#61  
Old 08-10-2016, 09:07 PM
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Stuart Stuart is offline
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Originally Posted by Ben M. View Post
Definitely not for stopping quickly...
I thought about that - disk brakes would have been a worthwhile option, but maybe the original owner felt drums were good enough for his purposes. Still, it's a very cool car.

  #62  
Old 08-15-2016, 07:44 AM
SD455DJ SD455DJ is offline
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Stuart, It is surprising that the OO didn't order the PDB's, but as Dan is going through the brakes right now, I'm impressed by how massive the B-body brake drums are. These should have been standard on the GTO's. As long as you don't have to perform consecutive emergency stops they work just fine. You still don't want to tailgate and give yourself a lot of room regardless in one of these big boys. We calculated the approximate weight and its right around 3980 lbs as equipped and full fluids w/o driver.

The car underneath is very solid thanks to the leaky rear main and transmission. The frame is much better than we thought and needs only some reinforcing at a couple of body mounts. The trunk floor was repaired with .125" steel plates about 12" x 16" on each side. They trimmed the trunk floor to fit and it appears that a trunk mounted battery sat on the right plate. Dan pulled out a long battery cable that was tucked into the frame and hiding behind the driver fender well.

Another cool OO fabrication was a handmade starter heat shield that is even painted white and still on the car. It shields the entire heat-side of the starter and solenoid. We haven't checked to see if the starter is the original one yet, but most likely not.

Still has the original 4-core Harrison radiator for the super duty cooling system with the angled lower hose connection and the HD clutch fan. It also has the speedo adapter on the transmission still. This car is amazingly complete.

The interior is very clean and looks great after a quick vacuuming and wipe down with a damp cloth. What's weird is that it has courtesy lights under the dash and a trunk light, but no mention of it on the PHS...std. on a Catalina???

Dennis
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  #63  
Old 08-15-2016, 07:48 AM
SD455DJ SD455DJ is offline
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...more pics for previous post....
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  #64  
Old 08-15-2016, 08:04 AM
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As mentioned before, the OO installed a prefab mailbox as a hoodscoop for the race track and instead of cutting a big hole in the hood, he drilled a series of holes on either side of the centerline ridge and pop riveted the modified box to the hood. He painted it VooDoo green outside and flat black inside. Inside it has the original embossing that reads "MFG BY LEIGH BUILDING PRODUCTS, COOPERSVILLE MICHIGAN, 8 72". 8 72 must be the date on manufacture and Coopersville is 20 minutes away from me in Grand Rapids, so a NJ born and bred '68 Catalina street/strip racer has a home produced mailbox installed as the hood scoop....so cool. I imagine he was walking through the local hardware store and saw the mailboxes and had a eureka moment where modifying one of these would be easier than hand fabricating one from scratch....and it still has the lion-head knocker on the side.
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  #65  
Old 08-15-2016, 08:20 AM
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...the hood holes pics....

It has an old drive shaft loop that we didn't see until the car was on the hoist that fits really nice.

Oh, and it came with the original Q-jet carb!

Dennis
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  #66  
Old 08-15-2016, 11:23 AM
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There may be a few minor tears or blemishes in the driver's seat, but the rest of the interior looks really nice.

Quote:
The car underneath is very solid thanks to the leaky rear main and transmission.
One reason I never worried too much about little oil leaks.

  #67  
Old 09-02-2016, 07:38 AM
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Default 428 HO Catalina Update

Dan has been slowly changing the Day-2 mods (Holley 750 dp, Edelbrock P4B intake, and the reman'd HEI distributor) back to the original factory pieces that came with the car. He also "whistled" the engine to see what it had for compression and were hoping to see low 10's (10.75 advertised), but came in at 9.4 - 9.5 to 1 on both sides, so we're surmising that it was rebuilt for lower compression to be more street friendly and was possibly punched .030" over. The only way the Whistler came be wrong is if the valves are not completely shut, but that isn't the case with this motor. The PO installed polylocks on the original bottleneck rocker arm studs on the 16 heads. It appears to still have the 068 cam inside as well. Casting dates are H.15-21.7 for the block heads, and intake. We cant see the exhaust manifolds date codes. The car was assembled the 4th week of April '68, or an 8 months behind motor casting & assembly, so it waited around for quite a while for a body to be installed in.

