[O Householder]

Yes, I'm sorry if we've gotten off-topic here! I sent some specific marketing-tie in brochure that was original to Mr. Joe Bortz to be with the Bonneville Special. He was very grateful. I have copies. Will look for anything else. We did have some leather dealer embossed key fobs but not sure if they're still around. The one thing I was disappointed about getting misplaced/thrown away was a large diagram/photo of the GM proving grounds test track. It was in our service entrance for decades.

[TA455HO]

That is all very cool stuff. The Bonneville Special was always such a cool design. Feel free to sway off topic with any of that stuff.


The old driveshaft paint rings. In this case 3.42 differential so Orange, Blue, Brown (OBN for the code). Guys are saying to send this to Quanta for a reburbish.







274318 7.529 All F-- (8.900) BOLT, front eye (1/2''-- 20 x 5'') 2 1967 1974 7-23






The eye bushings were not coming out easy so I went with a little heat. Made sure I was outside and did it over a metal bucket with a bunch of ash in the bottom to catch the molten rubber.



Just a little bit of black smoke (hehehe) as I let them burn...



And burn some more...



Until it burned all the rubber out...

I used an old screwdriver to push molten rubber out occasionally to give it a fresh surface to burn.



Then I used my reciprocating saw to cut a slice through right where the loop comes back around on itself. Then chiseled the rest inward until it got small enough to slide out.






Voila!!

For the other side: Lather, rinse, repeat.

[TA455HO]

Finally finishing up the house remodel and getting back to the car.

I found this broken spring just yesterday. Can anyone identify where it is used on the car? 1971 Trans Am M22 without A/C. If Brad is reading this don't say if you know.

There is roughly 100 winds to the spring. You can see the loop to the right end is no longer a complete loop. Anyone ID this? I know NJSteve has at least been close to this spring at one time, but obviously his was not broken.




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[TA455HO]

How about a timely hint from the purpose of the spring? Think "Instrument Cluster"...

And the picture above is a close-up of the spring...

Anybody? A guess?

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[eaglesan13]

I have no idea, but since you said to go ahead and guess, and since you said to think "Instrument cluster" I'll take a whack at it. Is it for the park brake ratchet? If broken, does the park brake fail to release all the way, thus leaving the "park" light on in the instrument cluster?

Originally Posted by TA455HO

How about a timely hint from the purpose of the spring? Think "Instrument Cluster"...

And the picture above is a close-up of the spring...

Anybody? A guess?

.

[TA455HO]

Not a bad guess. Not the parking brake spring, though. It's entirely enclosed within the instrument cluster. The spring wire diameter is 0.008" or I believe they also call it 2/0 (two ought) so it's pretty small. I'm not aware of spring wire smaller than 0.006" diameter so this is almost the smallest spring wire readily available - extension spring - 100 winds - right hand turn - appears to have been wound on a 1/16" diameter mandrel. I bought a couple of 12" long 1/16" stainless steel rods to use as mandrels and a roll of 0.008" music (spring) wire and I'm going to try winding one myself once this stuff arrives. I do have a Porter spring winder that I've used a lot but mostly with 0.055", 0.063" or 0.085" wire. Much bigger stuff than this, but they claim you can wind down to 0.006", the smallest I can find like I mentioned, so hopefully good to go.

I have to wear reading glasses and also use a strong magnifying glass to really see this spring in any detail. I took the picture and then zoomed in A LOT. That's how I was able to count the coils. No way I could easily do that even with the glasses and magnifier.

Guesses? I thought using the word "timely" in that last post would be a dead give-away.

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[71HO4SPD]

Tic toc tach clock spring.

[Formulabruce]

Originally Posted by TA455HO

That is all very cool stuff. The Bonneville Special was always such a cool design. Feel free to sway off topic with any of that stuff.


The old driveshaft paint rings. In this case 3.42 differential so Orange, Blue, Brown (OBN for the code). Guys are saying to send this to Quanta for a reburbish.

I have owned a few with the color spacing this far apart, do you know the distance apart? I assume the orange is toward the front? . Thanks would love to see it if its done too..

[TA455HO]

Originally Posted by Formulabruce

I have owned a few with the color spacing this far apart, do you know the distance apart? I assume the orange is toward the front? . Thanks would love to see it if its done too..

Hi Bruce. Yes, you are correct in assuming the orange is toward the front. I threw a tape measure from the front tip of the driveshaft itself, not including the slip yoke at all, and the stripes are roughly layed out like this

Orange - starts at 20"
Blue - starts at 26.5"
Brown - starts at 32"

Each roughly an inch wide. I can see the brush marks and it looks like they just gave the driveshaft a spin to apply the paint. Purely a guess.



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[TA455HO]

I noticed Mike bought Bill's car (thanks Anna for the motivation) so I have to give an update on my car since my name was taken in vain.

A few of the body panels with their coat of Cameo White. Despite being a bit on the creamy side - it is still BLINDINGLY® WHITE© in the direct sunlight. I get something like snow blindness when I look at some of these pieces outdoors.

Front fenders...



Beak...



Passengers door...



Drivers door...



Everything in this picture - other than the rear spoiler and end caps on the right - is NOS. And painted, too!
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The end caps (and middle spoiler section) were in very nice condition so I went with them.



Hood...



And a closeup of the air extractor...



You can see we were able to coax a bit of a sheen out of it.

.

[Judge273]

Wow, looks great!

The irony...

[TA455HO]

That was just using rattle cans. Still waiting on it to cure a bit more and hopefully float out a bit more level before doing a final cut and buff.

Really, though, I need to pick up a little more on what that Bent Wheel guy does so I can get my plastics to shine, too.

Speaking of which, here's a picture he'll appreciate...although a little hard to see from this angle...



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