I haven’t written a Parking Lot Spotlight (#ParkingLotSpotlight) in a while, but this beautiful Bonneville was worth breaking the dry spell for.
Spotted this beauty just today as I had to run back to the grocery store because there are days, although armed with a list, things just don’t make in the shopping cart. This particular return trip paid off.
The ’67 Pontiac lineup these days are pretty much dominated, at least in the collector world, by the Firebird, GTO, Tempest, LaMans, Gran Prix but I love the other two door offerings you could find in the showrooms. These include some awesome cars with long, low lines, roomy interiors and massive trunks. They came in hard and soft tops as well. Some of those sported model names like Executive series which in NO-WAY looked like a stuffy exec car. These were muscular and sporting. Cars like the Catalina 2+2 with (eight lug wheels) and the Pontiac Executive are exceptional looking cars and powered with V8s and 4bbl carbs.
I have always coveted the Bonneville models of the mid-1960, they remind me of my first car, 1966 Impala. Same long lines and big interiors and I loved the dash and instrument setup.
So check out this beauty:
Great looking paint – not original but beautiful
These are the lines I’m talking about. Long and low….AWESOME.
HUGE trunk!!! Love those inset taillights and how the bumper is incorporated into the design of the rear end.
Long and sleek belt lines and the white-painted top does this car justice!!
Over/Under headlights with the bottom set incorporated in to a beautiful distinctive chrome bumper. (One drawback of having to manage a good pic in a crowded parking lot – I couldn’t get the perfect front end shot.)
That year the Bonneville came in a 2 door hard top like this beauty as well as 4 door sedan, 2 door convertible and even a station wagon. Engines available were the 230 CID in various configurations as well as the 326 CID and the 400 CID engine and the 428 CID all as options. Sychromesh or Turbo-Hydromatic transmission were available. There were 96,708 passenger Bonnevilles produced. Of interest was that 483 Bonnevilles were sold to car converters and at least one of those turned up as the car that the fictitious (at the time) band the “Monkees” tooled around on the television show of the same name. Oh, you might have heard of the guy that bought at least one of the Bonnevilles and turned it into the this cool car – George Barris!!
MonkeeMobile
According to the for sales sign this Bonneville is powered by the 400 CID topped with a 4bbl carb which would put this between 333 HP and 350 HP. The transmission is the 400 Turbo-Hydromatic.
I love the interior of this factory air car!!!
Love the linear gauges!! Is that a factory 8 Track!?!?!!! Come on that is SO COOL!!!! Options list I found doesn’t show this as an option.
Cloth seats and look at all the room!!! Love the large center speaker and it has the front bench seats with the pull down arm rest. It looks as it should!!!
Of course I’m at the grocery store and no time to hang around and wait for the owner to show up.
As a side note I don’t know this car nor the owner.
Here are your Auto Factoid for this last week of August 2016.
Aug 29 1898 Goodyear Tire & Rubber incorporated – With a capital stock of $100,000 and 13 employees, they began November 21, 1898, with a product line of bicycle and carriage tires, horseshoe pads, and poker chips.
First Goodyear Factory
Aug 29 1876 Charles Kettering Born Dayton, Ohio 1876 – Kettering founded Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (Delco) (which started in a barn) and later became head of research for GM (1920-1947)
Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company, or Delco.
Sept 2 1893 Frank Duryea car driven – it wasn’t much just the typical ‘run-a-bout’ and I think kudos goes to Frank’s brother Charles as well
1994 Duryea
Sept 3 1895 Duryea Motor Co. incorporates – Almost two years to the very day of the first drive, Duryea Motor Co. becomes a reality. They produced some beautiful cars like:
This is the Model C Touring car. Production continued until 1927.
Sept 3 1875 Ferdinand Porsche born Mafferdorf, Bohemia – You may have heard of Freddy (as his Mom called him) Porsche, if not you know his cars:
It was a 3 act comedy and had 344… View On WordPress. Tagged: AutoFactoids Auto HistoryAuto RestorationAutoBlog · 21st August 2016 · Video with 1 note …
Nothing is better than hearing from a reader, unless that reader send pictures of his ride.
Pete has a beautiful 1970 Mustang coupe out in Western Suburbs of Sydney in New South Wales.
