Product Review – Griot’s Garage – Long Lasting Tire Dressing Prt 2

Before I attempted to use the tire dressing, I washed the car and gave the rubber a good scrubbing.  For the actual application I used an old sock.  When I first poured the dressing on to the sock, it was a bit runny, but still has some consistency.  Keep in mind the temperature, 105 degrees in my garage where I  stored it and where I was applying it and about 108 outside.  I was a bit concerned, because with two show cars (one, a trophy winner and white!!) and having the tire dressing flung all over the paint isn’t cool, which is exactly what I won’t use the Eagle One brand.

I gave 3 of my 07 Vette’s tires two coats and I have one 3 coats.  Take a look a the results.

First coat:

First coat - not even - most likely due to the sock.

Another first coat

An additional note – these pics were taken in my garage with a less than optimal source light.

Now with the Vette  moved out into the sun and two coats.

Two coats - pretty nice coverage.

I really liked the 3rd application.

3 coats created a good look

So know I’ve given each tire 3 coats and since I don’t do this for a living, the next test had to wait.  I had a few ‘honey-do’ chores, before I took the Vette for a drive.  So the car sat in the sun for about an hour – temp was about 108.

With the to do list completed, I  needed  to take the Vette out to toss some air in the tires.  Yes…average guy tools = small compressor  that doesn’t hold enough air to top off four tires..heck…it can barely do one…got to upgrade one of these days.

Here is where the rubber meets the road and hopefully the tire dressing doesn’t meet the paint, but first a note. I did in fact drip some of Griot’s Garage – Long Lasting Tire Dressing on my chrome wheels and sure enough it cleans off with moist rag.

Take a quick spin about 1.5 miles from the house and I don’t drive 30 miles an hour…the tires spun pretty hard the entire trip.

At the air pump here is what I saw.

Light running

Same here.

I’ll mention, again the temperature and I think that might have something to do with it, but really this wasn’t bad.  The real test was whether or not it spread to the paint and since it’s a black car you aren’t going to see it as easily – it’s a clear liquid as well.  So a quick swipe with a white showed me all I needed to know, it came back clean.

So I’m pretty pleased with how the product worked.

As far as the “long-lasting” part.  I’m not going to be able to render a fair opinion yet for a couple of reason:

1.  I just put it on

2.  We don’t get much rain here in Southern AZ  but it is the monsoon season so it has rained 3 times since the application.

So that will have to be in Part 3 later on.

I need to add a few notes as I always do when I review a product. (Some of that laws school was worth the $$$.)

I don’t work for Griot’s, my only connection is that I”m on their mailing list.  This is the first product I’ve purchased from them.

I did see a tweet from someone related to Griot’s Garage commenting on this review, but don’t know the individual.

I’m not Consumer Reports or Consumer Digest.  I only comment on products I use in my search for “stuff” that works well for me.

Whenever I write about a product I try to follow the  instructions provided and always give any variances or events/conditions that might impact the outcome.

Thanks for reading.

Tim

Closure Missing 1970 Mustang Grande

OK after all these years, after the car was gone.  I stopped by the house.  I was met by Al, short for Albert, not Alan, as Al informed me.

I told him that I had always wanted to check on the Grande and he informed I was a bit late.  He said he didn’t mind answers a few questions.

So I asked Al how got the car and he said he bought it back in 1972 from some guy.  “It was a nice car with an automatic.”  Of course my next question was what was under the hood and he said ‘nothing’.  “Took it out about 10 years ago and parked on the side of the house.”  He told me he never got the engine fixed, ” ’cause  it ‘cost too much.”  He ended up letting the guy that did some work on it keep.  “Ya know, it might have been a 302.”  He said he didn’t really know want to do with the body and just ended up hanging on to it.

So I asked him where the car end up, hoping it was sent out to be restored.  He said there was this guy from Texas that would stop by every now and then and ask if it was for sale.  He drives large pick up and always has an empty trailer attached.  This same guy that has stopped by a co-worker of mine, who has her son’s 70 Monte Carlo and her daughter’s 1969 Camaro sitting under her car port – waiting for some TLC and try’s to convince her that she should sell them to him.  She chases him off each time, but he’ll swing by a few months later.

