[73LeMans]

I could show you the pictures of me setting drive line angles, but they're pretty boring. A bunch of shots of a magnetic protractor is about all you'd see. (who can read those tiny lines anymore?) A digital inclinometer is on my Christmas list in case anyone is feeling generous.

Panel alignment is also pretty boring work, so we'll skip that too, except for these quick points.

- 1973 A-body doors weigh 1665 lbs each (I'm guessing). Man, are they a PITA to align. But with a bit of time and a second set of hands to tighten the hinge bolts, my doors have never shut better. Hinges were rebuilt by me in 2010.

- I'm impressed my fiber hood that's been off this car for a good 3 years, actually fits in its spot after the fenders were remounted. I actually have a picture of that -

Once fastened, the same low spots that existed before, exist now.




The "interesting" topic, is the new seats I decided I wanted on a whim. I have to warn you though - there are very few pictures (I have 1 of the finished product) and a lot of foul language is used. Like George Carlin and Pulp Fiction Sam Jackson got into an argument kind of language. Read at own risk. And don't say I didn't warn ya.


The old Jaz seats were great. Affordable, well made, strong, semi comfortable and easy to install. So yeah, of course I wanted to replace them.

In all honesty, long drives were starting to wear on the wife and me with the old seats. This gave me the opportunity to update the car's look while making it more comfortable. Win win! (Next year, it'll be wheels to REALLY update the look, but for now, the seats will fit the bill). Kirkey 55s, here we come.



Funny, they don't look comfortable. Good thing I bought the covers with the contoured foam. Makes all the difference.


As you can see, they sit about the same on the floor bracket, so how hard can they be to install?




The Cambridge dictionary defines impetuous with the following:

impetuous - /ɪmˈpetʃ.u.əs/ - adjective - likely to do something suddenly, without considering the results of your actions. Acting or done suddenly without much thought.

Yeah, that sounds about right. That's me. At least for this seat purchase anyway.

Other than the height off the floor, these stupid $#&$*( ^$*()#@ , $^&forsaken seats had nothing in common with the old ones. And while that doesn't sound like a big deal, allow me to illustrate the 4 main reasons why it is.

1. ) I'm 5' 8" on a good day in heels. (At least my license says so)
The new seats have contoured foam that while comfortable under my legs, now angle my knees slightly upward, instead of allowing them to just go outward. That means I need to sit a bit closer to the wheel to reach the pedals. And when the roll bar's down bar has to pass in between your shoulder and your elbow to pass technical inspection at the race track, this presents a problem. With this, I'd be too far forward for the bar to be considered legal. And a new down bar / roll bar is out of the question.....

2.) The cross bar also has guides welded through it for seat belt bolt retention. 2 for each side.



With the old seat, it sat perfectly between those two spots. Now, because the new seat is wider, I cant center it because its already as far over to the drivers side as it can be. Any closer and my arm isn't protected by the down bar; it sits on top of it. I guess that's really OK, since the further to THAT side I go, the less it centers up on the steering wheel anyway. $#&&. Maybe its me, but that is the $%^& I notice when I look into the car.

3.) With bright red Kirkey logo centered in the headrest, its real easy to tell from the outside of the car if the seat isn't level. Not saying the old ones weren't, but if they were, no one would ever notice. I can think of 100 other things Id rather do than level a seat with a 47 year old floor.

4.) And finally, if that wasn't enough, the Kirkey butt bucket is lower in the seat than the Jaz. I need to gain some height or else I'll never see over that scoop. (ha, like I can now!)

Am I the only one that makes up silly requirements and then sticks to them regardless of much more work it creates? I keep fixing-forward hoping it will get me where I need to be. It eventually does, because I make it happen, but its done with a lot more effort, stress, and time than needed. The requirement I'm talking about here was to NOT move the existing brackets on the floor. I didn't want to drill more holes. Not a ridiculous requirement, but given all I've done to get these seats to fit and look good, life may have been a lot simpler if I just moved the brackets to a more advantageous position. (Not that there is a ton of room to do that mind you)

The problem too is I like symmetry and staggering the seat brackets wouldn't have looked right. And most importantly, the seat is a safety item - its gotta be smartly constructed, with the "what happens in an accident" scenario always playing in your mind. Too many pieces, too many fasteners and you may end up with weak link you didn't count on.

For that reason alone, my first inclination was to call a race shop and have them reinforce the floor, weld in a halo off the floor and bolt the seat to that. I imagine that would have been a lot quicker and safer. As a matter of fact, this whole setup was all supposed to be "temporary" anyways, just to get me in the car for testing. I spent so much time on it, I'm not sure I'll swap it out now.

