Classic Car thread

[Armybrat 40759]

That ‘56 Chevy is my Grail car. ❤️

[PRONG HORN 3114]

 

 

The 1 of 36 Ferrari 250 GTO that used to belong to Victoria High School before they sold it for $6000 in 1971, has been restored.  It has racing pedigree so probably worth 20 mil?  

 

 

 

[AUinHsv 577]

Still proceeding. Now have signals and front bumper. Rear bumper is with me since it was not needed to trial fit before painting.

th me

[Texzilla588 769]

Love that Pantera. That was the only real exotic one saw growing up. They were sold at Lincoln Mercury dealers. I always tried to test drive one and they shooed my 16 year old ass away.

[Armybrat 40759]

Maybe they thought this was more your speed….

 

[Chad Fuck 17590]

Maybe they thought this was more your speed….
 

It would be my great honor and privilege to mow athwart this manly steed.

[wd40 1976]

stopped at Lowe's last week, on the way through Marble Falls to pick up my boat from the shop, and Mexican Jim Rockford (sorta) pulled up, just as I was leaving.  rare to see one in such great shape in the wild.

funny thing was: as I came back through town on my way home, I saw a black TA about the same model year, that also appeared to be in great shape.

tbh, not my favorite cars ever, but they bring back some memories, for sure.

[Armybrat 40759]

Beautiful body style, but built like a Yugo.

[Chad Fuck 17590]

Brakes went completely out on the Mustang. Got it back into the shop. Leaky seal. Luckily I was only a block from home when it happened.

Cool shop pics:

[Anastasis 23404]

Their floor is certainly cleaner with fewer fluid stains than my garage. 

[Chad Fuck 17590]

Their floor is certainly cleaner with fewer fluid stains than my garage. 

Same same. It’s an impressive feat considering all the cars they have through there.

[Chad Fuck 17590]

Brakes are working very nicely, and got the clutch adjusted too.  It's funny how you don't realize things are not optimal until someone else says, "we could do this better."

Anyhow, I'm headed out to Warbirds and Wings this weekend down in Lancaster.  I'll post some pics, likely in "planes" and here in "classic cars."

 

 

[PittsburghTiger 6164]

On 8/22/2024 at 5:18 PM, AUinHsv said:

Still proceeding. Now have signals and front bumper. Rear bumper is with me since it was not needed to trial fit before painting.

th me

Me, 👆, waiting for the picture of the wheels on the car!

[Elvis 3361]

288 GTO is my all time favorite car.  Enjoy.

 

 

[Elvis 3361]

Just now, Elvis said:

288 GTO is my all time favorite car.  Enjoy.

 

 

I built this model in 8th grade and air brush painted it. Still sits on my desk. 
 

 

[AUinHsv 577]

11 minutes ago, PittsburghTiger said:

Me, 👆, waiting for the picture of the wheels on the car!

here ya go.   Of course this was one of the "before" pictures

[Chad Fuck 17590]

Warbirds and Wheels 2024

[Chad Fuck 17590]

[Chad Fuck 17590]

[TexasEd 8066]

Couple of cars I saw yesterday 

 

[TexasEd 8066]

Also got the rear interior done 

 

[PittsburghTiger 6164]

Had a chance to get both cars out for a drive yesterday.  Riviera is running great.

 

 

[Prepuce of Doom 21014]

2 hours ago, PittsburghTiger said:

Had a chance to get both cars out for a drive yesterday.  Riviera is running great.

 

 

Days when you get to drive both leisure cars are special days indeed. I had far too few of them this summer... 

But I just replaced the heater in the Skylark so I'll have more good opportunities to drive it well into the fall than I have the past few years. When it was in storage at my stepmom's house for a few years after my dad passed away but before I built a second garage in order to be able to store more cars at my house, a large family of field mice took up residence in the various nooks and crannies under the hood. Note all the crud pictured below. As such, I had the heater bypassed until a week or two ago. 

