Automotive happenings in the world of 8-Track Mind

Since the automotive group needs some traffic, i figured i would post the recent happenings in my gearhead world.

First up, The rescue of a 1964 Pontiac Safari Station Wagon.



The neighbor up the street, Steve, found this pontiac that had been sitting in a field since 1982. As local legend has it, it was parked because of an ignition system problem. It stranded the woman who owned it since was new. She had it towed to her back yard and promptly went to a GM dealership and bought a new car.

Steve scored it for $500. It has the original 421 under the hood, backed by a Roto-matic slushbox. We threw a hot battery on it, cleaned the points, sprayed carb cleaner down the throat of the Carter AFB, and the bastard lit up in a cloud of blue smoke and lifter noise! Hell we found the warranty paperwork still in the glovebox! It took a few months of hunting brake parts down, repairing rat chewed wiring, upgrading to electronic ignition, a brand new Edelbrock 750 carb and it's now a daily driver! That a freaking torquey engine in the bastard! It gets sideways when you punch it! The engine quit smoking after a few heat cycles.

Ok, item number two. Now here's a GM engine that not very many people know about.



This is a GMC 702 cubic inch V-12. Yes thats right, a V-12 gas engine. It was commonly refered to as the twin six. It looks like two blocks bolted together, but don't be fooled: this engine shares a common crank, camshaft, and a massive block. These were commonly used for heavy duty GMC trucks but a lot of these are used for water pumps up in the panhandle of Texas. here's a another shot of it:



This one was running full tilt pumping water for an irrigation system. They were running it off of natural gas. This engine has a sound like nothing you've ever heard. I want one of these. Badly.

More to come....

Cherry bomb muffler, maybe make a flamethrower out of the exhaust. What a GREAT find. And NO RUST! Find me a Toyota or Honda like that and I'll concede they be a better car. Oh wait, you can't because they are all Coke cans and brake rotors..........



:hi: :fistbump:

with the automatic gearbox slipping. The word on the street is that the Roto-Matic isn't worth putting the money into, and a Turbo 400 with a BOP bell housing is the way to go? Do you know anything about this?

TH400 are wondeful transmissions, but it may be a LOT cheaper to rebuild yours than buying a new TH400 along with correct speedo gear, drivshaft reworking and yoke changes.....


You can always put a can of TransX in the trans, it has worked wonders for decades......

amazing that someone would mention this stuff. One of my late brothers was a ford mechanic supreme and one day I mentioned to him that my old merc's tranny was acting funny so he grabs his gizmo that had a long hose attached to it and ran the hose down the fill tube on the tranny and pulled out about a quart of oil then poured in a quart of trans-x and closed the hood and said something like this'll fix it up and guess what it sure did. I've used it several times since and always with the same results, good. I've used it in engines that had seals leaking and it worked there too.

I 'bout forgot. An aquaintenance of ours had a jappy something or other that the tranny was going out of and he put a can of trans x in it but the tranny was way too far gone to do any good so he wrote them and told them about it and sure enough they paid for having his tranny fixed. Now how's that for a warranty, says right on the can and by george they lived up to it.

good stuff trans X

If TransX can't fix it it's toast.

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I'd say it's worth fixing.

Find a mechanic that agrees with you.

Mind you, he'll probably be as old as dirt,

but will probably know what he's talking about.

Automatic transmissions are relatively simple to repair,

in this case most likely clutches,, band and seals - maybe a pump or bearing/shims

Fix the old one -

no messing around trying to make something else fit!

ALSO

for collectors,

having the original block, tranny case etc. increases their value.

Interesting article on this vehicle here