Hi Tim,
Attached are a couple of pictures, one when I got her with wheels, didn’t like them so I put on another set, (the Boyd’s one). The wheels on the car when I bought them were from a 96-02 cobra GT so they had the wrong offset, with that, it meant it needed spacers. The Boyd’s need no spacers, correct offset.
Engine mods done via previous owner;
Trickflow twisted wedge heads, roller rockers
Flowtech custom roller camshaft
LSD 3.55 8’3/4” ford diff
Biggs performance 650 double pumper carb
Weiand stealth intake manifold
To date I have done the following;
Replaced rear leafs with reverse eyelet leafs, they had normal ones with lowering blocks before
Put a Mallory large HEI distributor (don’t hate me)
Converted from automatic to manual (4 speed toploader, 11 “ clutch setup)
Stereo, though I rarely listen to it, the engine is music to my ears
Replaced leaky power assist steering with all new manual steering
5” exhaust throughout, pacemaker headers, which is where my current problem is
Regards,
Pete
Pete says he’s had this beauty “About 4 years or so now I’ve had it, been interesting with the level of fixing that she needs, I had an Aussie version of the Chevelle and that was solid. Still prefer the sound of the ford motor though.” The coupe was purchased just up the road from me in Lake Havasu.
Love the color!!!
Windows are tinted just right!!!
Thanks Pete for sharing the pics of your 1970 Coupe, I miss my 1970.
As I get ready to start the new round of mods for my 1970 Mustang Coupe, I’m reminded of a couple of issues that came up when I was assisting a fellow Mustang owner doing a trans – transplant. The first tip is partially dependent on what stage you are in …
Moving right along with #ProjectSportsRoof. I’m pulling the piston in this posting.
A couple of things to note. I record these days before I actually get to post them (in case you can’t tell) and many times the entire days work is broken up into multiple posts. So you might hear similar comments in new posts, that I’ve already corrected in the previous one. For example, it might seem I’m obsession over the oil situation, “There’s lot of oil….blah…blah…blah.” Of course that’s true at that point and time, but as the Cleveland came a part – it’s clear that great lubrication wasn’t always the case, barring foreign matter getting in the engine – given damage seen thus far it would have been a pile of sand dumped in the block.
There’s also the fact that there are indications that the engine might have been apart previously (not just the heads). Maybe a ring job. I just can’t tell for sure. What I can tell is that at least the piston rods are original Ford equipment if not original to this engine, as they have the Ford Oval and are coded D0AEA – D0 = 1970. It’s not a stretch that think that Ford used piston rods from 1970 in a 1972 engine. Take a look and see what you think:
BS9 Markings on piston rod.
D0AEA markings on the piston rod. D0 = 1970
“F” is one of the markings along with an “S” in a shield.
Marking “1”
Now I pulled out the right side first (pistons 5-8) as it as the side I happened to have the engine turned over on. Take a look:
Although the all of the bearings will be replaced, I do note the ones that aren’t too bad. This is for documentation and any possible troubleshooting later on. Here is the removal of the pistons 1-4:
So now the pistons are out and we can get a good look at the crank and get pull the cam.
The 351 Cleveland is out of #ProjectSportsRoof. Yeah…I know!! It seemed like to took … Welcome back to #ProjectSportsRoof. I’m getting ready to pull the 351C …
Thanks for check in on #ProjectSportsRoof. If you remember a of couple months back, shortly after bringing the ’73 Mustang home, I conducted a compression test on all the cylinders. The 351C was running rough (to put it mildly) and smoked like a pile of tires on fire (only the smoke …
The 351 Cleveland is out of #ProjectSportsRoof. Yeah…I know!! It seemed like to took … Welcome back to #ProjectSportsRoof. I’m getting ready to pull the 351C …
Welcome back. This post will show you the removal main bearings for the crank for 351 Cleveland.
You’ll notice that I’ve added some captions correcting some of my theories like there’s seems to be plenty of oil getting around the bearing and the crank. Of course because it’s happening now, or was happening just before removing the engine that doesn’t mean it’s ‘always’ had oil flowing properly. Take a good look at the bearing when I remove them and see what you think.
I’m going to guess that prior to having the heads being done, based I what I see on the mains, there was some oil issue, rather major oil issues. You recall the valve issue on the #2 cylinder?
Oh!!!!