Some of my fondest memories of driving it myself as a kid (and riding in it with my parents) were from cool fall nights with the top down and the cold wind blowing while our feet and lower bodies roasted in the heat. I've been taking it out on cool nights at every opportunity... 

 

Edited September 27 by Prepuce of Doom

[TwiceHorn 31350]

On 7/3/2024 at 8:09 AM, PittsburghTiger said:

We had a 1977 Olds Delta 88. It was an interesting car. It was supposed to have the Olds V-8 but, it had the Chevy and there was a nationwide lawsuit and I remember my dad didn't really care about it so he never joined the lawsuit. It was basically just a floating barge of a car.

My parents had same.  They got to return it for a vehicle with a Rocket Engine.  But by that time, the Rocket 350 sucked even more than the Chevy 350.  I think it was a bigger block and had longer intake passages so was even more gravely affected by clumsy emission controls.

[PittsburghTiger 6164]

29 minutes ago, Prepuce of Doom said:

Days when you get to drive both leisure cars are special days indeed. I had far too few of them this summer... 

But I just replaced the heater in the Skylark so I'll have more good opportunities to drive it well into the fall than I have the past few years. When it was in storage at my stepmom's house for a few years after my dad passed away but before I built a second garage in order to be able to store more cars at my house, a large family of field mice took up residence in the various nooks and crannies under the hood. Note all the crud pictured below. As such, I had the heater bypassed until a week or two ago. 

Some of my fondest memories of driving it myself as a kid (and riding in it with my parents) were from cool fall nights with the top down and the cold wind blowing while our feet and lower bodies roasted in the heat. I've been taking it out on cool nights at every opportunity... 

 

I too really enjoy driving the 911 with the top down on days when the temperature falls well below 60F. As long as it is not raining, or there is too much salt and cinders on the road, I will drive it. I have plenty of sweatshirts and hats. The coldest it has been for me with the top down is 26F.

If these folks could drive in the cold, so can I.

 

 

[PittsburghTiger 6164]

3 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

My parents had same.  They got to return it for a vehicle with a Rocket Engine.  But by that time, the Rocket 350 sucked even more than the Chevy 350.  I think it was a bigger block and had longer intake passages so was even more gravely affected by clumsy emission controls.

That's funny you replied to that comment as yesterday I was talking about that car with my brother, who doesn't give two shits about cars, and he didn't remember that story.

[TwiceHorn 31350]

5 minutes ago, PittsburghTiger said:

That's funny you replied to that comment as yesterday I was talking about that car with my brother, who doesn't give two shits about cars, and he didn't remember that story.

My Dad was a devotee of the Rocket Engine.  IIRC, Oldsmobile was the first non-Cadillac to offer the OHV V-8 sometime after WWII.  At that time, Mom and Dad didn't fancy themselves Cadillac types, but the OHV V-8 was pretty spirited.

So that did kind of mean something to my Dad.  He wasn't enough of a car guy to appreciate that emission controls had ruined everything.

That Delta 88 essentially replaced a 1969 green one with a 2-bbl 455.  That car would go, despite its bulk and made quick work of late 70s and early 80s Z-28s in impromptu city-block drag races.

[locodos 5370]

18 minutes ago, PittsburghTiger said:

I too really enjoy driving the 911 with the top down on days when the temperature falls well below 60F. As long as it is not raining, or there is too much salt and cinders on the road, I will drive it. I have plenty of sweatshirts and hats. The coldest it has been for me with the top down is 26F.

If these folks could drive in the cold, so can I.

 

 

Heat on top down...Hell yeah.  Plus in the cold the EM won't pull timing and cold dense air has more O2 to burn.  It's probably only a few BHP but it feels good.

[Prepuce of Doom 21014]

23 minutes ago, locodos said:

Heat on top down...Hell yeah.  Plus in the cold the EM won't pull timing and cold dense air has more O2 to burn.  It's probably only a few BHP but it feels good.

Agreed - "turbo weather" may be mostly in my head, but I also often feel like I can notice a difference in my turbocharged vehicles when it's chilly out. 

