Paul Bell

OPGI

Wow Joe, really good info, thanks!

Hey folks, I need to replace my carpet, dark blue. Which is correct original style?

Hey Tony, what is your engine RPM at 60 MPH with the GV overdrive engaged?

I don't know if they'll find the car but the owner posted this: "Quick update, some good information came in that the car was spotted northbound on i-280 getting off at exit 11. Toledo PD has been notified"

Posted on Facebook by Kevin Green, not sure if he's a member here. It was stolen Friday between 5am and 8pm from his shop in Northwest Ohio. I'll add more details as he posts them.

All true. The temptation is strong.

This was posted on one of the Facebook Monte groups. I managed to download and save it. It appears to be Wednesday, 11/22 in Daytona Florida. From all the chatter, it sounds like he was doing a rolling burnout. As we all know, a spot of water, a manhole cover, a dip in the road, etc. can cause one rear tire to have better grip and force the car to swerve. No word of injuries, I hope they were minor. Be careful out there friends. SS no more.mp4

I purchased one of Dan Janes Dpj Fabricating True Slap shift plates for my B&M Pro Stick Shifter. I also got the reverse lockout delete plate from B&B. This allows true slap shifting from first to second to third gears without needing to use the unlock trigger and without the chance of going into neutral, it stops in third gear. Very nice piece from Dan, he also offers these shift plates for stock Chevelle/Monte Horseshoe shifters and a few other aftermarket shifters plus four speed versions. Dan James True Slap.mp4

OK. Ya really had my hopes up. 🙁

Yes, message sent!

My car has a dual diaphragm nine inch brake booster. It’s pretty much equal to the stock single diaphragm unit when it comes to adding “power” to your brake system. My camshaft doesn’t produce much vacuum so I needed a fix. I would hate having all the extra hoses for a hydro-boost setup so I began studying electric pump systems. As it turns out, many vehicles today have electric vacuum pumps, GM, Ford, Subaru...they’re pretty compact and are often used to help a car have better brakes. From what I can tell, almost all of them are supplied by Hella. Ford has they’re own designs and they’re pretty poor. There’s four different Hella pumps, small to large. The largest one, the UP5.0 can provide vacuum for a brake system without any engine vacuum and usually come on trucks. This is the same pump that’s used in the very expensive Master Power Silent Drive vacuum pump. The Hella UP5.0 is used in some Dodge pickup trucks, part number 68385753AB. Search this number on Ebay and you’ll find it for about $65.00. The pre-made kits like from Master Power, Leed etc. are ready to go with a universal bracket, vacuum switch, relay and check valve. If you want to use the UP5.0 pump on it’s own, you’ll need to add these components. Superior Transmissions makes an adjustable vacuum switch, K058 which is about $44.00 on Amazon. The relay is any standard 12 volt relay and nice aluminum inline vacuum check valves can be had on Ebay in a variety of hose sizes. The Ebay Dodge pump comes on a bracket with rubbers between the pump and the bracket. You’ll probably make up some sort of bracket but you should still use the rubbers. I made up a bracket and it’s mounted in the fender behind the washer fluid jug, it’s out of sight. I recommend the largest vacuum reservoir can you can find and fit in the fender-or several of them. The system works pretty good on my car-and I have a large master cylinder with a 1-5/16" bore to move enough fluid for six piston front & four piston rear calipers. BTW, I’m thoroughly convinced that the engineers at Wilwood know nothing about brake hydraulics. Pic is the Hella UP5.0 on the Dodge truck bracket.

!984, so 38 years.

I'm looking for a new NOS driver's door lower molding, part number 8701418.

Dennis, this is a very interesting car with it's options. It has the relatively rare bucket seat option without a center console. And the washer fluid monitor. Although it's a just about a complete SS with original engine and suspension lift system, it's pretty rough. Have you inspected the frame yet? I'd say the cost to restore this car will exceed it's value-probably by a lot. There is a point of no return for most cars-this isn't a 1965 Z16 Chevelle. If it was my car, and I had plenty money to burn, I'd probably not do the restoration. If I wanted an SS fixer-upper, I'd find one in better condition, they do pop up once in a while.

