Gearhead Thread

[PhillyPhreak54]

I got one of these for Christmas, easily my favorite present of the year:

15" Snap On breaker bar.

I love those things. Also the wrenches that are like ratchets are great. Especially when doing things in small spaces - like putting headers on a Mustang. I used to sacrifice my knuckle skin to the car gods when I did that until I bought some ratchet wrenches.

[PhillyPhreak54]

I just want to chime in and say that I find this thread extremely fascinating, though I was never able to get "into" cars like I wanted when I was a teenager. When your parents buy you a powder blue, Plymouth Volare as your first car instead of the midnight blue 1972 Camaro that you wanted, it takes the wind out of potential car interest.

I am also very dissappointed that no one jumped on the obvious chance to comment on SD "rebuilding trannys". 

hot!

[PhillyPhreak54]

American muscle >> imports

A lady football fan who loves muscle cars and also works on them? 

[Susquehanna Birder]

I got one of these for Christmas, easily my favorite present of the year:

15" Snap On breaker bar.

Half inch drive, I presume. I have a Craftsman version of the same. It's great for wheel changes.

[Diomedes]

"Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the world." - Archimedes

[dis12]

I just want to chime in and say that I find this thread extremely fascinating, though I was never able to get "into" cars like I wanted when I was a teenager. When your parents buy you a powder blue, Plymouth Volare as your first car instead of the midnight blue 1972 Camaro that you wanted, it takes the wind out of potential car interest.

I am also very dissappointed that no one jumped on the obvious chance to comment on SD "rebuilding trannys". 

I'm thinkin 22's would look great on your van.  and definitely some ghetto graphics.

[Diomedes]

P.S. Dio: Use gasoline to clean your trans cases. Leave them to soak over night and they'll look brand new after some light brushing. Gasoline is an awesome solvent. When you're done, strain the gas and use it in one of your bikes.

Great idea, though it wouldn't have worked in the case I mentioned.  I was trying to clean enough of it up to see if there was a stamping which would indicate what generation case we had.  The case was still in the truck, too, so it wouldn't have been possible to soak it.  Land Rover wasn't exactly great about documentation.  I didn't clean the whole thing...just enough to get the info.

And yeah..gasoline is a great solvent.  Thanks for the tip!

[Wingspan]

P.S. Dio: Use gasoline to clean your trans cases. Leave them to soak over night and they'll look brand new after some light brushing. Gasoline is an awesome solvent. When you're done, strain the gas and use it in one of your bikes.

Great idea, though it wouldn't have worked in the case I mentioned.  I was trying to clean enough of it up to see if there was a stamping which would indicate what generation case we had.  The case was still in the truck, too, so it wouldn't have been possible to soak it.  Land Rover wasn't exactly great about documentation.  I didn't clean the whole thing...just enough to get the info.

And yeah..gasoline is a great solvent.  Thanks for the tip!

You may not like Al Gore, but he's right.  Even if you never admit it to anyone, if you have half a brain and you're reading anything other than Exxon/Bush authored press releases, you know it.  Human activity is rapidly heating the earth and the consequences will be dire for all life on earth.  If that means nothing to you money lovers, it's also going to be farging awful for the economy.

Those who claim global warming is not man made, that it's a controversial theory about which the scientific community is conflicted, are uninformed and disingenuous.   Pull your head out of the sand, sell your SUV, and start taking responsibility for your actions.  Your kids will  thank you.

[Diomedes]

a.) it's not my Rover..it belongs to a friend I was helping
b.) it's a 1962 hobby car...not a commuter

nice try tho

[PhillyPhanInDC]

Good idea.  Now, tell me about your cars.  And post some pics if you got 'em, would love to see 'em.

Eh. Where to begin.

