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Your worst or odd abuse of your Pontiac?
I just was recalling the time when my "unrestored" real 70 Trans Am was my daily driver and I had no truck and had found a 400 small block chevy at Pick U Part I wanted...so I took off my deck lid put it in the back seat so I could chain hoist from the rolling A frame the SBC 400 short block into my trunk on the TA.... It worked BTW.... Next....
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back in 1977-79 I owned 2 GTO's a 68 and 69.
My 68 GTO was my Winter Rat and my 69 GTO was my summer car. Hey back then at that time you could get a muscle car easy. |
I got my GTO wet in the rain once on the way back from a cruise in. Actually had to turn on the wipers for about 5 minutes.
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I went to the boneyards in my '72 regularly. I pulled a core support for my '78 Bonneville and inner fenders. Stuffed the inner fenders in the trunk with a bungee cord and had the core support hanging out the rear quarter window in the back seat. It was quite a sight driving up 805 in San Diego! A truck would have made more sense...
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Nobody can top that, scary stuff indeed. |
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Regret reading this thread already. One time i let a technician drive my SD/TA into the service stall for state inspection. He wanted to drive it back out too ... some guys just don't know when to quit. I told him NO ! |
I'm still up in the air over whether to let my future son-in-law to drive my 65. He's 43. I've not let my son or my daughter drive it, so I'm still debating it.
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Dozens of burnouts and donuts.
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Not my car, but around 1978 I was in LA on business and went to OCIR one afternoon to watch test and tune. There was a guy with a 67 or 68 bird that looked fairly stock. He would launch it by flooring the gas pedal in neutral til the engine was screaming and then slam it into drive. It enabled him to get about a foot of air under the front wheels. He did this over and over the entire afternoon and the car never missed a beat.
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Yea, I'd say that was abuse^^
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I went to look at a car advertised in the bargain trader in the early 80s with a buddy of mine. I was driving an orange 72 GTO I had bought a few years earlier. It was a decent looking car, but kinda high mileage and the paint was dull. The GTO served as my daily driver for several years. The car we were going to look at was about 2 hrs away.
Anyway, I'm driving down this narrow 2-lane road near where the car was located, and I saw a couple of old cars sitting beside a mobile home. There were probably a dozen old cars, but there were at least two Pontiacs, a 70-72 Lemans and a 69-70 GP. I decided to stop and see if the owner was interested in selling any parts. The guy was about as redneck as you could get, and he was definitely interested in selling some parts. The motor was out of the GP and sitting under a tin shed, all intact. I looked, and it was a 71 dated SR block with 64 heads. The trunk lid on the Lemans was perfect (this was probably 1984 or so), as was the dash pad. I struck a deal to buy the trunk lid, dash pad, the GP engine and rear end (which turned out to be a 3.31 12-bolt posi). The guy had no way to lift the engine, and there was no way I was leaving the engine sitting there. We pulled the heads and intake off of the 455 and put them in the back seat. The guy had some old lumber around, so I suggested we put the short block assembly on a long 2 x 10 and use it as a ramp and slide the short block into the trunk. Everything was going OK until we pulled the oil pan and the guy saw it was a 4-bolt main block. The seller said he had a bad back and couldn't help, so me and my buddy managed to slide the short block up the 2x10. It landed in the trunk with a thump. We then pulled the rear end out of the GP, which to the seller's surprise was a 12-bolt. We stuck the rear end in the trunk, leaving about 2 foot hanging out. The seller dug up an old blanket. We put it on the roof and put the trunk lid on top of it, then tied it down with rope. By the time we got everything loaded, we were about four hours late getting to the car we went to see. The car had sold earlier that day, but with the haul I had I wasn't concerned. We made one more stop for some ratcheting tie downs to better secure the trunk lid. On the way back home, I got pulled by a state trooper. He checked to see that everything was properly secured, and let us go. The GTO was squatting pretty badly. After getting home and unloading, I found the trunk had a couple of big dents in it and was covered in oil. The GTO cleaned up pretty well except for the trunk gasket and the dents in the trunk pan. |
Drove the T-37 up the Alcan when brand new in April '71 and then drove it out and back in October of the same year. BTW, no cruise. Did it to 2 other new vehicles also. Nothing special with them. Oh, yeah, took a new '94 GP Special Edition that looked like a Bandit TA, over the Alcan. They only made 2k of them. Only had about 6k miles on it at the time. Oh, yeah. Made 2 trips I '69 with a new Torino GT with about 4k miles on it in fall of '69.
