise ok. New distributor ordered, & has arrived before the bloody Edelbrock (still waiting for that to get here😡).

The Saturday Night Car Cruise (which I was really looking forward to) went on without us in the end. After crawling into position & sitting in the lineup for over an hour, Miss Pontiac had a hot flush😆 It seems idling for that long is not her favourite pastime...

Lesson learnt - next time I'll leave it later before joining the line (apparently I was a little bit too eager), & hopefully avoid the issue. To be fair, it has done over 2500 miles since rebuild & that is the only time temperature has been a problem - it's only used about 1l of water otherwise.

I've had the fuse block replaced (pics of new and old attached), so now all of the lights work as they should (in the case of the headlights, still not great🤷‍♂️). Once the carby and distributor are in, the next spend is going to be on some new headlights. I've found some Australian made LED units that (by all reports) look very similar to OEM lights (ie: a more warm light, rather than the typical LED cool blue), but provide excellent lighting (at a price though - about $450/pair).

Until then😁

Hey everyone,

We've just got home from an amazing week at Cooly Rocks On 2023 - an annual event held at Coolangatta, on the Gold Coast in Queensland.

It was our first time, and as I've been told a few times you all love photos, so here's a photo dump of a selection of my favourites from the week.

By all reports over 950 cars and 100,000 people attended the 5 day long event - we entered in both the Early Bird Show N' Shine and the main Show N' Shine, so Miss Pontiac 1961 was right in on the action.

There are a few photos of my girls in here too, just to add a personal touch😉

Enjoy!!! (we did😎)

On 6/7/2023 at 1:34 AM, Wrongway said:

Skirts for sure bro. Did you do the gold yourself or send it out? Looks great, very professional.

One mate of mine arranged the gold coating, & another hand-retouched the black.

Legends, both 🙌🏼

9 hours ago, Fitzy said:

Not me you fools - girls in skirts. You remember girls - those nice soft things we used to play with before the Pontiac entered the garage.

The rumour about me in a skirt is a viscious lie...besides, I haven't got the legs for one.

Maybe you just need to try different lengths, until you find what’s right for you 😂