In the next two posts I’ll be removing and taking a look at the pistons and then we’ll inspect the crank, so keep an eye out for those.
The 351 Cleveland is out of #ProjectSportsRoof. Yeah…I know!! It seemed like to took forever!!! Seems longer since I have driven it in months. Now if you missed …
We are getting to the good stuff. We’ll be looking at the bearings, piston, crank and cam in the next few posts. I’ll be able to determine what was causing the knocking in the bottom end and if the 351 Cleveland in #ProjectSportsRoof is going to make it.
So I’m starting with removing the mains. Now I started early to avoid the heat here in Southern AZ. Doing so I had to also be a bit considerate of my neighbors. So the garage door is closed as the compressor is loud – and there’s just no good way to loosen the mains while on a stand without an impact wrench or air ratchet. So I loosened up all the bolts on the mains and fatefully the first set of bolt on piston rod (just to see if I needed the impact wrench).
There’s a few of things to keep in mind with contradict a few of my comments during the next few videos. First it seems that the bottom end of the Cleveland has never been apart. The piston rods are original Ford part with the Ford logo and Ford date code (in this case the rod are all “D0” indicated 1970 – which is not a stretch to find them in a 1972 engine) and I’m assuming the piston themselves are as well. Second is the fact that I haven’t torn an engine apart since in over 35 years so I’m not an expert. Third, I mention that there appears to have been ample oil flow at the time of tear down, but that might not have always been the case (like when the valve was not operating) – you’ll see the relevance of that qualification coming up.
Coming up in the next post is a good look at the main bearings.
Thanks for reading and drop me your comments and thoughts. Love to hear from you.
Here are your Auto Factoids (#AutoFactoids) for the first week in Feb. 2015!!! I think we can call this Kaiser Week as 3 of our factoid are related to the Kaiser auto manufacturing. In fact the month starts right off with Kaiser factoid. Feb 1, 1947 – Graham-Paige sold out to Kaiser. …
Here are your Auto Factoids (#AutoFactoids) to finish out March and kick off April 2015. March 29, 1980 – Audi introduced their all wheel drive 1980 Quattro – Not a bad-looking car at that!!! Here are some specs for the Quattro: Engine 2.1 L I5 SOHC 10v Transmission 5-speed manual Dimensions Wheelbase 99.4 …
Here are your Auto Factoids (#AutoFactoids) for last full week of April 2015. April 22, 1954 – Nash and Hudson merge to from AMC When does this: Nash Rambler PLUS THIS: ’53 Hudson Hornet EQUAL THIS? : Javlin Well that’s the equation formed when Nash merged with Hudson and produced AMC. AMC (American Motor Corp) …
Thanks checking back in with the 1973 Mustang (#ProjectSportsRoof).
I’m moving right along with getting the progress on the 351C tear down posted up. In this post I’ve pulled the oil pan and we can take a quick look at the crank and mains.
You have to love Ford engineers. Each main is numbered with an arrow…come on…that’s cool!
I was hoping that there would be something obviously out of whack at this point, but everything looked O.K. from what I could see.
Coming up next I’ll unbolt the mains and we’ll look at the bearing, piston and crank.
Jul 31, 2016 … We are moving right along on #ProjectSportsRoof,with the 351 Cleveland rebuilt. Still getting it ready to be pulled from the engine bay In this …
Source: average-guys-car-restoration-mods-racing.com projectsportsroof … for the 73 Mustang, #ProjectSportsRoof, I’m about to remove the intake manifold.
Thanks for checking back in on the progress on the 1973 Mustang SportsRoof’s 351C tear down.
In the last post I still needed to remove the lifters and the right side head. To remove the remain head, you have to remove the rockers to get a socket on them.
Also took the time to recheck the push rods, with all the noise coming from the bottom end of the block, you can’t be too careful.
I’ll apologize now for a couple of things. First the fan noise. It’s pretty hot here this time of year in southern Arizona and that fan makes it bearable, barley. But even worse is the compressor noise, so don’t crank up the volume too much. And finally, if you notice, the captions are a bit higher on the video. I’m trying to hide the brand name of my BVDs. Last time readers got a glimpse of the brand, they started sending me their brands to wear on the next video.
As you could see at the end of the video, the cylinder aren’t horrible but not great. But we’ll look at them a bit closer coming up.