The 56 T-Bird, the old man's favorite, was probably the harderst from a restoration standpoint. It's technically a sports car, but is built like a farging tank. The parts were a lot harder to get and the attention to detail had to be there. Also, the way the car was painted in the 50s couldn't be done anymore, so we ( I hate to do auto body, a farging nightmare that) had to experiment a lot to get it right. It is very rarely driven anymore, and is in storage up near New Hope of all places. My father and I have been talking for some time about selling it. The only picture I have of it is one my uncle took about four years ago just outside of the garage where it is stored. For some reason he took it in black and white. As a note, my father found this thing in, no B.S, a barn in Amish country. It had been sitting for 26 years, some college professor from U of Penn was the original owner, who decided he didn't like it, and stuck his elderly parents with it. It has 54000 original miles.

Stuff on the T-Bird:
312 V-8 with four barrel carb
2 Speed Auto
Removable Hard Top
Continental Package



The 70 Buick GS is a strange one.

My father as a kid had a 65 Buick Skylark GS. It had a 401 "Nailhead" V-8, a four on the floor, was silver with a black vinyl top. I never saw it, he sold it was before I was even thought of. He used to run around in Philly with it, and when he reached the point in his life when he wanted to relive that stuff, he started to search for a car very similar to it. I was probably about 16 or 17 at the time. We started to search for a 65 GS, and found that they are extremely rare, even more so with the options he wanted to find it with. As we searched, we came across a lot of 69 and 70 Skylark GS', and some replica '70 GSX's (GSX's were some bad ass cars, see the pic below).


Not mine, but my GS looks a lot like it, minus the hockey stripes, rallye stripes, wing and hood mounted tach

We found out a lot about them, and started to get pretty interested in them. The first GS we bought was from a guy who lived in Warminster, PA. area. The car was a 69 convertible that was setup as a drag car, but look liked a trailer queen. Whole thing was perfect, except it had a insane motor in it, way to much for the street.

We arranged to buy the car, without the drivetrain, and we wound putting a pretty sick street setup in it. Had three inch dual exhaust, header primaries were about 2" in diameter. With the cam we put in the 455, called a "Hemi-Killer" cam, easily one of loudest cars I've ever been around. Anyway, that thing got to the point where it was a little too much, and we started to look for something fun to play with on the side. We later sold the 69 convertible back to the same guy we had purchased it from. More on this later.

We found a nice little unrestored 70 GS 455 in Philadelphia, that wasn't perfect, but not to far away. It was all originial, and had 70,000 miles on the clock. We bought it for 3700 bucks. Since there wasn't a lot of money tied up in it, we drove it around and gave it hell. I was coming down 611 in Hatboro one day and jumped in it at about 35 mph, it downshifted, lit the back tires up, then fell on it's face. I had split the block into three pieces. We did a rebuild to factory specs, adding a little bit here and there, and that's about it.

Stuff on the 70 Buick:
455 C.I V-8. Four barrel.
350HP/5lb. ft torque
TH400 3 Speed Auto
12 Bolt Posi with 4.11 gears
Mostly stock



I don't currently have pics, but I'll try to get some posted soon, and I'll go into some info on the other cars as well later. Gotta get back to "work".

[Diomedes]

PhillyPhaninDC, that is some great stuff.  Nothing I've working on/ have worked on is half so cool.  Yet.

[Wingspan]

I doubt I would ever do something like this, but if I ever had the money to, it would be to restore a 55 Buick.

Carry on.

[PhillyPhanInDC]

Nothing I've working on/ have worked on is half so cool.  Yet.

I found I get the same, if not more, enjoyment from working on junk as I do on show/race cars.

I don't think it's ever been about how cool the finished product will be. To be honest, most of the stuff that I've done from a restoration standpoint, were sold (not much of a profit in doing this) shortly after being completed. The fun bit for me is ripping them all apart and putting them back together again so they are better than they were new. After that, they cease to be as much fun.

I doubt I would ever do something like this, but if I ever had the money to, it would be to restore a 55 Buick.

Carry on.

When you get around to it, let me know if you need a hand. Looks like it'd be a fun farging project.

[shorebird]

WOW!! Now that is a job well done. Beautiful.

[PhillyPhanInDC]

WOW!! Now that is a job well done. Beautiful.

They were just random pictures. I don't think they are the same cars. It does show what the finished product would look like though.