A couple of weeks ago, Texas dude, stops by Al’s home and Al decided to get the Grande out of the yard and sold the man from Texas.

We talked a bit longer about my 1970 Mustang coupe and I showed him a couple of pics on my phone and then thanked him for his time.

There ya go..closure!

Thanks for reading.

Tim

Parking Lot Spotlight 6/13/2011

Here is another cool  car sighting.

This one was in the parking lot of the a local auto parts store Checker’s or O’Rielly’s….or….all those mergers are making hard to have common name that everyone can related too (remember when there was just NAPA….can’t find them very often).

1969 Chevelle 454 Restored shell

This 1969  Chevelle  was merely as shell…oh but is extremely well done restoration.  The paint was excellent (makes ya wonder why it was being dragged round uncovered), the inside of the shell had been as expertly sprayed as the exterior..it was almost a shame to put in the interior in there.

Reproduction gauges and not much in the way of interior yet.

The badge on the car shows that this car housed or will house 454.  But however, the 454 didn’t show up on the scene until until 1970 so this must be a retro fit.

You can see the big power plant is missing.

It looks absolutely ready to for dropping that monster engine back in and hitting the strip.  Hey I don’t even mind the wheels!!!

Didn’t find the owner (or driver) , part store was crowded.

Of course this isn’t a 1970, I’ll update the data a bit later.

Some 1970 Chevelle facts:

– The 454 was produced between 1970 thru 1976.

–  It produced 450 hp configured with 4bbl carb

–  It was designated the LS6 with 475 ftlbs of torque and 9.0:1 compression ratio

The majority of the Chevelle’s  (approx. 13,000) had V8 in 1970 and approx. 10,000 had 6 cylinders.

Thanks for reading.

Tim

ParkingLot Spotlight 6/07/2011

So you are out at the mall or grabbing some groceries at the store and you are headed back to your car in the parking lot and you catch something out of the corner of your eye.  It’s out of the ordinary, it really shouldn’t be there, especially parked between that 1998 Honda with almost no paint and the huge Cummings Diesel pick up with a bench car seat bungy corded to the tie downs in the bed, but there it is, glowing and out-of-place.

That is what these segments will be about.  Sometime there will be comments from the owner and sometimes I won’t have a chance to chat with them.  There is a fine line between loving cars and stalking. (Standing around while your milk getting warm and your ice cream is leaking out of the hole in the plastic bag, waiting for the owner is on the line.  Hey..it only happened once!!!…Come on now!!!..You’ve done it!!!)

Wandering around Southern Arizona wine country, we pulled into the one of the winery’s parking lots and I spied this beauty.

1964 Lincoln Continental Love the shape of the grill.

Yes! Convertible with suicide doors.

I’m on the fence with these wheels, but it’s still great looking.

Some 1964 Lincoln Continental facts:

Sales for that year was  32,969 roughly and approximately only 3,328 convertibles were sold.  The other option was a 4 door sedan (no two door coupe?  I’ll have to check on that).  The vert was sold for $6,938 and the sedan was about $700 less.

Only one engine was available for the Lincoln and that was the 430 with 320 hp. Which was good because the car weighted 5,000 lbs.  It was paired up with a 3 speed auto transmission which helped it reach the top speed of 110 m/h.

Longer wheel base was about 2 inches longer then the previous years at 126 inches.

 

Thanks for reading.

Tim

Wrenchin’ Tips – Masking

Having grown up working in my Dad’s body shops, was often given the honorable task of taping (masking) off the areas that weren’t going to get sprayed and areas, like windows and mirrors where you don’t want over-spray landing.   I learned a few tricks that help speed up the process, but more importantly help ensure a good clean paint job.  Removing over-spray is not a fun process.

I’ve tried the machines that merge the paper and the tape, great for straight lines, like the Coca Cola trucks we painted but for tight corners it just doesn’t work.

