rocketraider

I think you encountered a judge unfamiliar with AMC. Lot of AACA-eligible Japanese vehicles also use plastic fuel filters. My best advice? Factory documentation and submit it to VP-Judging. That way it goes into the judging system for reference.

Sorry if I'm tromping on anyone's toes here, but in a lot of my car magazines the car owners are always saying "we wanted a car to take the kids/grandkids for an ice cream". What's up with the obsession with "going for an ice cream"?🍨

Wow. Don and Sarah, Jim and Carlo. Some of the first people I met during my stint as an OCA Zone director. Fine people. Then there was Don O'Connor and his 64s. The man I went to with questions and frustrations when my first Starfire was beating me up.

Pastis is either nuts or genius, I still haven't figured out which! But like all great cartoonists, he holds nothing sacred.

I smell a troll and it stinks. NO Dodge Neon is worth ten mil, even if it were 24k gold plated. I daresay not worth ten grand in the grand scheme of things. Look where it originated. NY financial district isn't the real world in the first place. Too much money with no concept of it's true value. But, his car in his world. He can ask what he wants. And the rest of us can sit back and whoop.🙂

There's a ruckus going on in Oldsworld right now over a 70 442 that has both Rallye Pac and NightWatch- a combination that every piece of 1970 Olds sales and ordering literature specifically says N.A. together. The owner has gotten a little red around the gills since he's realised he bought a typical 50 year old cobbled together car done by someone who didn't know what they were doing, but figured a car with the option book thrown at it would sell quick. Buyer take your chances. I finally asked the owner what would he rather have, Rallye Pac or NightWatch. Because given the limits of 1970 technology, he couldn't have both. And neither option is working correctly.

And what, pray tell, is wrong with having an "insolent chariot"? 😼 Padgett, you were the exception. The difference is if a car was ordered new and delivered fully loaded vs having options slathered on 30 years after the fact. I know a GTO guy who actually lost sleep because his 65 didn't have every possible option. It progressed from obsession to mania.

I'm neutral on the TriFives. They look good enough and were reliable and simple to maintain. I do not understand the obsession with loading them to the hilt with options when the cars are restored. Anyone should know that highly optioned Chevrolets from that time are an aberration. Dealers didn't order them as the typical Chevy buyer didn't buy them.

Odd this has come up. In the last two weeks I have seen a red Allante tooling around town and a Metro ragtop on the Chevy dealer's discount lot for $2350. It didn't look bad. But, it was white and I will never own another gray, silver or white car, and the Chevy dealer is just a little "oily" if you get my drift.

Or in vernacular, a-holes.🙈🙉🙊

My Aunt Wilma went by "Billie" her whole life! 😺 She ran her own hair salon "Billie's Beauty Bar". In the 60s, B52s were her specialty (B52= beehive or bouffant).

Here in the South they'd probably call them "Waustses"! Easier to just call 'em "stingers", no?

The more of this stuff you have, the better you understand your vehicle. I've settled a few Oldsmobile judging disputes with my literature, esp when there were factory "fixes" involved. Also when a judge didn't know as much about the cars he was scoring as he thought. 2016 Olds Nats, the only 1964 Starfire on the field (and one of the three nationwide I know of) that had its correct chambered pipes/resonator exhaust got docked significantly for "non-factory exhaust". The judge who docked it will judge nothing but Starfires, and I was busy judging another class. CSM, 1964 Facts and Features manual, and parts book settled the question, albeit too late for the car to win its best of class. So yeah, if your goal is total accuracy, you need the stuff.

That qualifies as a "huffing device"!😏 Knew Spyders were supposed to have them, but you always have to ask. I don't think the Turbo Corvairs got recalled like the Olds Jetfires did.

Might Peter have a huffing device on his engine?😎 "Huffing device" is what one of my young car friends always called blowers. Belt driven or exhaust driven, it was a "huffing device". A gearhead who could play with words- it gets no better!

Oh hail yayus! Thanks!

Happy 68th birthday to singer John Hiatt. Find and enjoy "Slow Turning" video featuring a sharp 51 BelAir. I'd post the vid for you but I can't figure how to put it in this post. Among other things I can't figure out how to make this phone do.

I believe the factory procedure involved removing the wheel, raising the engine up a couple inches, and going in thru the wheelwell. Engineer who designed that setup ought to be beat about the head with all the tools involved in the job. No sense or good reason in designing things that turn a half-hour job into a half-day ordeal. 'Course they outdid themselves on alternator r&r on W-body cars with 3.4 engines. I wanted a Z34 Lumina till I saw what that job involved.

Anybody remember the dollar pumps? In the days before major oil companies adopted self serve at their stations, you'd see these things, usually out in the middle of nowhere and always "private-label" gas. You fed the pump a dollar bill, similar to a self-serve car wash or soft drink machine and if you were lucky got some gas. 70s gas shortages and a high theft rate did them in.

For some reason I was thinking only cars w Starfire engines had the reservoir tank under the fender. See if you can contact Dave Yaros. He just sold his 62 D88 convertible but either he or Oldsfan will know for sure. Sorry I haven't been more help.

I'm admittedly unfamiliar with 50s Oldsmobiles but did the 58 have radiator mounted trans cooler? Sounds like it or radiator needs to be flushed out since this problem seems to be temperature-related. Trans fluid optimum temp should be 180 or so. Maybe a colder thermostat would help?

Dave, I dig it. My dad learned to operate a "motor grader" in 1954 when US58 between Danville and South Boston VA was being four-laned. By all accounts he was good with it, but when VDOT offered him a full time job he turned it down and went back to farming tobacco. I often think my life would have been different had he taken that VDOT job. I sure wouldn't have had to work as hard with no guarantee of a good crop.

I don't have HBO (simply refuse to pay the satellite provider any more money) but I can catch original Perry Mason on FETV and between the Jerry Goldsmith theme music and the period cars and clothing, I greatly enjoy it. Maybe HBO will release the new series as a seasonal DVD box set. I'm waiting for Showtime to release Penny Dreadful City of Angels 1st season. Yeah, I kinda like noir, old or modern.

Funny you brought up the camper as I had just earlier looked up the p/n for a fellow on an Olds forum. Grp 9.685 p/n 983413, camper pkg, mini, 73-74 XB17 (the Nova derivatives hatchback). Cost $79.50 in Nov 73. There was also a "mattress pkg, load floor" available for this option and for the midsize and clamshell wagons p/n 983465 for the hatchback $45.15, 983466 for the wagons $49.30.

It's been 40 years but my experience with a 77 'Bird is that late 70s Ford emissions systems were finicky and did not like being modified. I got rid of the otherwise very nice car because neither I nor an ace Ford dealer mechanic could tune a spark knock out of it.