MGD72Monte

Attempting a swap with a rack and pinion from another car would be a great project. As mentioned, at least one person has installed an aftermarket rack and pinion kit. Others have installed steering gearboxes from mid 80s Monte SS cars, some have installed aftermarket closer ratio gear boxes with notable improvements but I believe no one has done what you propose and I would be very interested in the outcome. The steering is one of the areas where the stock system has a lot of room for improvement. Pls keep us posted if you go forward with this and good luck.

A lot of combinations will "work" but if you are running 15"x7" rims, I would recommend 235/70R15 or 275/60R15 if you want to maintain fairly stock speedometer accuracy. This is as close as you will get to the overall diameter of the stock bias ply tires the car came with unless you want to go with 215/75R15 but that is a fairly skinny tire. I have 225/70R15 and will switch to 235/70R15 when comes time to replace to get better accuracy. Good luck whatever you decide.

So what is the German parking light? Is it simply a lower setting of the headlights or is there some colour to it? How do you control them? What happens to the tailights when your euro parking lights are on?

Here are some more ideas. The carpet is simply outdoor carpet from any home renovation store. Parts I picked up cheap from a junk yard: - compact spare (repainted) - scissor jack (cleaned up) - trunk light set up (various parts from 90s cars, hooked into the existing trunk wiring harness and the light fits right in the existing opening in the rear deck lid just as if it was designed to go there and does a great job at lighting up the trunk area)

Can you flip the bolt around so the head end is next to the muffler instead of the nut. That should buy you a small amount of space. Man, those braces have a significant difference in width at that point compared to the stock ones. Good luck

Debris accumulates in that area of the frame and rots the metal which thins the metal reducing the strength of the treads. Re-taping may not help as there could be insufficient metal left to build strong threads. I had the same issue on at least one of the holes when I replaced my sway bar. As per Dan, I stuffed a washer and a lock nut on it. I forget exactly how I held it in place, did not have to modify a tool, I may have been able to stick a screwdriver blade in there or some other way to prevent the nut from turning until I could tighten it down. As stated by Dan, worked like a charm. Good luck.

Thanks guys, lots of info in there. I did use the 12ft.lbs torque down, spin, then loosen "until it is just loose" then as per my last, tighten by hand and I end up where I am at. What I did not check in all this is the resultant torque when I tighten forward using a socket in my hand to reach the next cotter pin hole. I can check that maybe next weekend but otherwise looks like the amount of play is "normal". Interesting that tapered pinion bearings need preload while spindle bearings apparently do not. Thanks again

I looked to tighten these today but the only way I am able to tighten the nut to the next cotter pin slot is by turning the spindle nut by hand using a socket (but no wrench or ratchet). That does get rid of the play but according to the book the nut should be loosened then tightened only by hand "not a wrench of any kind until it is snug, if it does not line up with a slot, back it off to the nearest slot" which is where the set up is now. To tighten beyond I may not be using a wrench but I am using a socket. The book also says that when you push/pull by the top and bottom of the tire, a play of no more than 0.005" is acceptable. That is hard to measure though. With the distances between the cotter pin slots being what they are I don't see how you can get this right without being extremely lucky. Thoughts?

Romain, there should be a two letter code on the axle (front face right hand axle tube) if I remember correctly. That will give you the ratio. Mine was GC for 2.73 non-locking. But to find if the ring gear diameter is 8.2 or 8.5 see this post Linky I redid mine last year and it is 8.2. Good luck.

When I did mine with a kit from PST, they provided a tube of a clear thick grease. Stickiest grease I have ever worked with but I don't know what it is called. If you call their tech help line they probably can tell you. Good luck

To close this off, I pulled the plug yesterday, did not notice anything unusual about it but I replaced it and the problem went away. Thanks again for the help.

Thanks everyone,the ignition system is HEI and I thought I had enough dialectric grease but I'll make sure I put more. I won't get to this until next week to confirm, but I'll report back.

