rocketraider

Glad things worked out, but this is the first time I've heard of new NAPA electrical parts being defective. Then again, we haven't had a NAPA here in close to 15 years, closest ones are 20 miles away, so things may have changed with them since I bought from them.

Give me a tilt steering column, cruise control and a good FM radio and I can be quite content in a car. <P>Why hasn't anyone mentioned those damned locking wire wheel covers?!

Well- look where he is. Sixtys aren't exactly common in the States anymore; I can imagine how scarce they are in UK.<P>It's like a car buddy at work observed just today- we live in a fairly kind area weatherwise, no salt or corrosives on the roads in winter. A car that WE would scrap as a rustbucket, is a restorable car in the salt belt. <P>And by the way- my workmate was born in England, raised since age 13 in US and has a Mini for his toy. Cheers, mate!

Try disconnecting the battery for a few minutes. This will reset the computer to default and will tell if it's a computer problem. It may go away.<P>I don't trust quick-lubes. I took one in once because the service station I usually deal with was busy as a cat in a sandbox, I was several hundred miles overdue, didn't have time to do it myself and was ready to start a 400 mile trip. My first tip off was when they pulled the breather out of the valve cover and put the oil in that way, and when I questioned the kid why he didn't use the oil fill tube on front of the engine, he said the breather was the best way to put it in, bullshat!<P>And then they didn't tighten the drain plug properly. Had I not noticed the puddle in the driveway while loading the car for the trip, I'd have probably been stranded a ways from home with a locked engine. I raised enough racket about the drain plug that I got my money back. And I haven't gone back.

170 cid sounds more like a Ford engine.<P>Describe the valve cover shape to us? If it has straight edges, it'll be a GM engine. If the edges are "scalloped" that would be a dead giveaway for a 170 cid Ford six. And the 170 often had a 2-speed PRNDL Fordomatic behind it.

Well- this is a buy/sell forum, and you are selling, so I see no problem using it to get your product in front of your target audience.<P>I'm gonna need a good outdoor cover for a 1974 Hurst/Olds before long. I'll keep you in mind. You have a catalog or anything?

Henry, there's a small blurb about this forum in 2/2002 JWO in the Blue Dots column- but I know too many OCA members who ignore that column completely. Between this and the new Zone Show rules not being communicated to the Southeast Zone chapters I no longer have confidence in OCA's top people and webmaster to get word out on things.<P>Thanks to Steve Moskowitz for setting up this excellent and so far underused forum for us.<BR> <BR>Glenn Williamson<BR>the Rocketraider<BR>Director, OCA Atlantic Southeast Zone 1990-2000

Carb float level or distributor mechanical advance sticking. Sometimes the factory specs need to be tweaked just a bit on float level, but no backfire and no stumble under brisk acceleration points me more toward the distributor advance mechanism. WD40 will help here. Take out the point set and douse it liberally until you're sure things are free. If you can find someone with a Sun machine, have the distributor serviced and curved.<P>If it were an EGR car, I'd tell you to plug the EGR vacuum source line with a ball bearing. I keep old QuadraJet pump check balls for this very purpose.

Just out of curiousity. What shape was the Jetstar I in when you decided to yank the engine for your Cutlass? It's a hellacious rare car, only 6552 built in 65, and if it's a 4-speed, less than 200 made.<P>I just hate to see those engines get yanked from a decent or restorable car. Most of the W34 Toronados suffered a similar fate. At least the heart keeps beating...

400-425-455 are all the same engine externally so headers listed to fit big-block Cutlass will fit this engine.<P>You have a 370 hp Starfire 425. Almost as hot as it got for Olds 65-67, and capable of creating respect even in a heavy body like a 98. Friend had a 67 98 sedan daily driver, he worked with a kid who drove Daddy's 67 396-325 Chevelle to work every so often, and Britt would terrorize the kid with that land yacht every chance he got. The Starfire engine/switch- pitch THM 400 combo in that raggedy old 98 could get it moving right smartly, once it ever got traction.

