Quote:
Originally Posted by poncho-mike
Did Pontiac initiate a program to replace the plastic lower valance with the steel valance?
Back in the early to mid 1980s, I ran into a Ford guy who had bought a bunch of NOS parts from a small town Pontiac dealership that closed in around 1975. He was planning to go through the parts and sell them on Hemmings but never got around to it. I was able to buy everything he had, which was about four pickup truck loads.
Among the inventory were roughly a dozen new 70-72 lower valance panels and a box full of the brackets for the middle support. The dealership wasn't that large, and the number of Firebird valance panels seemed disproportionate to the reest of the parts. My guess is that they were having to replace a bunch of broken valance panels, or Pontiac was replacing them with metal under warranty.
Mike
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There was 3 different parking/ turn light assemblies used in the model year 1972. This also mean that there was 3 different lower valences.
1. The early same steel one used in '70, and '71's with the multi piece light assembly with a clear lens. ( the first Valence)
2. Around the middle of November of 1971, Pontiac got the bright Idea of using the plastic valence. ( The second valence) This failed before cars even made it to the unfinished car lot. This first plastic Valence had a "Clear" capsule. It used a different front light harness as well, with a bulb socket that twisted in like a tail light, to the clear capsule.
3. Due to breaking of the lower valence, Pontiac had a steel unit built ( The 3rd Valence) that would hold the new Clear capsules, and also the Amber ones introduced in Late Dec of 1971. This is the Valence that was force shipped out based on sales, and many cars got one ( unpainted ) in the trunk with instructions for the dealership to paint and install.
What you have are the GM replacements, which some were made up until 1979. These will even work with the early style assemblies, but there is more gap around the metal socket part. These fit against the lower fenders WAY, WAY better than ANY metal replacements out there.
Here are the second Two light Capsules. The clear one from my Nov'71 built Firebird, the Amber from my Dec '71 Built Firebird. The Amber continued through all of '73.