I'll shut up now and show you some pictures. (I went and took some more. I felt bad I only had 1)







I have to say, this will be the most comfortable I've been in this car since its bench seat days. The shifter is easy to get to and visibility is great over that scoop.

I do have to be careful...with the height Ive built in, the seat is barely below the main halo bar. Hard to tell in this picture, but its about 1/2" below the bar. Not ideal. Tech may have something to say about that.



I'll be using these under the car to act as washers.




There are certainly a lot of ways to mount a seat. This is my interpretation of one way to do it. There are likely slicker ways to make it happen, but its level, solidly mounted, and puts me in all the right positions to focus on the driving.

Now I just have to modify those pedals so I can reach.....

[73LeMans]

Soooo...if the engine is in, and the electrical is run, and the fuel is run, you see any reason I cant start this thing? Me neither.

Lets just pretend I posted about making the spark leads. And while you're pretending, imagine I said this:

I went with the Taylor 409s because I like the way they look - plain and simple. Taylor makes a great wire and these should prove no different. Just buy the universal set - The Pontiac set has wires that are way too long IMO.

If you can imagine all of that, we just saved ourselves a post on making wires. I had no pictures anyway.

Since we are in the pretending mood, lets also make believe I ran the fuel isolater and connected the vac lines for the brakes, and plugged in that pesky distributor.


First things first.

Tip#15 Always purge new fuel lines into a cup before sending fuel to the carb:



A shout out to the kick ass wife who tolerates all this crap, for getting distilled water for me in the middle of this ridiculous "pandemic".

Now we need oil and we gotta prime-



What else?
- Fuel fittings are tight
- 5 Gal in tank
- Lash is set
- Timing is close (initial is 10)
- Rotor is at number 1 on compression stroke
- Wires connected. CCW dont forget!
- Trans fluid at the ready
- Fire extinguisher is....somewhere...nearby. Where did I see that last? But seriously, its at the ready.
- Rear wheels are off the ground....you know, just in case that trans that's been out since 2015 ecides to do something funny.

I'm guessing this site (or maybe YouTube) doesn't allow YouTube videos to be embedded? I'm using the proper coding; other links work, just not when I feed it a YouTube link. I spent an hour coming to this conclusion. I gave up. Stupid YouTube.

As cool as it would have been to have the video clickable right here, I'll just give you the link:

====================First Fire Up=====================================
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0uEynN2IUc
====================First Fire Up=====================================

What I discovered after fire up -

- All my fuel fittings were not tight
- Minor water leak at the crossover and head
- She starts a tad hard
- My temp gauge no long gauges temp
- I'm not getting all my mechanical advance (barely any!)
- Electricity hates me
- The alternator isn't charging the battery (but its putting out voltage. Not a ton, but more than 12)
- The exhaust is smokey


How does the list of "to dos" get longer AFTER firing up the car? %&*%% ^#&()*%&*%. %$^&*(%^( %$@ *^%()_)%^

[3X24SPD]

Hey Mark, your stuff is looking real good.
I'll look forward to seeing how it runs.
NED street nights are opening back up this week.
Let me know when you're ready to come up, I'll tech your car through.
-Bill

Originally Posted by 73LeMans

I could show you the pictures of me setting drive line angles, but they're pretty boring. A bunch of shots of a magnetic protractor is about all you'd see. (who can read those tiny lines anymore?) A digital inclinometer is on my Christmas list in case anyone is feeling generous.

Panel alignment is also pretty boring work, so we'll skip that too, except for these quick points.

- 1973 A-body doors weigh 1665 lbs each (I'm guessing). Man, are they a PITA to align. But with a bit of time and a second set of hands to tighten the hinge bolts, my doors have never shut better. Hinges were rebuilt by me in 2010.

- I'm impressed my fiber hood that's been off this car for a good 3 years, actually fits in its spot after the fenders were remounted. I actually have a picture of that -

Once fastened, the same low spots that existed before, exist now.




The "interesting" topic, is the new seats I decided I wanted on a whim. I have to warn you though - there are very few pictures (I have 1 of the finished product) and a lot of foul language is used. Like George Carlin and Pulp Fiction Sam Jackson got into an argument kind of language. Read at own risk. And don't say I didn't warn ya.


The old Jaz seats were great. Affordable, well made, strong, semi comfortable and easy to install. So yeah, of course I wanted to replace them.