[locodos 5370]

1 minute ago, Prepuce of Doom said:

Agreed - "turbo weather" may be mostly in my head, but I also often feel like I can notice a difference in my turbocharged vehicles when it's chilly out. 

It's not in your head.  Dyno results include ambient temp for a reason.  It's been a minute since I played around with fuel and timing maps, but intake temp plays a large roll.  Cooler dense air to start, heat it up in the turbo, easier to cool it off in the intercooler (air/air), you can add timing (or reduce retard) and still be safe.   You can feel it in the butt dyno, but the objective increase is maybe 1%.

csb:  I almost went to jail on a cool "winter" evening  because I was fuckin' around on the same deserted stretch of road as a motor cycle cop.   As I rolled up to the smirking cop (he was setup under a large oak tree on the side of the road ahead) I called my wife and told her I was going to jail and she needed to bail me out.   The cop was way cool and wrote me up for 14 over (was doing more like 60 over) with a smile on his face he told me if he ever saw me on that road again, I would be  going to jail.  Sold the car that weekend.  FIN

[PittsburghTiger 6164]

59 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

My Dad was a devotee of the Rocket Engine.  IIRC, Oldsmobile was the first non-Cadillac to offer the OHV V-8 sometime after WWII.  At that time, Mom and Dad didn't fancy themselves Cadillac types, but the OHV V-8 was pretty spirited.

So that did kind of mean something to my Dad.  He wasn't enough of a car guy to appreciate that emission controls had ruined everything.

That Delta 88 essentially replaced a 1969 green one with a 2-bbl 455.  That car would go, despite its bulk and made quick work of late 70s and early 80s Z-28s in impromptu city-block drag races.

 

49 minutes ago, locodos said:

Heat on top down...Hell yeah.  Plus in the cold the EM won't pull timing and cold dense air has more O2 to burn.  It's probably only a few BHP but it feels good.

I think I mentioned in here before about my dad and cars and why he didn’t really care too much about them. My grandfather was also a physician and made a lot of money, even through The Great Depression, it’s also how I now have a really old pool table as a patient couldn’t pay and the guy owned a pool hall on the North Side and he gave one to my grandfather to square his debt.

One of the things he did during Prohibition was “sell” alcohol to the Major League Baseball teams as they came to Pittsburgh. He would write them prescriptions for the alcohol. That was one of the perks of his running with Old Man Rooney. He got to know a lot of people. 

Anyway, my grandfather always bought extremely nice cars but, took care of them for shit. It was the same with properties, he never did the work. My father did the work on the properties, even after medical school. But, dad saw his father waste a shit ton of money on cars that he didn’t take care of so  he was always averse to that. My brother, four years older than I, was supposed to get the Riviera but, he was/is a terrible driver and doesn’t know shit about cars so, Grandpa gave The Riv to me, even before I had my driver’s license.

I do know my father would love the 911. He loved a manual transmission and he would drive it any chance I gave him, which would have been whenever he wanted, especially in the cold. Dad was half Swedish so he loved the cold, which made our decade in Texas and Alabama kind of funny.

[PittsburghTiger 6164]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

My Dad was a devotee of the Rocket Engine.  IIRC, Oldsmobile was the first non-Cadillac to offer the OHV V-8 sometime after WWII.  At that time, Mom and Dad didn't fancy themselves Cadillac types, but the OHV V-8 was pretty spirited.

So that did kind of mean something to my Dad.  He wasn't enough of a car guy to appreciate that emission controls had ruined everything.

That Delta 88 essentially replaced a 1969 green one with a 2-bbl 455.  That car would go, despite its bulk and made quick work of late 70s and early 80s Z-28s in impromptu city-block drag races.

Our ‘77 would get going pretty well. It was by no means a sports car but, in a straight line it would get up and go.

[TexasEd 8066]

All the Oldsmobile Rocket talk and I don’t think I ever posted this one. 
 