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In High School I had a '71 Ventura with a '68 350, 3 speed manual and one wheel wonder rear. It was a real beater, but could burn up the one tire on launch. It developed a really bad knock in the engine. I didn't have the funds to repair so I revved it up to over 7000 RPM until the engine grenaded - took about 5 minutes. Upon disassembly there were 5 broken rods - two of the pistons were sideways in the cylinders.
I believe it was a completely original HO engine............... |
i used to torture my 71 GTO..and i mean torture it street racing....i mean run it over and over and over....3 or 4 times a week...sometimes with a car load...that poor thing would take it..
it would run so hard its tongue would hang out..and fire up every morning for the drive to work... man i tortured that car... |
[QUOTE=Cerberus;5195410]In High School I had a '71 Ventura with a '68 350, 3 speed manual and one wheel wonder rear. It was a real beater, but could burn up the one tire on launch. It developed a really bad knock in the engine. I didn't have the funds to repair so I revved it up to over 7000 RPM until the engine grenaded - took about 5 minutes. Upon disassembly there were 5 broken rods - two of the pistons were sideways in the cylinders.
I believe it was a completely original HO engine...............[/QUO Nice ! and now that 350 HO engine would be worth more than that car cost you ! LOL |
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When I first got the T/A in 1990, my friend and I were cruising, when we saw a bunch of girls hanging out. Ended up picking all of them up. Five girls in the back seat, and two in the front on my friends lap. Don't know if you can classify that as abuse though :D
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Not abuse by me, but one of the PO's of my car had installed shag carpeting and VW front seats.
And a neighbor friend tells me of another neighbor that has a 67 LeMans vert with a chevy 350 under the hood. |
Date night at the Drive In movies. :p
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Wow, quite a few stories.
On an old 69 GTO I had, I put on some Fenton aluminum slotted mags. Took the car out cruising. Every once in a while, I heard a "ping" sound, kinda metallic in nature. Cruised for another hour or so, and then drove home. Got home, and found I had snapped 3 studs on the right rear, and 2 on the left rear. And the remaining ones were loose..... |
My Brother In Law had put the shag carpet in my 4 speed 68 LeMans with roofing nails before I got it !
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I used to beat the living snot out of my GTO street racing at Front St in Philadelphia.
One night I was racing a 71 Camaro and I had him by a good car length. All of a sudden a Philly cop coming the other way hits his lights and pulls across the road in front of us. The Camaro jams on the brakes and I kept going. Initially I thought the cop was gonna grab the guy in the Camaro but when I kept going, he decided to go after me. I had my foot on the floor hoping to get away. About 200 yards after the end of the "marked" 1/4 mile was the entrance to I-95. So I turned onto 95 and turned off my lights. Once I cleared the on ramp I put the pedal down and that car took off. I could see his lights coming up onto the onramp but by that time my speedometer was almost at 100 mph. All I remember is at 120 mph, my front end started feeling really squirrely but I was afraid to let off the gas because the cop was still there....way back but there. Luckily he gave up the chase but my speedometer was pegged at 120. I was 18 and thought I was king of the world in my GTO. Today I barely drive over 50 in my Bird. |
I bought a 65 GTO hardtop w/o engine for $90. This was going to be my race car. I gutted & scrapped the interior. I cut out the radio hole bigger for aftermarket gauges. I bolted the hood and fenders together and hinged them to the core support for a tilt front end. Lastly, I put a 386/425 from a 65 vette into it. Fun street car, never took it to the strip.