In all honesty, long drives were starting to wear on the wife and me with the old seats. This gave me the opportunity to update the car's look while making it more comfortable. Win win! (Next year, it'll be wheels to REALLY update the look, but for now, the seats will fit the bill). Kirkey 55s, here we come.



Funny, they don't look comfortable. Good thing I bought the covers with the contoured foam. Makes all the difference.


As you can see, they sit about the same on the floor bracket, so how hard can they be to install?




The Cambridge dictionary defines impetuous with the following:

impetuous - /ɪmˈpetʃ.u.əs/ - adjective - likely to do something suddenly, without considering the results of your actions. Acting or done suddenly without much thought.

Yeah, that sounds about right. That's me. At least for this seat purchase anyway.

Other than the height off the floor, these stupid $#&$*( ^$*()#@ , $^&forsaken seats had nothing in common with the old ones. And while that doesn't sound like a big deal, allow me to illustrate the 4 main reasons why it is.

1. ) I'm 5' 8" on a good day in heels. (At least my license says so)
The new seats have contoured foam that while comfortable under my legs, now angle my knees slightly upward, instead of allowing them to just go outward. That means I need to sit a bit closer to the wheel to reach the pedals. And when the roll bar's down bar has to pass in between your shoulder and your elbow to pass technical inspection at the race track, this presents a problem. With this, I'd be too far forward for the bar to be considered legal. And a new down bar / roll bar is out of the question.....

2.) The cross bar also has guides welded through it for seat belt bolt retention. 2 for each side.



With the old seat, it sat perfectly between those two spots. Now, because the new seat is wider, I cant center it because its already as far over to the drivers side as it can be. Any closer and my arm isn't protected by the down bar; it sits on top of it. I guess that's really OK, since the further to THAT side I go, the less it centers up on the steering wheel anyway. $#&&. Maybe its me, but that is the $%^& I notice when I look into the car.

3.) With bright red Kirkey logo centered in the headrest, its real easy to tell from the outside of the car if the seat isn't level. Not saying the old ones weren't, but if they were, no one would ever notice. I can think of 100 other things Id rather do than level a seat with a 47 year old floor.

4.) And finally, if that wasn't enough, the Kirkey butt bucket is lower in the seat than the Jaz. I need to gain some height or else I'll never see over that scoop. (ha, like I can now!)

Am I the only one that makes up silly requirements and then sticks to them regardless of much more work it creates? I keep fixing-forward hoping it will get me where I need to be. It eventually does, because I make it happen, but its done with a lot more effort, stress, and time than needed. The requirement I'm talking about here was to NOT move the existing brackets on the floor. I didn't want to drill more holes. Not a ridiculous requirement, but given all I've done to get these seats to fit and look good, life may have been a lot simpler if I just moved the brackets to a more advantageous position. (Not that there is a ton of room to do that mind you)

The problem too is I like symmetry and staggering the seat brackets wouldn't have looked right. And most importantly, the seat is a safety item - its gotta be smartly constructed, with the "what happens in an accident" scenario always playing in your mind. Too many pieces, too many fasteners and you may end up with weak link you didn't count on.

For that reason alone, my first inclination was to call a race shop and have them reinforce the floor, weld in a halo off the floor and bolt the seat to that. I imagine that would have been a lot quicker and safer. As a matter of fact, this whole setup was all supposed to be "temporary" anyways, just to get me in the car for testing. I spent so much time on it, I'm not sure I'll swap it out now.

I'll shut up now and show you some pictures. (I went and took some more. I felt bad I only had 1)







I have to say, this will be the most comfortable I've been in this car since its bench seat days. The shifter is easy to get to and visibility is great over that scoop.

I do have to be careful...with the height Ive built in, the seat is barely below the main halo bar. Hard to tell in this picture, but its about 1/2" below the bar. Not ideal. Tech may have something to say about that.



I'll be using these under the car to act as washers.




There are certainly a lot of ways to mount a seat. This is my interpretation of one way to do it. There are likely slicker ways to make it happen, but its level, solidly mounted, and puts me in all the right positions to focus on the driving.

Now I just have to modify those pedals so I can reach.....

[73LeMans]

Originally Posted by 3X24SPD

Hey Mark, your stuff is looking real good.
I'll look forward to seeing how it runs.
NED street nights are opening back up this week.
Let me know when you're ready to come up, I'll tech your car through.
-Bill

Bill - This is really appreciated man. Thank you. It helps when a trained eye says good things. And a fellow Pontiac man to boot.

