balthazar

Not positive what you mean by "drive right". The Ford-era ones like mine are phenomenally light for their size. I have the mid-range 134" wheelbase cab/chassis and Ford's published weight for it is 3800 lbs. I don't believe center of gravity would be an issue either; the engine doesn't sit much higher than the axles than in a conventional car. The weigh is in the frame, wheels/brakes & rear; there is really nothing to the cab but sheet metal. There have been a lot of these on short WB pickup chassis (tho I've no first-hand info on drivability). Or were you referring to another aspect?

^ K- I'll try and snap some this weekend.

Bring it on down. I can show you a deburred/smoothed 455 engine block & crank as a reference.

I HATE to be manipulated in the big box stores such as lowes. You walk in the left side of the store, all the rgisters are on the right side, forcing you to walk by the bulk of the inventory in the lame hope you'll impulse buy a $900 compresser, then when you get to the registers, they're all empty, forcing you to self-check, which always takes longer. Put the damned doors & registers in thecenter of the building, staff them, and improve the shopping efficiency of everyone.

'78-ish Camaro, blue, nicely preserved, rolling. '69 Camaro, bright yellow, fully restored & looking butch, rolling. '64 Bonneville convertible, burgandy, nice clean car, rolling.

Yea- I don't work on new stuff. But I like how ball bearings, ooooooooold tech you know, are making a comeback here. Who woulda thunk something from the Old World had any merit ?? Gee, I wonder who. Suddenly, I'm thinking how modern & efficient (bearing-wise) my '59 Buick is. Can't wait until we talk about bushings.

Paint looks good, but the AL is so rough to start, the difference doesn't hit you visually the same way the paint's results do. I wonder how the polish would work with an abrasive fiber disc, so you'd be doing a 'double-whammy' on the AL. Man, that casting flash makes me want to reach for a drawer of files...

what? Extrapolate, much?

Maybe just a bad float.

^ Yea, I remember our family's '77- same design. You might be able to Frankenstein one together if it is the sender- bones of the old & some of the new- they're pretty simple.

Shhh! He's on a roll! Don't roon it!

Buick drums exceeded the Pontiac's, tho, as Buick had 12"ers. In the day, Pontiacs took about 10' longer to stop, but sometimes did see fade. Pontiac went to 14" wheels for '57, they should've gone back up to 15"s pretty much right away- only the police package/SDs had available 15"s (and the 1st gen Tempests). But the Buick drums didn't fade- I believe it was the size of them, and that the fins extended into the airstream underneath; they overlapped the backing plates. The Pontiac 8-lugs didn't, even tho they were exposed to the air more. Ideally, 12" 8-lugs with extended fins would've been pretty incredible. Disadvantage to discs is that they aren't self-energizing, they require a lot more assist, and rotors tend to warp a lot more readily than drums.

I have about a dozen road tests of the day- they didn't fade and actually stopped better than the discs (when they came out on the Riviera). '60 Invicta : 60-0 : 138' (4500 lbs on 4" squishy bias-plys). They should've kept them.

Yea; when a car has discs/drums, you don't just say it has 'drums brakes'. Too bad the other divisions didn't put the engineering behind their drums like Buick did. ^ I believe you're right Camino- without checking; its in my mind that the GTO got optional front discs for '67.

>>"During the drive it would show 75 MPH at what I would guess would be 40 MPH."<< Going from the standard '81 manual ratio of 3.08s to 3.73s, the car will be going 83% of indicated speed.... or at 75 indicated, actual speed is 62. • • • I drive different, old stuff all the time. Different people see & value different things in vehicles than others do, so when you're confused about other's opinions on old stuff, keep that in mind. Some things definitely are better, and some definitely are WORSE, even being totally objective... but many times it's a preference as to which is 'better', and that's fine too. Where people go astray is to assume everything is 'better' merely because it's newer.

^ Probably a significant factor, yes.

^ Ahhh... a BonnEvil ! My buddy has the twin (same hue, 4-dr hardtop), but in a Catalina.

Good luck, something will show up. Ocn- that really what you heard WRT snow this winter??

It was squarer- must've been the 2nd one, but the filler cap pointed skyward, not rearward. Maybe it was a homemade repair, cause it stuck out a LOT farther. Regardless, the above, on a flagship lux car, is inexcusable by the '60s- very archaic & utilitarian.

^ I'm not sure what vintage it was, I think mid '60s, but I was following a really clean SL a few years ago, and the gas filler poked thru the rear fascia with a monster rubber grommet, and the black pipe (on a white car) stuck up a good 4". My mouth dropped open.

Ocn, that VW is just a 'CO' Might as well add mine here :

I do prefer the stock CdV roofline, but this is right behind it.

Gonna stick this in here purely out of respect : '63 Buick Wildcat Sport Coupe. I was the last person to 'drive' this, if you call crouching inside & steering while a forklift hoisted the rear-less rear and piloted it down the side street a quarter mile, "driving". It was then relieved of the very few sellable parts left, dragged up on a flatbed and hauled around the block to the scrap yard. It was last registered a long time ago, in 1980. RIP, Wildcat.

I'd have to go with the shortbed- the way the bed sticks so far outside the fenders strikes me strange. They had 6', 8' and 9', right? Roger- I agree that that last one looks like a very solid base.

Here's the some-say flagship of mercedes, the SL. I think this was an late '80s 500, they stay stale long enough there's no way to tell IMO. Note that fat, grey, foam taillight gasket poking out. Both sides were identical; it was not an anomaly. I don't get this sort of sloppy engineering. To find the same thing @ Cadillac, for example, you have to go back to the 1940s. By '48, there were no more exposed gaskets : I took a bunch of other pics of the SLs many defects in hardware, but suffice it to say it was equally cheap all around. The car was a joke in the '80s when it was brand new.