Dennis
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  #68  
Old 09-02-2016, 07:42 AM
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...a few more pics...

Dennis
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  #69  
Old 09-02-2016, 10:51 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SD455DJ View Post
The interior is very clean and looks great after a quick vacuuming and wipe down with a damp cloth. What's weird is that it has courtesy lights under the dash and a trunk light, but no mention of it on the PHS...std. on a Catalina???

Dennis
Even the Cat came with an under dash, glove box and trunk light but cornering, underhood utility and ignition switch lights were extra.

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1969 GTO (2 Cvt, 2 Hardtops & Judge Hardtop)
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1969 Ventura 2 Seat Wagon
1969 Executive 4dr Sedan
1969 Bonnie Cvt
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  #70  
Old 09-02-2016, 11:08 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SD455DJ View Post
He also "whistled" the engine to see what it had for compression and were hoping to see low 10's (10.75 advertised), but came in at 9.4 - 9.5 to 1 on both sides, so we're surmising that it was rebuilt for lower compression to be more street friendly and was possibly punched .030" over. The only way the Whistler came be wrong is if the valves are not completely shut, but that isn't the case with this motor.

Dennis
Never heard of that machine before, I looked it up, I guess it measures the maximum and minimum psi to get the ratio?

That might be the right compression btw, I just rebuilt a 69 428-360, she was a never rebuilt virgin and we carefully measured and calculated the cc's and the stock ratio was about 9.7 to 1 versus 10.5 advertised (it had the original head gaskets and their crushed thickness made sense). I thought it might relate to it being a small valve engine but when we did the same measurements on a set of virgin 62 heads from a 69 428HO they were almost identical in cc's. I then measured a set of 48 heads from a WT 400 4spd (also virgins) and they were 5cc less because of a different shape to part of the chamber.

The fact that Pontiac claimed that both manual and automatic GTO's had the same 10.75 in 69 even though they had different cc heads and inversely they had mechanically identical engines rated at 10.75 and 10.5 in different market applications puts their ratio credibility into serious question!

Maybe that's partly why places like Royal could wake up these engines by blueprinting them, just raising the compression from 9.7 to 10.7 alone probably developed 25 horses.

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1969 Fbird (Base, 350 & Sprint Cvt’s - 400HO & TA Hardtops)
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1969 LeMans Safari 2 seat Wagon
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1969 Ventura 2 Seat Wagon
1969 Executive 4dr Sedan
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  #71  
Old 09-27-2016, 12:33 PM
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Dan removed the hot rod pieces and reinstalled the original Q-jet, iron intake and points distributor and an old single snorkel breather we had laying around with the factory chrome lid. The Q-jet runs better than the Holley carb and the original choke works great. He also went through the brakes and replaced the old rubber fuel lines, so it is drivable now.

Dennis
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  #72  
Old 11-28-2016, 08:52 AM
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Default Wierd Heads???

Dan pulled the HO out of the Catalina this weekend and I went over to take a look while he pulled the motor down. Still standard bore with original GM cast pistons, the original 068 'S' cam & lifters, and original GM heads gaskets too. The block decks still had the stamped bore size letters (B,C,D, & E) for piston selection very visible, so never been decked. Now the block, heads, and intake are all casting dates H107, H157/H217, and H157 respectively and here's where it gets weird, we could never make out the head casting numbers on either head and the combustion chambers look different from the '68 cast 16 heads and later D-port heads. We know early '68 was a transitional year for the heads from closed to open chamber and these early '68 (July) castings have a larger diameter chamber cut that follows the head gasket bore very closely as compared to later open chamber high compression large valve heads (very little quench). We had a '70 #12 head to compare to and it's chamber cuts are markedly different and smaller (more quench).

Pete McCarthy's book sheds a little light on the early '68 head having the casting number '216' for the large valve heads located on the 3/7 exhaust port vs. the cast '1' & '6' on the 2 center ports. These heads are too corroded to tell what was on either port. These are screw-in stud large valve heads, not a conversion of small valve heads to large valves and screw-in studs. There is no tapped holes to receive the push rod guides you see find on low perf heads with pressed-in studs.

