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Sorry to inform you of this but, that transmission doesn't have a long life left. And I'm sorry, there is no way the fluid was cherry red. Maybe slightly reddish at best. Way too much material in the bottom of the pan and trans fluid acts like a detergent.

5 oil changes today. The 70 chevelle- 18 years, 71 Monte- 2 years 418 miles, 72 Monte- who knows, 88 Monte- 17 years and my pickup- normal 3000. They needed it. IMG_5912.mov

And yeah all that material in the trans pan does not look good. If the trans takes a crap on me I’ll throw another one in 👍 thanks for the advice everyone. Mc1of80 sorry I got my panties in a knot 😂

Andrew please don’t take offense to Tom’s comment. I get what he’s saying. The picture of the dirty trans pan tells the story. That’s a lot of fiber material in there. Is it possible that the previous owner may have started to have slippage and just did a quick fluid change to see if that would fix the issue?

I hope you have stock in one of the oil companies. rob

Andrew, Tom is one of our many, more knowledgeable members and always willing to help others. If he sees something amiss he will warn the member of what he sees. By informing a member as he does, it can save that member a lot of time and money in the end. rob

Great pictures!!! So how much stalking did you do for the club. Talk anyone into checking our our club and website. rob

Nice work Andrew. I have a question, when you say the front rotor was grooved was it just one groove near the center or was it multiple groves. If it was only the one near the center of the rotor surface that would mean it was possibly the factory rotor. From the factory they did have the single groove near the center of the surface. rob

Last thing I got to before I started to lose daylight and energy to keep working was replacing the drivers front brakes. Again the rotor was grooved so someone did a pad slap on a damaged rotor. Not the ideal way to make this repair. I replaced the pads and rotor and cleaned and repacked the bearings. Tomorrow will be the passenger side brakes, both front shocks, and an oil change. Then it’s Flowmaster time 😁

Today was a busy day. Started off by replacing the rear springs, she had a lean to the passenger side so I’m hoping this will correct that. Shocks were also toast so those had to go

That’s where I sat the drain plug on a paper towel. So much for Bounty being the quicker pickeruper. Lol. We can fix that battery issue, if we can remember. Lol. 😂

i had a paint correction done this week. Really made a difference. amazing how it turns out when someone knows what they're doing...and it wasn't me!🤣

You’re a good man Andrew. Remember we don’t mean to be offensive, we are all trying to help everyone. All we get are pictures, you got the real deal experience. They say a picture is worth a thousand words but sometimes it doesn’t tell the whole story. I do hope that your transmission is ok though, not fun to change.

And that almost never results in a good outcome, especially if there are a lot of miles on a transmission. If a vehicle came in with a lot of miles (say over 100K) without ever having transmission service/fluid change, I wouldn't usually touch it. Especially if it exhibited signs of trouble. That new fluid with all those fresh detergents tend to be the kiss of death shortly after. I've personally seen it, plus it's backed up by my a cousin-in law with many, many decades of experience as a father/son owned transmission shop. Look on IATN ("International Automotive Technicians Network", I've been a member since 2006) , you won't find too many experienced techs that'll recommend a high milage fluid change either. That being the case Andrew, as with the car being new to you, I would have changed all the fluids too. Hey, if something happens down the road, you deal with it. If it runs great for a long time, even better.

Looks like a busy day. Well done

While I was back there I pulled the cover off the rear diff and replaced the oil. Don’t forget to change your diff oil once in a while or it will look like this! Cover was full of slime so that had to be cleaned too. Not showroom ready but much better

Dennis check the plug on the 72 i see a little drip on the floor!!! But at least you did something!!!! I tried to start mine, even though i cant get her out. Dead Battery, i know you are going to laugh Dennis, but i put a charger on it. Try again tomm, if still no start i will put another in her. Even the darn project car started!!!

Can you just take the two pieces to an exhaust shop and have them fix the bend real quick. Save you the two trips. Maybe.

I hope so too. Need to rent a pipe expander tomorrow to finish the exhaust. The h pipe was dented a bit on one end so the pipe won’t slip in 🙄 once that is fixed I can drive it and hope for the best. A rebuilt is only like $1600 so it’s not too bad but I’d rather not have to replace it

Seeing that drain plug, they probably never even removed the pan. I could be wrong but I don’t remember GM putting drain plugs in the pans. I always felt it was intentional to force pan removal for cleaning and more importantly, filter replacement.

Yeah I know what he was saying. Telling me there’s no way it was clean fluid put me off a bit, I saw it with my own eyes I know what it looked like. No worries on my end.

Joe, these links are good info. Same basic info in each but also some minor differences that make each valuable. Thanks for sharing!

Monte's out in full force yesterday at 8th Annual Roar on the shore show in Mentor on the Lake Ohio

Nice First Gen Monte’s !! And how many new members ???

Oh ok thanks for correcting me. I must not know what I’m talking about.

My grandmothers maiden name was Sorge and she had a brother named Roger…. Weird

Moving forward I had noticed the trans pan leaking so I dropped it and changed the filter. Here is a tip for everyone, if your trans pan bolts are all finger tight it’s going to leak…. Whoever had this car should not be touching cars. Anyway the pan was just as bad as the rear diff cover, but the fluid was nice and clean…. So someone dropped the pan but didn’t bother to clean it? No idea. Anyway it’s clean now and back in 👍

That is going to make life so much easier for so much.

Nah , just get some covers for the motor electrical and the tower post. Doubt I’ll enclose it . Also gutter the car port metal so doesn’t get as much water around it. Seems to be working fine. The concrete bolts have all been torqued . Printed the owners manual ‘ after having to fix the printer’. Which specified 150 lbs psi on the bolts. The printer only had paper dust on the rollers. loaded up the red tractor yesterday on the lift . With the front loader, and fluid in tires , about 4,500 lbs. did ok. Want to be sure about the lift integrity before raising up the Monte. As there is no replacement for it. Need to do a few things underneath. Get it ready for Carlisle PA. Woohooo!

Maybe dark grey like this car

I’ve seen them on a few first gen Montes and I like the look.

I like the rallys too but since I own two Montes (actually three currently) I thought it might be nice to have something different on one of them. If I only had one Monte it would definitely have rallys.

GM came very close to offering these for 1970. Here’s a GM photo of a 1970 SS454. I speculate that these were cancelled fairly late and is why the SS454 photo in the 1970 brochure is a hub cap bench seat car with SS454 emblems on it. I think the below photo was intended for the brochure but had to do something different on short notice after the wheels were cancelled. Funny enough though they had an artist colour and retouch the photo with rally wheels and 71 SS trim for the 1971 brochure.

One of those leads comes from the ignition switch, goes thru the NSS, then goes to the starter. Probably purple, heavier gauge wires if you're looking at the right switch.

That's exactly how I did my 71 years ago.

The 71 has the neutral safety switch and all the console lights integrated in that harness. You can probably use the safety switch on the column but you may still want the lights.

Semi gloss black or satin. Eastwood under hood satin black is what we have been using with great results. A little pricy though. Also used Eastwood satin chassis black on the chassis. Way more durable than just plain ol paint.

It's actually a semi gloss or satin black I belive, that's what I used on mine anyhow.

The brake light plunger is normally "open". When the pedal is pressed the switch closes and makes contact which turns on the brake lights. Check to see if you have power into and out of the switch when the pedal is depressed. You should only have power going into the switch when the pedal is at rest. Also check the connector in the trunk where the rear tail light harness and the intermediate harness meet. I have had a few that the connector corroded and check the ground wire also.