I'll likely be aiming at October for some track time. Usually a Wednesday track rental works best for me if you work those, (and they still happen given the condensed schedule) Good air in Oct and it gives me some time to work out the minor kinks. I will definitely let you know when I'm heading that way.

[73LeMans]

I appreciate AutoMeter wants to step up their game, but when you just get done deliberately trying to get rid of the red/blue fittings under the hood and this arrives, its a tad annoying.



No big deal. I'll use the nickel plated piece I was using last time, so the red piece can go. Stupid blue piece.

As is typical, the gauge is no longer metal. All plastic. I just look on the bright side and think about how much lighter the car is.



Just a quick update on the Fuel Pump Controller - I connected two 10 GA wire leads directly from the battery to the FPSC and ran the car. The Full light flashed less frequently. Maybe 10x per min. Best Ive seen yet, but it still shut the car down. Per Tech advice, I then jumped out the ign/pwr on the controller to the bat terminal on the controller, still leaving the 2 10 GA directly connected to the battery. The frequency of the full light flash was worse than ever before...maybe 30x a min. I didn't leave the car running long enough to have it shut down, but I imagine it would have.

Next up is to isolate the tach wire from the MSD from other wires under the dash, and to try and shield it. If any one has use of a good product here, let me know. I just picked up some Electriduct 1/4" Tinned Copper Metal Braid Flexible Shielding Wire Mesh. Supposed to be a good guard for EMI/RFI.

[73LeMans]

You may have seen my post in the Street forum on this, but just in case you didn't, here is an update the Fuel Pump Speed Controller. Calling it semi resolved is the best way to term it. Here is what was done -

I grounded the shielded wire using a shield bond connector.



I also created an EMI filter as instructed per Aeromotive Tech Bulletin #302. I soldered it inline with the MSD tach signal as instructed, yet it seemed to make no difference. I made a video so I could show ya (Fun Fact! The video was originally 15 seconds long, but the last 3 seconds were the beginning of an obscenity laden rant I thought was better left out)

FPSC video
https://youtu.be/w2nMspJQ9_8


Here the weird part. Obviously something changed, I just don't know what, but subsequent idling of the engine a few hours later produced a much cleaner signal than what the video shows. Its not 100%, but way better than what the video shows. (Full light only flashed about once every 15 seconds!!) What changed in that time frame:

--I removed the direct power and ground feeds from the battery to the controller and returned to using the ones I originally had on my new electrical board and fuse panel.

-- The shielded wire for this test recall, was run outside of the glove box, (where the MSD resides), to isolate it from the other wires. I took it back though the side of the glove box with the rest of the wires as it had been initially.

That's it. Both of these actions should have had an adverse affect on my signal, not a favorable one, so once again I'm at a loss for whats going on. Maybe it gets worse? Maybe it gets better? I don't really know. What I do know is there is a controller bypass switch wired in so it wont ever leave me stranded. (and there's the jinx)

I'm leaning toward my ancient MSD being the root cause. Either its a dirty signal because its just old, or maybe the signal isn't exactly what this FPSC was tested against or expecting. Either way, its now in the past and I'm done thinking about it. What a relief. Stupid electronics....

[73LeMans]

I debated on sharing this. In the interest of full disclosure I decided its part of the build up and should have its place here. There's no real shame other than its the lazy way out and the fix isn't up to my usual standard. There is no compromise to safety.

On the street, I run a 1.25" ADDCO front sway bar.


In my tenure as custodian of this vehicle, nothing has made this car feel more like a modern car than this piece. The dodging, dipping, diving, ducking and dodging (cmon, you gotta know that movie!) into turns was all solved with this bar. Its heavy, (21.76lbs heavy) but it completely transforms the front end behavior on the street. I love it. Not like swimming in raw sewage love it, but I love it nonetheless. (Anyone?)

For the track, I take it off the car completely. I mention this to let you know there is a lot of opportunity for the small 3/8 bolts to strip out, especially if one uses the tightening of those small 3/8 bolts to help draw up the bar when putting it back on the car. (did I mention it was heavy?) Do that enough times with the 2 threads of engagement the factory frame gives you and you get the idea. One of the 4 holes was stripped and I gotta fix it.

To aid in stripping of the threads, please note the following:

The small 3/8 bolts present an issue. Without washers, they could potentially slip through the large hole in the bracket holding the bar to the car. Easy enough to fix right? Pop a washer in there and you're good to go. Not really....

Probably more easily solved with a smaller O.D. SAE washer, when you don't have them, you make do. As such, in order for bolts to line up properly with their respective threads, you gotta make sure the washers chosen don't interfere with the bracket. Grind in a flat side if you gotta, but make sure you grind enough, or else this happens:



Don't grind too much though, or else youll discover how quickly those washers twist out on tighten when the bolt hole has been breached.