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I bought my 77 Formula in the spring of 1984 the Saturday of Easter Weekend. I came home the following weekend to pick it up & bring it back to college for the last few weeks of school. After spending the day washing the outside and cleaning the inside I headed back.
Ended up blowing the motor on I-91 racing a Porsche 911. If memory serves, the speedo only went to 90 - I had it buried! :D |
Watched as my buddy's 66 GTO Red 3x2 auto rolled out of driveway and down a steep hill on his street and slammed into a tree...messed it up ...bad
He had blown the 4:33 rear and messed the trans up, plus had a rod knock during one night of abuse few days after putting the new rear underneath, at 18 years old. His Mom was a Saint for us teens at the time, and had it towed home with her grocery money trying to hide it from "Dad". It was parked on a sloping driveway at top of a hill on their street with her Fury Wagon in front of it so his Dad wouldn't find out until we got a new rear/trans put under it. His Dad was ranking DC Metro PD (Third District Commander, iirc) and was not a very happy person to be around when he got home at night. He came in front door and we went out side door.... Once in a blue moon he went into the garage, so this evening he decides it was time, as I was pulling up...I saw the whole thing happen...he moved the Fury Wagon and GTO started rolling then cut loose.....it rolled on down the hill passing four or five cars parked along the street. Lucky it didn't mow some kid riding their bike, or T bone a car moving by at posted 25 mph.....car was never fixed...Red Black Black. |
Back in the early 80's when 70's Formulas weren't "valuable" I abused mine by favoring a particular local road where I could get quite a bit of "air". I soon got bored with that and figured out I could stop the headers from slamming on the ground each time it landed if I constructed extensions for my lower A-arm bump stops.
Worked great except it broke the subframe where the crossmember met the passenger side frame rail! I ended up restoring the car a few years later and replaced the subframe at that time. Then there were all the gigs when I had to lug around my drum kit in it but that's another story all together. Still have that car...34 years after I bought it off REEDMAN'S used car lot across from the old Langhorne Speedway. |
Does getting air with a '66 Bonneville count as abuse? I have done that with 4 of us in the car. Feels wild when that much mass comes off the ground.
Friend drove a '69 GTO up a tree in his neighbor's yard in Fairfax, VA in the 70s. I KNOW that counts. |
Ongoing "abuse" at our local dirt track...
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...TO/JASDCS5.jpg http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...DSC_0009-1.jpg http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...20GTO/JRF1.jpg Mrs. Champ and I run a Kids Club at the local dirt track and about 10 times per summer one of our members gets to do the parade lap carrying the checkered flag around the speedway. They get their pictures taken in victory lane prior to doing the parade lap. 20 year old paint lets me do this right now. When I repaint it in the not too distant future - that will end. |
The same 70 TA I mention in OP, I street raced alot in early 90's in Dallas. Car had a rust blockage somewhere in body line clogging flow to rear brakes so car only ever had front disc the whole time and I was hitting 100+ mph in residential areas on 15x3.5: centerline front runners some of the time. That was damn unsafe but I didnt drink back then at least and never got in a wreck or a ticket but did burnt threw some red lights late at night luckily with no traffic (brakes had faded). Used to whip the hell out of this 87 Grand National over and over on Midway Rd and others around.
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I used my '65 GTO to pull a stuck forklift at work once.
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Perhaps someone has beefed up their rear suspension removed decklid and mounted a 5th wheel trailer to there Pontiac ? Anyone out there ?
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In the 30 plus years I have own this car, only one winter it was outside on grass with a plastic tarp thrown over it in Buffalo NY. Buffalo sucks.
