montefrazer

Kick down will do nothing for you in first. In second it will down shift back into first and in third it will down shift back into second. There should be at least a 500-600 RPM difference when you get a down shift at 40 MPH.

I'll assume this is a Turbo 350 since it has a cable. It is a kick down cable but also called by other names. It just shifts the tranny a lower gear at wide open throttle. The cable has a Z at the end that hooks into the part coming from the tranny you think is leaking. This is hard to work on with the tranny in the car. Do you have any floor mats or thick replacement carpet that stops the gas pedal from moving through it's full travel? Take out any floor mats and go for a ride. Floor the gas pedal in drive when you're going around 40 MPH. Then shift to second gear and see if there's any suddon change with higher RPM and speed. If you get a big change in RPM and speed, it's a tranny or linkage problem. If not, it's an engine or carb problem. Good luck.

Way past full is usually the power wire. It's the brown one going through the trunk floor, by the back bumper, to the sending unit. Since you have a 70, just crawl under the car and see how many lines connect to the sending unit at the front of the tank. One, no return. Two, return. Unless yours has the California emissions set up.

If the car was origionally sold in California or you have a charcoal canister, or signs one was mounted to the left front frame rail, you will have a few extra vacuum hoses that most SS Montes didn't have. It's all part of the California emissions set up.

Picture it with a Monte tunnel stuck into the engine side and stapled in place.

This is the same piece as a big block Chevelle and should be available from any Chevelle parts dealer.Just reuse the tunnel as said.

Have you tested the motor to be sure that's the problem? Might be a fuse, switch, connection or ground problem. "I think it must have been a "must have" option that served no practical function." It does work but it takes some time. It's not like a newer style with the heat lines in the glass. It is a defogger, not a defroster, even though it will eventually melt snow and ice off rear window. I have the same system in the 77 Caprice I drive year round. Much better than nothing if you drive in winter weather. It will clear up the middle of the rear window enough to see out.

Lubing from the out side probably won't help, but can't really hurt. If you go into the column, here is some light reading for you. http://buickperformance.com/tiltsteeringcolumnwobble.htm http://www.chevyasylum.com/column/tiltcol.html If you don't have tilt, the main parts that work the ignition switch will be the same. The first one is for our Monte style. The second one shows the later 70s/80s changes. Any time I've had a problem with turning the key, it's been the wire clip/spring on the plastic gear, left side of the column. Getting that plastic piece for the high beam to stay in place when putting it all back together is a PITA. Use lots of grease to hold it. Good luck.

"did they put those in all monte's?" No. This was excess paper after it was used to tell what parts the car got on the production line. Some cars got several, some got none, some got sheets for different cars. "where could i find mine? in the back seat?" Common places are in seats, under the carpet, and above the gas tank, but they have been found almost anywhere in the car.

You guys were right, loose internal linkage. Found S part on the filter. All tight now and working fine.

If the weather is decent, no rain, Sunday I'll drop the pan and see what it looks like. Hopefully everything is still attached somewhat so I'm not trying to guess at how it all fits together.

Another thing to check on while you're under there. There is a part of the linkage that goes to a frame bracket. There should be a spring and a plastic bushing on the end of the rod that goes into the bracket. I had the same trouble when the plastic bushing broke and fell out on me.

I'm the friend who checked his tranny. Fluid is full. External linkage is tight and going through the full distance from park to low. When you move the shifter it feels like it's not connected to anything. When we started trying to find the problem, the engine would run but it wouldn't go into reverse just forward. After moving the shifter a few times, the engine died and now it will start but die in less than a second. Just guessing here, maybe it ended up in two different gears and that kills the engine when the pump builds up pressure. Possible? We will drop the pan and see what the linkage inside looks like. Hope it's something easy to do. When it comes to trannys, I'm an R&R guy.

Don't know about the El Camino system, but there were no studs on the Montes. There are square nuts welded to the mounting brackets and bolts come up through the inner fender. Difference in mounting style for metal El Camino and plastic Monte inner fenders? Could be, but not sure.

GM wasn't interested in special runs of 50-100 cars. They were interested in runs of 100,000 and up. All the COPO cars had to be pulled from and line and be specially built. Not how they made money back then or today. Even the special high performance Corvettes and LS 6 Chevelles were planned to sell enough to cover the cost of building and selling them. Some models were built just to qualify for racing rules. A set amount of cars had to be available to the general buyers to qualify as a production car and not just a factory race car. This is why the Z-28, Trans AM, Dodge Daytona, Pymouth Superbird, to name a few, got built. Some sold well and became regular models and some were one year wonders.

Yenko was a dealer and figured out that he could order limited runs of cars that GM didn't normally build through the COPO system. The system was generally used to order cars for fleet buyers that wanted them all the same or to all have special features. This way he didn't have to order high performance engines and replace the stock ones on the cars before he sold them. They were delivered with those engines. There were other dealers doing similar things. Baldwin-Motion and Fred Gibb for Chevy, Royal for Pontiac, Grand Spalding for Dodge, etc.

You're right, a 72 would have come out in September 71. A 71 in September 70.

A December car is not a late build. Production started late July/early August of 71 for introduction and start of sales in September of 71. December 71 build would be 1/3 of the way through the model build. Sometimes a newer part was used at the very end of the model year, early July built cars, when the current parts ran out, but this would be rare and would not affect all assembly plants. I made frames for 33 years and we would build out the current frames in late June, run some prototype frames for early testing, close the lines for two weeks in early July for retooling, and start running new model frames in late July for shipping to the assembly plants so they could start building the new model cars.

"EDIT- I am also curious about a 70 with NO radio. Was this an option? Did the car come with a delete plate then??" No radio was standard and any radio was an option. If you didn't order a radio, there was a plate that covered the holes in the dash. Most people ordered a radio or put one in over the last 30+ years, so finding a Monte with this plate is rare. I've seen one over the years. Looks like an after thought by the designers and is hard to forget once you've seen it.

"I love this type of stuff. EXCEPT ... I noticed in the one part, they refer to the '87 as the "third generation". UGH!!!!!!!! It is the FOURTH generation." I have 6 three ring binders of those cards. It was a monthly mail order subscription deal back in the 80's. A lot of the info on those cards is wrong.

Are we talking about the lower (rocker) moldings? No, the piece in front of the rear wheel is above the rocker moulding. The piece behind the rear wheel has a cut out for the red side marker.

Rob couldn't post them. I'll send them to you if you like. Email me so I can get your address. It's not under your profile. Steve

GM calls it a sending unit, number GR 10.154 12004345. It works by letting the washer fluid in through slots in the lower part of the tube and allowing the float with the colored plastic to rise to the top of the tube and have the light shine through and be picked up by the fiber optic cable. There is a lense in the top to magnify the light sent to the dash part. The plastic part has the red color on the top and the green color under the red. When the bottle is full, the float rises into the head enough that only the green is transmitted to the fiber optic pickup and the dash part shows green. As the level drops, some of the red also is lit up and shows up as orange in the car. When the bottle is very low, only red shows in the car. It is two pieces and snaps together. I sent some pictures to Rob. Hope it worked and he can post them.

Swivel was not available for 70-72. He may have taken it out of a 70 Monte, but the factory didn't put it in there.