45. 30 of those years messing with old cars of one type or another. It started at age 15 with a 1966 Oldsmobile Starfire, which at the time was considered a used car but was still damned hard to find anything for it (and it's no easier to find Starfire stuff now, believe me- currently in the throes of a 1964).<P>Joined AACA in 1994 when the 69 Toronado turned 25. Hard to believe the cars that I considered daily transport in high school are now all AACA eligible.

Sintid, reds and maroons are compatible with tan and the combination often looks quite elegant. Aftermarket "seat toppers" were often a different color than the OEM trim, for either contrast or complement, so I wouldn't quibble too much about the difference. Think of it as "period accessory". Or are these an actual set of Buick yardage?<P>Especially if it means being able to keep good upholstery that is original to the car, a point I think has been missed here.

Well- what year and car? Since GM liked to bury PS pumps under alternators, A/C compressors etc, Saginaw pumps from about the mid 60s aren't the easiest to tighten belts. They're actually pretty clumsy to do it UNLESS (!) you have the special Burroughs or K-M power steering belt adjusting tool. Even then it ain't always easy to get in there to make sure you're prying against the pump nose. Whatever you do, don't pry against the pump body. It's only sheetmetal and you can easily bend it to where the pump element gets damaged.<P>I have a long, square shank screwdriver that I can usually fit between the pump nose and the pry tab on the bracket. Loosen the pump pivot and tension bolts as needed, then pry out until you get the desired tension, about 1/2" deflection per foot of belt length, then tighten the bolts. Helps to have an extra pair of hands here.

"One of the few Olds blocks you can count on to be super sturdy on the bottom end?" We're not talking about mushmetal Chevy blocks here. The 64-76 (and esp 64-67 when they were using forged cranks across the board) Olds bottom end is one of the strongest ever built. Once they started windowing the blocks for weight reduction in 1977, things changed a bit, but the earlier blocks are tough. They had good metal in them, strong alloys- Olds never built a production 4-bolt main engine, and rarely did it on the experimentals.<P>It was explained to me once that the reason Chevy put 4-bolt main caps on their heavy duty engines was not because it was a high performance advantage, it was just that four bolts in mush holds better than two bolts in mush. <P>Sorry. I have to disagree here.

Greg, I'm not sure the vacuum power door locks were available on the 1964 A-body cars, but a Sportwagon was a high-line car so... who knows. They were first offered on Cadillac around 59-60, and I've seen one 1964 Electra and one 1964 Ninety Eight that had them, so I know the other C-bodies had them by then- though my 1964 Olds manuals don't mention them at all. Think it may have been a mid-year option with a service manual supplement issued to cover it. Both these cars had the satin-brushed square lock switches, mounted midway of the upper front doors, same as Caddy.<P>The system is complex and simple at the same time. It operates off engine vacuum, with a storage tank for engine-off lock and unlock, and the heart of the system is the "octopus valve", so named because of its eight vacuum ports. It's usually found on the firewall behind the dash. Operating the lock switches directs vacuum thru the octopus valve to either side of the vacuum motors in the doors. And yes, vacuum tubing runs thru the body into the doors much like electric power windows and locks.<P>I found a junker 1969 Toronado with them, and considered scarfing it for mine till I thought about digging behind a cramped dash in a car that had been in a junkyard for ??? years, and wondered what kind of creepy-crawlies were back there. I decided that on a two-door car, they weren't that important.

Why waste all that time and money on a 307 if you're gonna do the 403 thing later on? Run the 307 for now, get yer 403 and start building it. You'll be more satisfied in the long run. <P>This topic gets visited often on all the Olds BBs. There's only so much you can ask of a 307, even a code 9.

I know of a 1964 4-speed hardtop in NC. Saw it at a show about ten years ago and was stunned, to say the least. Shifter points forward like an AC Cobra.

Are we talking about vacuum operated power door locks, or the A/C vacuum motors? Shop manual will go into some detail on both.