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A buddy had a beater 74 Ventura with a pig of a 350 that had been knocking and that turned out to be gas in the oil thinning it out from a bad fuel pump internal leak. We had put Bosch Platinum plugs in it and he was down the road beating on trying to kill it an dit finally ble wup literally with a fire ball out the bottom and side of car becasue the gas ignited but went out. The side of the block was blown out but it was still running and he floored it and with a oil leak all the way that stained the road for months he made it home actually ! True Story . Car later became 400 and then 455 powered in time.
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That reminds me of how I killed my first engine I built after things went South after a few months. I had my 68 Lemans and had rebuilt a 428 for it and also had made a very poor choice in machine shops BTW as a newbie but wont get into that now. After racing and driving car with stock M20 muncie stuff and tired of trying to get my ET down due to multiple issues of using old stock stick stuff I converted to a TH350 and a 2800 converter. It dropped the 1/8 mile from 9.0 to 8.4 but also apparently the thing had something wrong with the governor as I was on Highway I-635 wanting to drop from 3rd to 2nd and hit it, should be no problem with 3.31 gears but accidently bumped all the way to first on shifter at full throttle and it went into 1st at 60+ mph ! YIKES so the engine RPM up to 7000 maybe IDK briefly as I went Oh Shoit and let off gs and hit higher gear and it was still running but dman I was like that aint good. My motor had cast rods with good bolts and forged pistons but bad machine work anyway. A few days late rit started to rattle and oil pressure went down and I didnt park it like I should have (dumb teenager) and ended up getting in a race with a fast C-10 PU that cruised around my neighborhood and although it was just a midrange race and we were close I was getting on it when it was laready knocking from a rod bearing and it blew up hard while I was next to truck. I didnt get to drive this home, It had blew rods and busted cam up and alot had a pushrod even hanging out the oil pan. Really bad.. Oh well and that was abuse !!! I ressurected #16 heads later on a another 428 with new valves few years alter and had it in a 68 Bird Vert and even the block got punched 090 to a 060 455 to clean up bore and a 455 crank and 6X heads but when I got it running it ran hot but I had a crappy stock radiator and I didnt know I had a slighly bad guide plate on one end of one 6x head and the rocker apparently started running away from valve stem and pushe dretainer and dropped the valve !!! Boom I blew up the same block twice !!!! HAHAHA These were the only two engine that were ever Effed up I ever did really..
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Welded a roll cage in my 78 w72. Doing right now
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My 1st car was a 68 GTO with a 400 auto and a peg leg. My buddies and I were out raising hell on a rainy afternoon when I got the bright idea to pull a holeshot on a long straight country road. I got the rear tire spinning and the car slowly started moving forward. I kept mashing it down eventually until the speedo was pegged past 120 mph. Started running out of road so I let off the gas. When the tire grabbed, the car was doing 65 mph. Man I ran the hell out of that car, eventually going through 2 engines.
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Reminds me of the time we were out drinking in my buddies Catalina and he decided to see how many donuts it could do. It was all good until the engine caught on fire and the car burned to the ground. We all walked home with no shirts that night in the dead of winter from trying to put the fire out. Pontiac gods weren't on our side that time.
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Last year of high school during winter, my buddy would take his 68 Catalina outside of town to do burn outs on ice covered roads.
Speedo would be buried for...??? We learned to keep 2 spares in the trunk ;) Another fun was drive'n through plowed mounds of snow in grocery/hardware store parking lots. Any carts left out didn't last long. He'd go after them like an angry bull. Engine started use'n oil soon after....and had to replace the th400 that spring. That summer we found some "not to crazy" 4x4 trails that dirt bikers used :D Got it stuck on a tree trunk after nearly roll'n it over on one really steep narrow hill. It punched a hole through the RR floor board where your feet would be. Over heated by time we got through. Next day we had to get 4 more wheels/tires, and a radiator from the wreck'n yard. And add couple qts oil... There lots more, but that the worst. |
I was coming down MLK to Hopple from Clifton one late night in my Judge. Up ahead 50 yrds or so I seen some Firebird sitting at a red light & then blow it. I said your mine sucker- MLK is a downhill 4 lane with a sweeping lefthander & there was some salt remnants on the road .
