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1,000 Miles and a Good Frame


Robert

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I decided to drive my 1970 Monte Carlo on our yearly trip from Oshawa Ontario to Grande Anse New Brunswick. So on August 21 my wife and I set out. Travelling through three provinces, seven tanks of gas and driving 875 miles we arrived at our final destination. The car ran fine all the way. After spending sometime visiting family, we jumped in the Monte and headed south another 125 miles to see the Hopewell Rocks (highest tides in the world). Again the car ran great that is until we pulled into our motel for the night. The car started running rough and wanted to stall. Being late and dark we parked and shut her down. In the morning, I started the car up and she was running bad. We decided to go to the motel restaurant to come up with a game plan. We knew the city of Moncton was roughly 30 miles north of us and we could try to make it there to get it fixed or maybe find someone in the little town we were staying in. So my wife (Mona) asked the waitress if she knew of anyone. The kind lady advised of two mechanics with nearly 70 years experience of working on old cars. So off we went and I'm glad we did. Not only were they experiened, they were die hard Chevy guys. One owning a Chevelle for every year between 1965 to 1972, the other, a drag racer who builds his own cars including fabricating the frames. I told them the problem I was having. They started the car, both saying 'she needs new plugs'. While waiting for the parts to come in, Jeff, the one working on the Monte, turns to me and says "Do you know your Holley is for a truck?" I did not. Then he says "Did you know your heads are from a late model car?" and again I say no. In my head, I'm thinking '[censored]!' Why didn't the mechanic who's worked on the car for the last ten years tell me any of this when I inherited the car. Jeff then asks "Do you know that you have a HEI distributor?" Finally I can answer yes. Another question "Do you know the plug gap should be 0.45?" I say no. He tells me they're set to 0.35. Now my trust for the mechanic in Ontario is gone. I asked if they would look at my frame, Ontario mech said it needed to be replaced because it's weak. Up on the hoist she goes. At this time the shop manager comes in for a look as well. It turns out he restores cars to museum quality. Jeff and Chris spend twenty minutes going over the whole frame and find nothing wrong. New parts come in and Jeff gets to work. New plugs fix the problem. Jeff asks if I'm ok with him adjusting the carb because it's way too rich. I answer yes. Not only does he reset the carb, he teaches me how to do it. So in the three hours that we were there, I learned more then I ever knew about the motor, got a lesson in carb tuning, found out the frame is good , saving me thousands of dollars and now the car runs better then it ever has. The icing on the cake, it cost me less then $200. For the rest of our trip our Monte was awesome. On the drive home, we only filled up six times. Ended up putting 2,700 miles on the car. Breaking down was a game changer. No longer looking for a frame, have enrolled in a part time two year body and paint coarse at one of the local colleges. The snow ball is a roll'n. Robert

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Glad you enjoyed my tale. Newsletter worthy . WOW.  There is more to the story that I left out and other bits I shorten. Didn't want to ramble on. I could do a rewrite and fill in the blanks, if you want to use it in the newsletter. Just let me know.  Robert

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