My work has been very very busy. I’m tired! I’ve had little time to work on the car. Where I’m at: I have my 496 shortblock assembled, Bullet cam is slapped in and the Flotek heads were flowed & ported a bit, port matched and filled with Manley severe duty components. I added pairs of boxer fans to the oil & trans coolers behind the grill. As much prep work I did to the stock evaporator box, my arm was twisted by a friend who says the Vintage Air system works just as well while eliminating the box under the hood. I’m doing it. I’m covering most of the firewall with some 3/16 aluminum I had, it’ll be powder coated. I had to pull out the right fender well-it’s steel. Although being about five years old, it’s actually starting to rust on the inside rear. Both have holes from hose stuff that I can better locate within the fender. I’m ordering a new set of fender wells-and they’ll be powder coated. As the dash needs to come out to do the AC box, and there was more arm twisting, I’m gonna get the Dakota Digital cluster to do at the same time.

Hey Ron, is it the same one from Easy Performance discussed here that you got on Ebay?

I thought the Cool LED brand wasn't going to make them for our cars anymore. I had them and had difficulty installing both sides, one broke, I tossed them. It was like no matter how I worked it, they got crushed. It looks like the new Easy Performance lights are brighter, I'm considering them.

Yes Steve, that's how I learned of them.

They look pretty bright. A little costly. Has anybody see or used them? https://easyperformance.com/products/chevy-monte-carlo-sequential-led-taillight-kit-70-72?fbclid=IwAR086D5OvDK0G-MF53aWHmquj8gqieb1suN7PjXp-alyypka6EoNz6ZhjW0

The headlights are powered from a 12 gauge red wire in the dash that also feeds the ignition switch. This red wire is powered from a fuseable link fed from the horn relay. The headlight switch has a circuit breaker in it. The short instrument cluster lighting fuse is 4 amps.

You'll need to find a buddy with a 1971~1972 Monte so you can pull the emblem off and make a template for the holes. And yes, the lock cylinder is installed before the emblem goes on.

Any decent speaker is gonna want 100 watts. I don't know of any in dash radio that produces more than 15 watts or so, even if they claim 50. There's some good compact amplifiers on the market, Alpine has a few.

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_113XR1701/Kenwood-Excelon-XR-1701.html?tp=105 https://www.crutchfield.com/p_13699042/JL-Audio-C1-650x.html?tp=105 https://www.infinityspeakers.com/speakers/KAPPA463XF-.html?dwvar_KAPPA463XF-_color=Black-AM-Current&cgid=speakers#start=1 https://www.crutchfield.com/p_142SA69/Scosche-SA-69-Speaker-Mounting-Brackets.html?tp=2824 https://rockfordfosgate.com/products/details/t1s-1x10p/

I can recommend what to look for and what to avoid in speakers: Avoid oval speakers, they have a lot of distortion from the cone being twice the mass on the long sides. These cone auto speakers are small and they have no problem reaching up into the midrange frequencies. There's no need for anything more than a two way design, a nice woofer and a single tweeter. IOW, a two way design. I love these "four way" speakers that have just a tiny silver dome as a tweeter next to a bigger tweeter but it's just for show. Find a speaker set with an external crossover in a small box. It'll have the needed chokes, caps and resisters that tune and match the woofer and tweeter. The cheap stuff just has a cap for the tweeter. Unfortunately, this is only found with component speakers where the tweeter is separately mounted. To get around this, you can get a 6 x 9 adapter plate that takes a 6-1/2" round woofer and a tweeter mounted side by side. There's a handful of decent 4 x 6 plate speakers. Find a speaker with a substantial tweeter in it. A one inch titanium, aluminum or soft dome. It should have a phase disc blocking the center of the dome. Avoid a Mylar dome. A recent trend is to put two identical speakers side by side on a single plate. This causes all kinds of lobing at certain frequencies. Magnets and voice coils. Like some things in life, bigger is better. None of these speakers-even the big 6 x 9's, have any real bass. If you try to turn up the bass, you'll overload them and maybe blow them up. Get one of those compact powered sub cabinets you can hide away in the trunk. Then turn down the bass to the smaller speakers.