I got around them in the curb lane & coming up quick were some parked cars. I got on the brakes to slow down and went into a 4 wheel slide- came to a stop blocking their lane and the ass end pretty close to the parked car-pushed in the clutch and fired it up and got the hell out of there. Every time I came to a light I could'nt keep the clutch pedal down because my leg would shake. YYEEHAWWW. I love running that car hard. John |
Then that time I broke my gas pedal assembly on my 68 Lemans 428 4 speed car from flooring so hard so much and had to take off my shoe strings and run it thru the firewall to my quadrajet and pull the throttle with my hand to get home and shift the 4 speed. Power shifting was a b***h and side to side with the 12 bolt 3.31 posi.
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An 'almost' abuse: years ago, I was working on my 74 GTO 4-speed out on my slightly sloped street. Without using my brain, I saw no apparent problem with taking out my driveshaft to go have the u-joints replaced. Driveshaft came out problem-free, but when I lowered the car of its jack stands, the fun began.
Car started rolling down the street (e-brake was rusted and inoperative), and of course it was headed right at my neighbor's 1970 silver Cadillac Coupe DeVille. Car started picking up some steam (my attempts to hold it by hand were ignored), and in a fleeting moment of genius, I grabbed the floor jack and swung it up under the front tire with surprisingly great success. The car somehow stopped.....about 15 feet from the Cadillac! My heart was racing and I still feel tense about it when I bring it up. Scary as to what could have happened. |
Hah, this is a cool old thread.
The "worst" thing was taking the 71 T/A out in fresh 6" of snow to do some donuts in the cul-de-sac. The poor thing barely made it out of the garage, and almost didn't make it back. I think I have a short vid of that somewhere. |
1984. 78 Trans Am WS6, W72, 4 speed. Back then I was a desert rat for years with almost no snow driving experience. Was in Arizona when a rare snow dump of a few inches hit. No snow plows there. I had to get to work and the TA was my driver. So thinking I am great with a 4 speed and posi I am going 45 on a giant wide 4 lane with huge wide open turn lane in the middle.
Hardly any traffic, things were grand until someone turned in front of me from side road. No braking ability at all, going to rear end the car..... which was prudently going slow. So I hit left on the steering mildly, slo mo rear end swing out to pass side..... Big 8" rim WS6 option was great for big wide hydroplaning on snow.... so I'm now sideways...... giant sweeping arc. ahhh then slo mo slide full around.... going backwards 45 wheee yikes.... big eyeballs no doubt..... I somehow thought, well, my only hope is downshift and as I was pointed square 180 to the road direction I was, going backwards..... I nailed it on the gas.... Unbelievably it hooked, I was slinging snow like a madman and soon going south, not the original north, oh well, but most important I was going straight. Got to work, a guy I worked with, unknown to me saw the debacle from his car. He said "Wow! Did you mean to do that?" I said........ Yup. Evidently it appeared stunt car driver grade workmanship. |
Having no 4x4 yet, in the '80's and early '90's, I used my '67 GTO for all my off-road camping trips. The most hair-raising was an extended trip into the Panamint Mountians, east of Death Valley. I got it up over Mengele Pass up a long, steep, narrow canyon, moving rocks and building road surfaces as needed. When I got to the top, guys in a 4x4 Blazer and a Jeep couldn't believe it....a '67 GTO with the top down, loaded up with camping equipment. I totally trashed the exhaust system on the return trip down-canyon. No other casualties. After that, I bought a 4x4, and spruced up the GTO, returning it to paved road duty exclusively in the years since.
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Yikes! nothing like a snowpacked harmonic balancer pulley.
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wtf? Christmas Vacation?...
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