[njsteve]

Went out to the garage today and to see if any of the cars would start. Amazingly, everything cranked right up! Gramma's 1975 Firebird, Grampa's 1971 Lincoln, my old '93 Viper race car, and the SD Firebird. I let them all run for around 40 minutes while I attempted to shovel out a canyon in the ice/snow in front of the garage so the melting ice would flow off the driveway this week. The temps are supposed to be in the upper 40's after being in the single digits for the past few months. Come on Spring!!!! 12 days to go!

[Judge273]

We hear you. Shoveled a path to grill just to have a burger...

[The Boss]

I de-iced then washed my truck & Sandra's CRV yesterday using the hose off the hot water tap in the garage, then washed a car today!

Winter over yet?

[njsteve]

Took the SD out for a cruise night on Saturday. Still runs great!

Of course no good deed goes unpunished. While walking around the garage after getting back, I noticed that one of my original NOS Firestone 500 tires that I have stacked up in storage decided to let go during the winter.

This is what awaited me when I walked around the back of my garage.



BTW, the photo is not at an angle, this is parallel to what was originally the tread surface. This was one of the two NOS GR70x15 Firestone Radial 500's I found for the car. The three original tires are still doing OK (fingers crossed).

These tires have been known to explode on their own even while unmounted. Like a ball of rubber bands snapping, only it's steel cord instead of rubber band. Here's a link to a Corvette forum where one let go inside the fiberglass spare tire tub, under the car: http://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/...-recalled.html

Anyone got another 1973 500 out there?

[keith k]

Wow...

[1971WARBIRD]

I worked at a tire shop during my senior year of high school, and the owner refused to sell any tires made by firestone for that reason. if someone pretty much demanded firestone, he sent them across town, and lost the business, because it was cheaper than fighting a law suit.

[The Boss]

That sucks!

[njsteve]

Interesting experiment, watching the internal destruction of the infamous Firestone 500.

Here is how the internal failure looks two months after the prior photo:



And a close up with the steel belt clearly showing now.




Luckily I have one of the original tires from this car to put back on (on the left). And I figured that the NOS would have been safer, that's why I installed it to begin with. Silly me.

[necdb3]

You may be able to take that to firestone and get a replacement tire for on of you're other vehicles

[The Boss]

Since you don't leave them on the car would you be better off storing them without pressure in them?

[necdb3]

Steve,

Is that a Sun 1015?

Dave

[njsteve]

Yes it is - I got it from an old Chrysler dealership that closed near me for $100.

[necdb3]

I remember when that was all that! That's a nice piece to go with the old cars.

[njsteve]

Took the SD out for a cruise night last night. She ran kind of crappy on the way home. After a lot of searching, I discovered the end of one of the original vacuum lines had split and was really leaning the car out at idle. I had to clip about a 1/2" of the line off to get past the damaged part. Runs fine now. This morning I put four gallons of 100 octane low-lead and filled the rest of the tank with premium. Took her for a ride and she runs nice!

Couldn't help but stop and snap a picture of today's mileage on the odometer:

[njsteve]

Originally Posted by necdb3

I remember when that was all that! That's a nice piece to go with the old cars.

I trained on them when they were new...around 35 years ago!

[cdoggy81]

Another great car, story & member to the Pontiac circle. Congrats!!!

[njsteve]

Thank you!

[njsteve]

I was tightening up the lower heater hose clamp to the water pump today and had to remove the idler pulley assembly. So I finally got a photo of the EUN on the front of the block that is hidden by the idler bracket. The car was ordered by Enrico Stein on 05/09/1973, shipped on 07/19/1973 and delivered to him on 07/31/1973.

Here you go:

[muscle_collector]

Originally Posted by njsteve

Took the SD out for a cruise night last night. She ran kind of crappy on the way home. After a lot of searching, I discovered the end of one of the original vacuum lines had split and was really leaning the car out at idle. I had to clip about a 1/2" of the line off to get past the damaged part. Runs fine now. This morning I put four gallons of 100 octane low-lead and filled the rest of the tank with premium. Took her for a ride and she runs nice!

Couldn't help but stop and snap a picture of today's mileage on the odometer:

Im glad to see stuff like that interests you also. according to my wife we are the only two people in the world that would find it interesting. anytime I see something like that or all the numbers are the same on the odometer and I say cool look at this I always get the " that is stupid you are the only one in the world who would give a crap about that" so since she knows everything we are weird. oh well I think it is cool.

[njsteve]

LOL. My wife doesn't get it either. When my 1995 K2500 Diesel Suburban (that I bought new) was about to roll over the 100K mark I parked it in the driveway at 99,998 so I could go in the house to get a camera. I come out and the truck is gone because my wife took it shopping. She comes home and it then read 100,025. GRRRRR.

I had to wait until it hit this number before I could be happy again:


(P.S. I assume you saw this thread too? http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...gramma&page=11