I've been having a hesitation issue at most speeds as well as idle. Problem more noticeable when accelerating and seemed to get worse when hot. While troubleshooting I noticed the pax side rear sparkplug is showing spark between the ceramic insulator and the hex nut metal portion. Probably my problem. Anyone heard of this? I will be picking up a plug to replace it, just want to know if there is possibly something wrong with the engine / ignition system that would have caused this or is this just a fluke failure. Plugs (Delco 44TS) are not that old but I recently removed them to check them. Thanks

As a follow-up to this I rebuilt the carb and the percolating/leaking and hot start problem went away. Thanks to everyone for their input. I still have a hesitation issue - see spark plug post.

Thanks guys, I will look to tighten the bearings gently by hand at the earliest opportunity. Darren: Yes although I did not mention, I changed both upper and lower control arm bushings. It would have been faster if I just listed what I did not change .

Thanks for the great input guys. As this problem seems to have come out of nowhere when weather was cold and the car does not have a heat riser, I'm leaning on the contamination in the needle/seat assembly but I will check the fuel line routing to see if anything has happened which could have caused a fuel heat issue.

I noticed at the end of last season the Monte was hard to start when warm, thought it was because of the colder weather. Since I have taken her back out I have the same problem even though weather is warm, seemed to be flooding once warm, and noticed hesitaion, sort of like running rich when driving, getting worse. Well I think I found the problem when I shut her down tonight but I don't understand it. After turning the engine off I was hearing a coffee maker type percolating sound so took the aircleaner off and found the carb flooding itself after shut down, pooling on the throttle plates of both primaries and secondaries then it started leaking out the throttle shafts onto the intake manifold and continuing to do so many minutes after shut down? I had to use towels to soak up the pooling gas. What is going on? Stuck float? Set up is 350SB with a Holley 600CFM Vac secondaries, manual choke. Help

Checked the play in the front wheels today. I feel some play when I push/pull by the top and bottom of the tire. Looks to be the same on both front wheels. Entire suspension only has about 3000miles on it (replaced upper/lower ball joints, tie rods, spindle, bearings (Timken). Seems a little early for both lower ball joints to go. I was thinking about checking the outer wheel bearings but again, it is way early, maybe just tighten them? Ideas?

Rob, for hydraulic lifters I've always used the engine off method, one valve at a time, rotating the engine as recommended in the installation instructions that came with the cam and never had an issue. Zero lash is no play, you'll feel the rotation friction in the pushrod. My view is that hydraulic lifters are fairly forgiving anyway and I think you meant to say tighten the nut, for my cam it was tighten 1/2 turn past zero lash.

Great job Murphy! Good luck with the rest of the process; I used an internal spring compressor. By the way I love that look .

You can get stock springs at your corner auto parts supplier as per Tony's comments. Mine were stock front and rear from different suppliers and I am very satisfied with the stock stance.

Glad if the album can help. The yoke removal is from a simple 46 piece bolt type puller kit, relatively inexpensive.

Bonjour Romain, Concur with the above, here is some more food for thought: 1. Since it may be unclear how long that leak has been there, you may wish to check the fluid level before doing too much driving until you fix this. 2. When you drive the car, the fluid in the diff heats up significantly, raising the pressure inside. This pressure is releaved by the vent fitting, typically a plastic piece pressed into the main axle on top. If this were to get clogged or if for some other reason the pressure were not able to be equalized the pressure may blow the seals so have a look at the condition of this valve and the other seals. 3. As for the noise, if you are convinced it is coming from inside, taking the diff cover off you can look at the conditions of the gears and take some measurements to better analyse if you have a problem or not. 4. Gear oil smell is strong and not pleasant, keep in mind if you are working in a closed space. 5. Here is an album on a rear end refurb, Link to Rear End Overhaul. Although long and perhaps boring, part of it is about the diff rebuild. May be something in there you find useful if some surgery ends up required. Good luck with the troubleshooting.

Awesome, one of those moments that comes by only a few times in a lifetime. Enjoy the unexpected bonus

If the fan works, the motor should be fine, if you can change the speed settings on all settings except high, the resistor sounds like it is working, I find it hard to believe the switch would be bad on the high setting. So as others have said, sounds like a relay issue. Do you hear the relay click when you throw the switch to high?