Dan Whistled every cylinder to check the compression and all came in at 9.1 to 9.2 to one. It is possible the heads were changed to lower the compression for pump gas and the heads gaskets on the motor were GM 9790911 which are .048" compressed thickness and for standard 400/428 motors. The parts books show 9790910 as the head gasket for the 400/428HO's & 400RA and is .038" compressed thickness. What would really be weird is the coincidence of these heads having the exact date code to match the other casting dates if these were swapped back in the day.

Dan is going to CC the heads today to see what the chamber volume is. It should be 75 - 78 cc's, or so, for a 16 head uncut. These look bigger like around 85 cc's.

Anyone have and knowledge/insight on early '68 428 motors?

Thanks, Dennis & Dan

  #73  
Old 11-28-2016, 08:53 AM
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Forgot to attach the pictures...
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  #74  
Old 11-28-2016, 10:00 AM
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Thanks for the documentation, Dennis. This is very interesting. I am just getting back at my GP project, and I was moving the '68 428HO I have sitting on a stand thus weekend and was re-checking the codes. I parted a 1968 Bonneville convertible that was a documented HO car. The block I have was/is a SR done in the early 70s, with no stamp, but a date code of 1973 (C083) !! Both heads are date coded J167. Intake is J067.

Your carb is curious. I also have a a'67 GP HT with a 428, and that 7028267 is the carb number on that car. The carb on my '68 HO engine is 7028268 WF, which I thought was the correct number and stamp for a '68 HO. Perhaps if your engine was that early a production unit, it got a leftover '67 carb?

Keep the updates coming.

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  #75  
Old 11-28-2016, 11:10 AM
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From Craftsman Service Bulletin:



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  #76  
Old 11-28-2016, 12:40 PM
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I am incorrect on my carb number reference. I just checked John's site and the -7 carb is correct for manual trans in '68.

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  #77  
Old 11-28-2016, 01:51 PM
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Thanks John for the Craftsman info. It was a transitional time for head chamber design at PMD. One head looks like it has a cast 15, but the casting is so worn and rusty you can see many different numbers with an active imagination. I see your head casting info chart also lists a '216' casting that Pete's book does, but nothing on the early open chamber design and it's corresponding casting number.

Anyone out there in PY land have July (H) '67 big valve/screw-in stud heads with a readable casting number that is not 16/62's?

Dennis

  #78  
Old 11-29-2016, 08:00 AM
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The mystery head (we're calling it a '216' for now since we aren't sure) cc'd just under 75 cc's and the #12 at just over 68 cc's, so these most likely are the original heads.

Does anyone have an August '67 (I mistakenly said July in my earlier posts) casting date 428 HO original motor with non-16 heads for the 1968 model year? I'm sure they stock piled several dozen motors at the beginning of the model year production.

Dennis
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  #79  
Old 11-30-2016, 08:07 AM
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I think we found the answer to our little head identification question from the '68 GP WIW thread pics posted by the OP yesterday. That early GP's 400 has the same H217 casting date and it looks like head casting #16. That is the head most of the use charts tell us, so we are satisfied that our heads are originals and #16s. That was great timing for us and really appreciate it.

Dennis
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  #80  
Old 12-12-2016, 03:30 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SD455DJ View Post
Dan removed the hot rod pieces and reinstalled the original Q-jet, iron intake and points distributor and an old single snorkel breather we had laying around with the factory chrome lid. The Q-jet runs better than the Holley carb and the original choke works great. He also went through the brakes and replaced the old rubber fuel lines, so it is drivable now.

Dennis
Did the 68 428HO big cars use a different aircleaner? I would of thought they used the same air cleaner as the 68 GTO, 68-69 Firebird 400 and 69 GP 428 with the longer snorkel?

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My Break Away Squad
1969 Fbird (Base, 350 & Sprint Cvt’s - 400HO & TA Hardtops)
1969 LeMans (2dr & 4dr Hardtop and a Cvt)
1969 LeMans Safari 2 seat Wagon
1969 GTO (2 Cvt, 2 Hardtops & Judge Hardtop)
1969 Catalina (3 Cvt’s & a 2dr hardtop)
1969 Ventura 2 Seat Wagon
1969 Executive 4dr Sedan
1969 Bonnie Cvt
1969 Bonnie 3 Seat Wagon (2 of them)
1969 Bonnie Brougham (4dr Hardtop & Cvt)
1969 Grand Prix SJ (2 of them)
1969 2+2 2dr Hardtop (Canadian model)
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