Those who should and...
 

...Those who should not.

https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2019/0...mment-10656527

There's an awful lot about that story, Jeff, that just doesn't make sense or, more likely, is overly exaggerated by the author in order to make a good yarn.

I understand the early OHC-6 engines had more than their share of problems, and the dealer service departments did not understand them yet. So even if you had a good local dealer (seems that the author did not) good luck in 65 or 66/67 in getting a major issue with the engine resolved.
I am not old enough to have owned one new, they were at least 8 years old when I started driving. But judging from my experience with different new car dealers service departments I can tell you that a bad service department can make you hate a reasonably reliable car or truck. My 2012 Ford F-150 is an example, had 1 problem with it under warranty and the dealer I bought it from tried repeatedly to not warranty the issue.
Compare that with my 1997 Dodge Ram, it had at least 5 major issues under warranty, the dealer went above and beyond every time to make it right. Funny how I don't have bad memories about the Ram, and it spent almost as much time in the service department as it did on the road for the year.
You combine a car that is somewhat of a Lemon (all companies have them) and a bad and unresponsive service department. Along with a Young owner that probably does abuse a car more than most drivers, and has not learned how to deal with stubborn people. Add 50 years to the tale, and you probably get exactly what I just read.

Sounds like the car had issues, but nothing's worse than a combination of a lemon and a doofus. The story seems embellished to me in order to sound more interesting. I did have an '85 VW GTI that was a nightmare, though.

Yea definitely a little bit of some fish story additions.
I just could not get past the Day of Pick up at the Dealer bit.
Clutch issues causing engine to flounder around in the engine bay? WTF?

Sorry don't think I'd be taking it home.

As someone pointed out, Owner could rebuild the engine but didn't know what oil filter to use prior??

HERE'S YOUR SIGN! as they say. ;)

Admittedly a good looking car...

K

That author's recollection doesn't seem to match possibilities and probabilities.

My 69 Spring Bird has a few stories from the original owner;
1year new on the road; He drove family from PA to FLa for Vacation and dropped the belt in GA. Replaced within 24 hours and i think he was back on the road..or

Somewhere in that time he had the H-Cam replaced with a 280* Moon Racing cut cam (and cam tower milled)
added the Clifford Header
added the Mallory Dual-Point
and drove the snot out of it...including a Daytona race track exposure (he claims 160 mph was reached, i dunno).

When i got it, the engine was hurt by a dropped Q-JET screw embedded in CYL #4.
So i pulled the head, dug the screw out of the Piston ( think i went through the Bottom-End i dunno), but put it back to gether and drove the craaap out of it because the CYL #4 healed up.

The dual-point just worked well.
The original dizzy wouldn't hold dwell past 4000 rpm (i checked)
I buot an HEI that just did the job very well.
So i drove that SPRINT hard with 7000-7500 rpm upshifts.

I could do that and succeed because i was young and dumb. It probably would have broke if i drive it that way being older and slightly more knowledgeble.

Critiques:
OHC-6 dizzys seemed to lack ability to hold dwell.
Q-JET Intake//exhaust manifold mating gasket would burn through and creat a major exhaust leak noise.
I did finally lose an exhaust lobe on the H-cam, but found an H-camo go right in and found NOS followers so that was easy (note my 1st PMD was a 1968 350 with collapsed Lifters so the OHC-6 valvetrain was better by decades).

Praises;
dead quiet idle; as if it was not running.
Dreadfully exciting pull starting at 4000-4500 rpm and not letting up even into the 7000s rpm.
Didn't leak oil like the V8 valvecovers did.
Q-JET dynamics on a 6-CYL re quite good.
MPG was decent engine did not labor.
easy to service.

We had a '66 Tempest wagon with the 1-bbl OHC 6. I was pretty young when we had it, but I remember in 100k miles, it went through 2 camshafts and 2 valve jobs, which it needed because of exhaust valve burning. Probably didn't help that the poor wagon was overloaded on camping trips with a family of 5. My dad saved one of the old camshafts long after he got rid of the car (OK, my mom totaled it in '76) and once I was older and knew what I was looking at, figured out that 2 of the lobes were wiped from oil starvation. And not just on the lobes but the base circles too.

Sometime in the 80's I had heard that there was an aftermarket trick to install oil drippers in the cam cover. Was this something that was improved in later years or did all the OHC-6's have weak cam oiling?

Had a '67 Sprint and it needed valve guide work at less than 30K miles, using oil and crudding up the plugs with crumbly deposits. Took care of that and ran it to 100K miles at which time I rebuilt it and changed the belt, just because. No cam problem. I did stiffen up the oil pump bypass spring a bit because I thought the max oil pressure was too low.

George

My first car was a 68 Firebird Sprint. My father and I took all my money and bought it at an auction for $735.00. This was in 1974 and it had just over 80K miles on it. So it's hard to know what the history was on it. It certainly didn't burn allot of oil or really have any major engine problems. I changed the timing belt as a maintenance item and did other service. The manual 3-speed trans did have a major failure and I replaced it with a 4-speed. This article reads and reflects very poorly on the owner as well as Pontiac dealers, GM, tire dealers and everyone that ever worked on the car. I see no reason at all for the article to have been written or published. What does it accomplish? Makes the owner come off as the complete car idiot he is and everyone involved as well. Could the car have been a lemon of lemons? Certainly. Why try to make some feel good article out of it 50 years later? I don't get it.