Camino LS6

It's an option.

Cloth buckets and console, tilt wheel, PW, PDL, factory tinted windows in the rear doors, cruise,... Lots of stuff this truck doesn't have is pretty standard on most 'Burbans of that era. I would also use the fenders and doors for sure, and could use the updated nose of the '89-'91. Everything would bolt right up.

Lately, I've been seeing quite a few fairly clean 87-91 Suburbans going pretty cheap on CL, and that is giving me another perspective on this project. I could buy one of those and give this truck a major upgrade...

The market for 70s T/As is very hot right now and any pristine or restored example will bring decent money - let alone a museum-quality car like this.

5k? This car has 11 miles on it! At the bid amount of 31k I'd say that yes, it has topped out. However, the car is worth 25k or more all day long.

Yep, forgot about that. Still like the polished version on the 10th better than the painted versions.

I generally prefer the snowflake and Rallye wheels, but these wheels, on this car, are just right. They were never again used on another car in this form, but appeared in painted form on the T/A turbo pace car the next year.

Oops, guess I missed that. Not a recognizable piece left on that thing that says "Charger" in any way.

Loved the proving ground flyover! Hmm, possibilities....

Wow, those are brutal wrecks. Was that last one a full-size GM?

Huh? Are you referring to my post? I don't get it.

Call BS when you see/hear BS - and a 4-door coupe is pure BS.

This was also the Daytona 500 pace car in '79, and a few of them wear the official decals (the showroom special I gawked at had them).

Total Firebird production in '79 was over 211,000. Of the 10th ann. cars, only 1800 or so had the 6.6 Pontiac engine, the rest had the 403 Olds engine. Unknown how many were 4spd. cars.

Only about 1,500 were 4spds. if memory serves. I'm with you on that - I was so sure that I could earn enough money... At 16, this car had me by the short hairs.

Actually, the tenth anniversary T/A is pretty rare (much moreso with the 6.6 and a 4spd.), and entirely worthy of being kept as a museum piece. I had the worst case of car lust for these when they were new. A local Pontiac dealer (long gone) had a 4spd. example in the showroom in '79 when I first got my license. I'd take my '66 Dodge and pull in just to look at the T/A for extended periods of time. I'd still like to have one of these.

The misapplication of names comes with the simple fact of time passing to a degree - but the notion of a 4-door "coupe" is just beyond the pale.

Well, if that isn't a wad of good news!

PA gets us for each item once a year. Registration for the Tahoe: $39 IIRC Inspection (no work or parts): $80 and you can't get the safety inspection sticker until you also pass emissions. EDIT: Of course it cost me about $400 in parts over and above that so I could pass emissions...

Interesting...window stickers..that's quaint..so that's what they do in PA when you get registered? Here in AZ I just get the a year/month sticky for the license plate after getting the bi-annual emmissions test... No, nothing to do with registration (that's a sticker on the plate). These are inspection and emissions inspection stickers.

Oh, I forgot to update, I now have two shiny new stickers on the Tahoe's windsheild and no check engine light.

Okay, here are some pics of the distributor in a disassembled state. An overall shot of the parts involved, a shot of the old and the new pickup coils, and a shot of the reluctor (GM calls it a bse plate or something like that) showing the rust and the crack. This combination was the source of much of my trouble at the end of the project - and a large part of the problem before I started the top end job.

To each his own.

I dug into the Tahoe's distributor today ( I'm running the one from Mothertruck), and I'm surprised this thing worked at all. As suspected, the pickup coil is toast. Unfortunately, the reluctor is bad too - it is rusted and cracked. Also, it was all I could do to get the thing apart as it was severely gummed-up. The pickup coil had an obvious meltdown and the insulation on both leads is cracked. I'll be ordering a new reluctor and giving the whole thing a good cleaning so that I can get Mothertruck up and running again. I may post a few pics later.

Maybe the genesis of this confusion can be traced to the 70s when some wagons lost the traditional tailgate for a liftgate or hatchback. Prior to that time wagons almost always had tailgates. My Chevelle wagon is an example of this.