 

[Anastasis 23404]

11 hours ago, Prepuce of Doom said:

Days when you get to drive both leisure cars are special days indeed. I had far too few of them this summer... 

But I just replaced the heater in the Skylark so I'll have more good opportunities to drive it well into the fall than I have the past few years. When it was in storage at my stepmom's house for a few years after my dad passed away but before I built a second garage in order to be able to store more cars at my house, a large family of field mice took up residence in the various nooks and crannies under the hood. Note all the crud pictured below. As such, I had the heater bypassed until a week or two ago. 

Some of my fondest memories of driving it myself as a kid (and riding in it with my parents) were from cool fall nights with the top down and the cold wind blowing while our feet and lower bodies roasted in the heat. I've been taking it out on cool nights at every opportunity... 

 

I get to experience this joy soon. I have been working my way through some minor rust remediation under the battery tray area.  That turned out pretty well. Next project is to pull up the interior, do the heater box and some minor floor pan surface rust remediation, probably install new carpeting and sort a few things out in the dash while I have everything out, and then move on to the trunk area. It kinda becomes this situation where there are no projects that can be isolated and each one ends up becoming a multi phase operation.  

[Anastasis 23404]

@TexasEd and @Chad Fuck, curious when you guys painted what treatment did they do to the inside of the fenders and other body panels. Did you get those areas painted as well or just prime and undercoating?

[TexasEd 8066]

My front fenders have basically a bed liner type material underneath them the rear are still original slop paint and undercoating. My car was not rusted. 

[Jkwellborn 6666]

Is that Por-15? I remember when I had my Camaro, a lot of hot rod magazines had ads for that stuff.

[TexasEd 8066]

11 hours ago, Jkwellborn said:

Is that Por-15? I remember when I had my Camaro, a lot of hot rod magazines had ads for that stuff.

No. Truck Bed liner 

[Chad Fuck 17590]

[mention=40]TexasEd[/mention] and [mention=699]Chad Fuck[/mention], curious when you guys painted what treatment did they do to the inside of the fenders and other body panels. Did you get those areas painted as well or just prime and undercoating?

You mean when in time? About 2011.

When in the process of restoration? After all the metal work was done.

Everything underneath got a coating similar too, if not the same as, bed liner. I have to give the car a cleaning today and I’ll take some pics and post later.

My case was perhaps unusual. I was about 80% done with my restoration- engine/ transmission was down, all body work done and paint had just been done but no interior work - when we found out we were going to have Chad Jr.

Not knowing how much a baby would cost, I put the car away and essentially didn’t touch it for ten years. Then my wife said, “Are you ever going to finish that thing? If you don’t, Chad Jr will grow up never knowing or caring about it.” So I finished it.

He loves it and this past week he had to give a presentation on his family including a family artifact. He picked the Mustang as his family artifact. So I parked the Mustang outside the auditorium and when he came to that part of the presentation, all the kids came to the windows and I cranked it up and racked the pipes as loud as they would go. The kids loved it and I was pretty please myself. Another in the chain of good memories associated with my family artifact.

Now Jr is happy to help me clean and work on the car. He sees it as a future family investment.

[AUinHsv 577]

On 8/30/2024 at 2:41 PM, PittsburghTiger said:

Me, 👆, waiting for the picture of the wheels on the car!

Your nightmare is over   The blue one beside is an untouched 65 year old one with 20K miles. Owner is the owner of the garage working on mine. And yes the paint is different.  65 years does a lot of changes

 

Also the dash has been restored. getting closer

Edited September 30 by AUinHsv

[PittsburghTiger 6164]

1 hour ago, AUinHsv said:

Your nightmare is over   The blue one beside is an untouched 65 year old one with 20K miles. Owner is the owner of the garage working on mine. And yes the paint is different.  65 years does a lot of changes

 

Also the dash has been restored. getting closer

Looks fantastic. Blue is my favorite color and our high school colors were Columbia Blue & White.  I love your car and I like your wheels more than the other ones.