To save time, which equals a money saver and to get sharp clean lines, outline the areas with thinner tape, 1/4 inch works best.  After that use the tape and paper machine and run that along the previously laid tape.

Here’s one more.

I can’t possibly tell you how much a pain it can be to tape off emblems and name plates and it’s never clean.  Do yourself a big favor, figure out how they are attached to the sheet metal and purchase replacement them.  You know where I’m going… remove the badges and emblems.  That is the only way to do it right.

Clips for my 70 Mustang badges

Thanks for reading.

Tim

NCM Raffle Cars C4 and Owner Pick up

At the entrance. Here are two of the cars that are up for raffling. There is also the a vette you can “try on”. In this clip I stated that the vettes at the end of the building were there for customer to sit. No true. That is where the code R is fulfilled. Code R is for delivery at the NCM. You can view a 1984 C4 in the window.

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Thanks for reading
Tim

Engine Mini-Series – Pontiac’s 326 Follow Up

Charles – Thanks for dropping by and giving us some of your insight.

Here is what he provided:

Hi, i’ve never heard of the Chevy reaction in 38 years of studying GM’s history.  Pontiac was violating GM’s rule of limiting cubic inches of cars smaller than full-size to one cubic to every ten pounds of car’s weight, so cars like Pontiac’s Tempest/Le Mans, Buick’s Special/Skylark, Old’s Cutlass/F85, and Chevy’s Chevelle/Malibu were limited to 330 cubic inch displacement. Pontiac marketed the 336 as a 326, and after some time, someone in GM figured out the actual bore and stroke made 336 cid. Pontiac had to change the 336 down to the 326.  Then for 1964, Pontiac (Thank You – John DeLorean) created an option for the Le Mans, the GTO option, since the standard Le Mans engine obeyed the limit rule, there was nothing in the rule saying you couldn’t offer an optional extra cost, bigger engine.  Can you say 389 cid, 348 horsepower ?,  OH YES, turn it on, wind it up, blow it out, GTO.

1964 LeMans GTO Convertible

Thanks for reading.

Tim

Chevy’s 283 – OH WOW – 300 HP in a What?

 So I just can’t let the 283 go.  I will find one,  restore it and hang it from my garage ceiling, umm…yeah..I don’ t think the misses will have a problem with that….ok maybe just store it a corner of the garage..or turn it to a coffee table..yeah……um…no.
Check out his 1966 Corvair with 300 hp 283.
Link is here:  http://www.automobilemag.com/reviews/driven/1012_1966_corvair_corsa/index.html
1966 Corvair Corsa Front Three Quarters In Motion

REVIEWS:

First Drive: 1966 Corvair Corsa

From the December, 2010 issue of Automobile Magazine
By Don Sherman
Photography by A. J. Mueller

The Chevy Corvair’s swing axles and heavy tail are implements of the devil, at least according to Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed diatribe. Paul Siano, the creator of the mid-engine Siano Special, doesn’t buy any of that. He has owned, modified, and drag-raced Corvairs for more than half of his seventy years without suffering a single unintended spinout.

Siano bought — brand-new — what began life as a 1966 Corvair Corsa after supercharging a Volkswagen Beetle and owning a ’64 Corvair Monza Spyder convertible. He drove the coupe 50,000 miles before ripping out the stock 180-hp turbo engine.

A vintage Crown Manufacturing kit provided the means of upping the cylinder count and moving the engine from the back porch to the rear seat. That package included a tubular-steel subframe, an engine-to-transaxle adapter plate, a new transmission input gear, cooling-system pipes, a new shift linkage, and two new antiroll bars.

Siano’s prize possession is a rare, experimental, 283-cubic-inch aluminum engine block that General Motors pitched out as scrap. Engine builder Bryce Flinn added a roller cam, aluminum heads, and the induction overkill. Siano fabricated the necessary bits and brackets with an emphasis on minimal weight. He also added four-wheel disc brakes, Minilite wheels, radial tires, and a Ron Davis aluminum radiator.

