John S

Those seals that you are showing I believe are for steel inner fenders.

Sorry to hear that Dennis. I had to put down a cat four months ago you get attached to those furry little guys. Hopefully you get the car going again. John S

Floor jack. John S

Correct me if I’m wrong but I remember from years back, I’m talking the early 1980’s in the Chevrolet garage that the pinion seal was installed with a tool behind it leaving approximately a 1/16 of an inch gap between the housing and the seal. I think they make a repair sleeve for the yoke or you can tap the seal in farther. If I am wrong please correct me but I thought that there was a tool that went between the housing and the seal and it left the gap. It is not a hard job just mark the nut in relation to the yoke and the housing pretty straightforward. John S

1970 402 4 spd Bought 12/23/1979 - sold 5/1982 1970 350 4 spd Bought 5/2013 - present 9 years 2006 7/2006 - present John S

I may not be that knowledgeable on these performance water pumps but I can give you an example from where I worked at about water flow and heat transfer. I spent 29 years in the natural gas business working at compressor stations. One of our stations upstream from where I worked had a problem with the engines running hot particularly in the summer. One of the old original pipeliners that I worked with noticed that they were running both auxiliary water pumps for these engines. He stated the water was traveling too fast through the engine to properly transfer heat. He told the superintendent at the station to shut off one of the water pumps , it was hard to get an old guy to do this because it had run a certain way for over 25 years but he shut down one of the water pumps. That changed the flow rate and did not have any more heat problems from those engines. Evidently the flow of the water was correct to get a proper heat transfer and keep the engines at a consistent temperature. John S

Again I may be out of bounds here but here it goes. Try not to over complicate the issue. Set your timing as the sticker states 8° before top dead center at 600 RPM with the vacuum advance line removed and plugged and then drive it. I have a 1970 350 4 barrel four-speed transmission which I have set at 2° advanced from specs, and I get far better mileage than five mpg. If you have a 1972 350 engine it should get better than five mpg. A little exaggeration here but you can almost pour it out of a gas can quicker than you can burn it. John S

Sometimes overthinking something leads to confusion. My opinion is simple, they used rubber bushings from the factory, the car is 50 years old and they need replacing. I see no reason at all why you should not go back with original Rubber bushings unless of course you plan on holding onto the car for 50 or 60 years then you might have to replace them again. John S

Sometimes if a number of wraps are of teflon tape are used on the sender that can interfere with the ground from the threads of the sensor to the engine block. John S

Yes I see that. Just wondering if solvents may still be trapped inside. The problem I had was no one wanted to touch it. Two restoration shops in my area kept pushing forward dates to get it fixed finally after 18 months I gave up. It’s frustrating because when I worked in auto body, which I did for 12, years I’ve repaired many jobs similar to that. I cannot do the work anymore due to injuries, numerous hand surgeries and i’ve lost feeling in the tips of my fingers.

I’ll wait and see if there’s any improvement over the next couple days. I hate to speculate but possibly whatever primer they used may not have fully cured before it was painted. John S

Base coat clear coat

This may be lengthy so please bear with me and as far as comments go please feel free to say anything you need to as I cannot be offended. The pictures I have show a rust repair near the halo top trim. No one would repair this for me. I found a body shop who did some work on a friend of mine‘s car and did an excellent job and he agreed to do it. When I picked up the car it looked fantastic the blending looked great I was happy. It has been close to a week now and the paint is still soft. By that I mean if you touch it with your finger nail it will leave an indention in the paint. I do not know if the primer did not sufficiently harden or if there was no catalyst put in the paint. You can see the marks in the paint in the first picture. The last picture is when I picked up the car. Let me know what you think and you don’t have to hold back I’m sure I screwed up but give me some ideas on what you think. I think the paint should have hardened by now, it is still soft. Tell me what you think went wrong I’m sure somebody out there is knowledgeable on this. I worked in the autobody business from 1978 to 1990 I’m sure things are a lot different now. John S

I have to tell you this because now it’s funny. I had a 1979 Camaro Z 28 back in 1982 that had a very dirty cooling system I could not clean it out. I used Drano. Cleaned it out great, but I forgot to neutralize it afterwards with baking soda. I ended up replacing gaskets and frost plugs. Now I laugh about it but I wouldn’t try that again.

I’ve also always drained the block plugs if they’re accessible. John S

I took the advice of one of our members here, Sam “Bones”, and he stated it helps to drill a 3/16 inch hole in the flange of the thermostat I have done that and have never had any issues with air lock. John S

I don’t know how or where you find the patience to do that to that car. To me it looks like trying to feed oats to a dead horse. John S

Saw this 1971 Monte Carlo at Summit tonight. Talked for a while with the owner he has a 1990 Corvette tuned port injection system on the car. The block is original 1971 350. A 700R4 trans with 3.73 gears. He bought the car new in 1971 and did a frame off restoration a number of years ago. Cloth interior, column shifted, very nice looking car. John S

If that picture was taken 50 years ago I’ll bet those external options no longer look like or function like that. JohnS

I go to the Summit car shows on Monday night. I see a lot of cars eliminating that fusible link and running an eight gauge wire to handle more power. Is that advisable or is that something you should not be done?

Is the wire on the positive battery cable that connects to the terminal block on the radiator support that feeds power to the car is that a fusible link, or is it just a wire? John S

As Paul said it is difficult at best. I did them on my fenders one side I bent a wrench and also modified, by that I mean cut a quarter inch socket to make it work very slow process. The other fender I unbolted the bottom of the fender and the inner wheel well it was a little easier but still difficult. Grab yourself a beer or two and be patient. John S

I have bought a number of parts from Leo in the past. Plus I’m only a couple hours from Jared. John S

Had the dash pad off a couple of times this winter. Just noticed this today depressing. John S

If you can get a measurement on it you can look at a company called McMaster Carr, a huge supply house. They have a huge selection of O-rings, the only problem is you may have to buy a packet of 10, 25, or maybe 50 but they are low priced. John S