[AUinHsv 577]

Very happy to not have wire wheels. On my first MGA in the 80's I converted to disk wheels to avoid trying to true the wire wheels. This MGA came with disk wheels so I had no desire to change them. No idea but pretty sure there are no a lot of people left that can true them.

[Prepuce of Doom 21014]

3 hours ago, AUinHsv said:

Very happy to not have wire wheels. On my first MGA in the 80's I converted to disk wheels to avoid trying to true the wire wheels. This MGA came with disk wheels so I had no desire to change them. No idea but pretty sure there are no a lot of people left that can true them.

The guy who works on my Skylark keeps trying to convince me to abandon its wire wheels despite knowing that they were my dad's favorite thing about the car and therefore have illogical sentimental value to me ("just put some period correct rally wheels on it and hang the goddamn wire wheels on the wall of your garage!!!"), and I have to agree that they're a real hassle, especially when they lose their seal during winter storage and I have to periodically fuck around refilling them to prevent damage to the tires. 

But boy, do they look nice when they're clean... 

 

Edited September 30 by Prepuce of Doom

[AUinHsv 577]

The upside of wire wheels is more than offset by the work required on them. And like I mentioned - you almost have to do it yourself. I think there are some places you can send them to for restoration but that has got to be expensive - especially to ship

Also yours are chrome which does look nice. Look at the unrestored MGA next to mine and you will see that they are painted some sort of grey/silver so they will never pop in terms of visuals

 

Edited September 30 by AUinHsv

[AUinHsv 577]

Has anyone heard of this or anything close to it

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1353511991/in-dash-fitting-classic-car-bluetooth?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=bluetooth+dash+knob&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&frs=1&sts=1&content_source=21d3a273cd3271d70177efd28f395a43e7648564%3A1353511991&organic_search_click=1

 

It appears to be a bluetooth audio to a phone. Very intriguing for the MGA since the fog light switch is useless. They never installed fog lights in US models. Wondering if anyone knows of something similar that would not take up dash space.  I think any dash radio just will not look good

[TexasEd 8066]

3 hours ago, AUinHsv said:

Has anyone heard of this or anything close to it

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1353511991/in-dash-fitting-classic-car-bluetooth?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=bluetooth+dash+knob&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&frs=1&sts=1&content_source=21d3a273cd3271d70177efd28f395a43e7648564%3A1353511991&organic_search_click=1

 

It appears to be a bluetooth audio to a phone. Very intriguing for the MGA since the fog light switch is useless. They never installed fog lights in US models. Wondering if anyone knows of something similar that would not take up dash space.  I think any dash radio just will not look good

I got one of these and hid it inside the dash.  I put it on top of my original AM radio

 

[Mr. Drummond 2197]

I put a period correct refurbished blaupunkt in my porsche that had an added bluetooth to the phone.    The car only has one center speaker so its not good sound but the bluetooth to phone works great.

[Jerry Callo 8673]

I have a stock AM radio for my old truck.  I had planned to have it converted to AM/FM with Bluetooth by this guy - stereo conversion.

It is certainly cheaper to keep the AM radio as is and add the separate Bluetooth gadget.

[Gil Bang 25903]

On 5/24/2024 at 12:17 PM, Armybrat said:

It is going to be a beautiful new car, and I can hardly wait to see its finished photos. 
Is that an original or reproduction ‘62 chrome grill?

However, I sure hope it isn’t going to have a Lucas Electrics wiring harness, two six volt batteries, and non-fireproof floorboards.
Guess you know what I am talking about. 😁

Q: why does an englishman drink warm beer?

A: Lucas refrigerators

[baboso 6052]

1 hour ago, Mr. Drummond said:

I put a period correct refurbished blaupunkt in my porsche that had an added bluetooth to the phone.    The car only has one center speaker so its not good sound but the bluetooth to phone works great.

Christ, you don't need a quadrophonic Blaupunkt! What you need is a curveball! In the show, everyone can hit heat.