The other problem is that because this bar is bigger than the biggest factory bar, perfect bolt alignment is difficult to get on a good day. The bar, the bushing and the bracket take up so much space, one bolt on each side is usually pointing at some sort of angle to engage. (The pic above is a combination of both problems rearing their head)

"Bar"ring any more excuses of why its stripped, lets get on with the fix.


I swear, when I measured the threads on the bolt I took out, it was 7/16 with a 16 pitch. Now, where is that tap.... this kit? This kit? This kit? Oh wait....that's not a normal tap, is it? Nope. 7/16-14 is normal coarse threading and 7/16-20 is normal fine threading, but no 16. Hmm.. looks like I gotta special order a tap. %^$

I found one, and only one, online on a site called DrillsandCutters.com. I didn't buy it right away because I never heard of the place, and ya know, my identity is kinda important to me. I figured a local search would definitely turn one up anyway, but I was less than right on that call. (some might say wrong). Even the best hardware stores around (Think Truevalue, ACE etc) didn't carry them. Then the pandemic hit.

Fine - lets take a chance on the unheard of site. (great experience btw!)

When I got the tap, it didn't fit in the way I expected. As a matter of fact, I couldn't even get it started. WTF?

I gotta mechanic buddy - one of his favorite sayings is brute force and ignorance always overcomes fear and common sense. I told him about the issues Ive been having with the fitment so he decided to help out. He takes the tap, goes under the car and sure enough, got it to fit.

Son of a .... . Am I that far out mechanic shape I cant start a friggin tap?? I must be losing my mind faster than I thought. Then it hit me. (Taking the 3/8 bolt and seeing it get lost in the 7/16 hole helped too). I bought the wrong tap.

Well, #$^. I really am losing my mind.

Yup, 3/8 bolt. 7/16 tap. Rookie mistake. Lets not dwell on it.


On the bright maybe now a regular 7/16-14 tap will work? Yeah, right.

Ugh, filling, welding, grinding, drilling, taping and painting isn't really something I want to do at this juncture! I'm this far away from driving this thing!!! [ ] I cant spend time messing with this crap! But I really want that bar in there.

Go big or stay home, right? Enter, stage right, the 1/2" bolt. (socket cap technically)





And with the proper tap this time, I present you the ugly fix with terrible lighting -



The bracket you can see, hangs off the frame a tad here. I'll correct that because I will likely catch something (skin, clothes, gloves) on that about 1,652 times until I remember its there.

Will anyone ever see this ugly ass oversized bolt? No.
Will I know its there? Yes.
Will it bother me until they are all the same size? Yes.
Will I be taking the time to change them all out anytime soon? Very unlikely.

[73LeMans]

Just a quick update on this. I'm disappointed I have no street time to show for all this work. I fully expected to be editing and posting GoPro footage by now like all the cool kids, but I took some time off for a few reasons -

- help sister move to new home
- help get moms house of 55 years on the market
- keep from purposely lighting this friggin car on fire
- no AC in the garage - thermo been sayin 88...for weeks....is that bad?


What lefts to do?

- Square away brakes.
- Figure out why all my mechanical advance isn't coming in
- Figure out why there is a ton of blue smoke coming out the pipe when it revs

- That Wilwood MC is, as the internet told me it would be, a royal PITA to bleed. The stock Motive Power Bleeder plate isn't big enough. I had to get a bigger plate to cover the length of the oval master. (P/N 1115). It arrived of course with a hole in the hose. It was returned for a replacement, but Summit decided to credit my card instead. I borrowed one from a friend and even though I moved a 1/2 gallon of fluid out the rear brakes, they still feel like there is air trapped in the system. I did bench bleed the MC, now I'm wondering if it was enough.

- The mechanical advance is made up of the same springs and plates I used the last time I successfully ran the car. The dizzy is not binding up; all seems to move freely. I'm just not getting the 29 total degrees I'm looking for at 3000. I'm getting 20 and nothing more. I'll replace the medium spring with a light one and see if anything changes. If that doesn't help, I may shoot myself with the timing gun. (just a joke).

- The blue smoke out the pipe is the least of my worries, but its still a worry. I'm not going to focus on it yet, but its creeping into my mind it may be an issue I need to address. While no street time, the engine has about 90 minutes worth of run time on it. It should be clearing up. Valve seals are new....but man, its a ton of smoke. Not good, Mav.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffin glue.