Mark, a photocopy would be great. Yer e-mail is blocked on the bb here, try mine, rocketraider@earthlink.net and see if it gets thru, then we can get addresses squared away.<P>The car is a friend's 1964 Grand Prix, as loaded as I've ever seen a Pontiac and from the PHS documentation, apparently was an executive car at the Atlanta BOP plant. It is a factory AM-FM-reverb-power antenna car, and at some time the power antenna had been replaced with aftermarket and whoever did it used the radio's reverb power lead to trigger the antenna. We got a correct power antenna and got it wired and working correctly. We knew the reverb and rear speaker didn't work, and found the buggered and disconnected wiring when we went behind the dash for this winter's project- cleaning up wiring and getting the A/C system working properly and switching from floor to dash to defrost.<P>The plastic connectors have been cut off the three power and speaker leads. On the switch-there is a blue wire that I think is power and connects to a brown lead on the radio on-off switch, a green one that should connect to the radio rear speaker lead, and a green/black that should go to the rear speaker itself.<P>The switch has OFF, REVERB and REAR detented positions. Think it works like this- OFF, reverb is off and front speaker only plays. REVERB, the amp is on and front and rear speakers play. REAR, amp is off and rear speaker only. The radio has no fader control so that's the only scheme I can think of.<P>Does this stuff match up with what's in the 66 manual? The 1963 and the 64 supplement don't have a thing in them about the Verbra-Phonic.<P>TX- Glenn Williamson (the Rocketraider)

Anyone have a schematic or other info on 64 Pontiac reverb unit? The Pontiac service books don't have it. Wiring on the switch and box is similar to what's illustrated in my Olds manuals, but the switch operates differently. Olds has a simple "on-off" rotary switch, Pontiac has "off", "reverb" and "rear" positions. What did Buick have?<P>Right now, reverb and rr speaker aren't connected and the terminals are cut off the reverb switch wires (typical buggering job, we've all seen them). I want this stuff to work, but don't want to fry anything connecting it.

Does anyone have a schematic or other info for 64 Pontiac reverb? 64 GP has it and an orig Delco AM-FM, currently the reverb and rear speaker aren't hooked up, wires on the reverb switch are cut and 64 Pontiac service books don't have this schematic.<P>Wirng looks same as Olds which I have, but the switches operate differently. Don't care to toast nuthin' when we hooks it up, doncha know?

The Buick forum had a thread on this a couple weeks back. Use "search", 61 Special I think was the topic. Several of them mentioned a guy who had transplanted Buick V8 into Specials, which are the same car under the skin and used the same engine.<P>And they stuffed SD 421s into Tempests and went drag racing in the early 60s, so it can be done. That ain't saying it would be cheap, or even cost effective...

I'll try. What specifics are you hunting for?

Dave, the date coding reference was for the difference in the 1970 and 1971-72 intake manifolds. That would get picked up on at an OCA show real quick these days, and I know they're checking carb #s on W30 cars too. I feel the same as you about Julian date coded components, mainly because cars _are_ serviced, and if a component was replaced at the dealer from GMPD stock, dates go out the window.<P>I do think our friend with the wrong year engine needs to know what he might be up against in a critical judging situation, when the difference between a first place and Best of Class is often determined by such things. I don't think that concerns him much though.<P>Myself- I'd build on what he's got. Odds are the reman you got from Advance wasn't close to a correct year block but they can be ordered to your internal parts specs if you know the right way to order. That's what my buddy who is an AA district manager tells me, anyway.<P>And congratulations on scoring those parts cheap. Not every day that can be done.

Two things are tipping me off that it is a 66 engine, not a 65. First is the QuadraJet- 1965 still used the 4GC Rochester 4 bbl. The W prefix code doesn't show up in the 65 books, but it does show up in 66 as a 330 cid. The #s also had a suffix letter to ID the engine's innards. No suffix indicates originally a 2 barrel 9.0:1 compression engine. E & W suffixes would indicate an Export low compression engine, L means 9.0:1 4 barrel engine, and G is a 10.25:1 4 barrel.