Siano didn’t partition off his eight-pack of Weber intake trumpets, because he’s a patron of the rolling, reverberating, internal-combustion arts. Living with Webers is not for the meek of heart. When cold, they spit and stumble. When they’re up to operating temperature, they fill the interior with a combustible cloud of reversion gases. Smoking is discouraged.

Headphones are available for those rides when hearing preservation takes precedence over the din of a barely muffled Chevy V-8. Only two things keep the whirring water-pump pulley from biting the occupants’ elbows: the flush bolts that Siano installed in place of hex-head screws and every human’s natural preservation instincts

1966 Corvair Corsa Cylinders

REVIEWS:

First Drive: 1966 Corvair Corsa

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More Photos
1966 Corvair Corsa Front Three Quarters In Motion
1966 Corvair Corsa Engine

When we drove to the test track, Siano’s homebuilt special revealed evil streaks: quick but heavy steering, vague shift linkage, and a throttle pedal that offers yes and no but very little maybe. However, a few miles were enough to establish an amicable working relationship.

Offered the opportunity to redeem itself, the Siano Special settled into stride to post a reasonably impressive performance report: 0 to 60 mph in 5.2 seconds, the quarter mile in 13.9 seconds at 104 mph, and a top speed of 130 mph. More amazing, the handling balance is excellent, offering just under 0.90 g at the limit of adhesion and only a touch of easily controlled oversteer when the fourteen-inch BFGoodrich Radial T/As finally let go. The cobbled-together chassis held firm over bumps, and the dampers kept body motions nicely controlled throughout the testing gauntlet.

Back in the Corvair’s day, GM fiddled with various mid-engine sports cars, only one of which (the Pontiac Fiero) ever made it to a production line. Leave it to a motivated Corvair enthusiast to demonstrate what can be achieved by adding a couple of cylinders and relocating the engine to a more productive location.

The Specs
Engine: 4.6-liter (283 cu in) OHV V-8, 300 hp (est.)
Weight: 2600 lb
Weight distribution f/r: 44.0/56.0%
Drive: Rear-wheel

What’s Going On? How about an update?

That’s an email from a reader.  Been under the weather for a few days and a heavy workload this time of the year where I “pound salt” (hopefully a fair ratio of people get that).

So here is what is coming up:

Finish up the series on the 326 Pontiac engine.

Finish up the last couple entries for the Name That Car Contest (tally for this latest round coming up).

Feature Car – one of the Studebaker’s models.

Update on my 1970 Mustang “make-over”.

And some other stuff.

Thanks for reading.

Tim

Engine Mini-Series – Pontiac’s 326 Prt 1

Even while operating within the huge conglomerate that is (was)  GM, the divisions all strived to retain some semblance of their earlier identity or develop a separate identity. Even with continued mounting to conform (within reason) to use standard tooling and
engines parts out of the GM bins they strove to be unique.

The Pontiac division made this effort “job one” with slightly different body parts and paint schemes (Trans Am paint schemes).  What I think made them standout was the effort to stuff unique power plants in their offerings’ engine bays.

With this in mind, I selected Pontiac’s 326 CID engine.  This short production run engine had some special Detroit steel wrapped around it. But we’ll get to its uses and an interesting note about its purpose as related to circumventing a rule or two.

The 326 (restored)

This engine came about as a need to replace Pontiac’s aluminum 215 V8 engine. (It was actually built by Buick.) It was expensive to
build and not well received by the public, most just couldn’t get over the aluminum part and worried about durability and even about the ability for it to
say lubricated and whether coolant would eat way at the aluminum.  Of course we not differently now where aluminum is desired in many, especially with heads.

The 215 Aluminum (Buick built)

Coming up how –  Pontiac used the 326 –  a unique dealer trick that put this engine between the fenders of famous car and the difference between a 326 and a 327.

Thanks for reading.

Tim

 

Pontiac V8 engine

Pontiac 326 engine in 1967 Firebird