[67drake]

Well,yesterday……
The small town I work in has a cruise-in every other week. We’re out in the middle of nowhere, but always have a good turnout. The best last year was 128 cars.
Anyway my son just moved up from Florida a couple weeks back, so we hit the cruise with 2 of my cars- the ‘55 Catalina and my grandfather’s ‘62 Mercury. My son’s 502 ‘68 Chevelle needs a few tweaks since he just trailered it up from Florida, and no time to work on it, so he took one of mine.

The Studebaker truck is owned by a local guy who runs an old fashioned electrical repair shop. Rebuilds starters, alternators, generators, ect. ( Farmers still do this, so he earns a good living!)
Anyway he has a ‘65 421 in that truck! He also owns the Burgundy GP. Big Pontiac guy!

[67drake]

A few more

[b-man]

Almost there.

Fitted up the tailpipes and moved them around numerous times to figure out the best placement of the splitter tips, all while checking exhaust clearance around the axle tubes and upper control arms at all points of suspension travel.

Filled the new rear with 80W-90 GM gear lube and one bottle of friction modifier. Put the rear wheels on temporarily to check tailpipe clearance and to see how they fit the rear wheel well with the 1” wider axle housing, all good.

Last to do will be popping in the new plastic axle vent I’m waiting for, installing the new speedo driven gear and housing, axle bump stops, rear springs, sway bar, and finally the shortened driveshaft with new U-joints.

[tempest1964]

Getting closer on my engine.

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...5&d=1749324823:

[b-man]

Finished with the rear end swap and splitter tips.

The gear change from 2.56 to 3.08 made a huge difference, no more flat spot on acceleration when you crack open the two secondary carbs. The 1964 389 GTO could have been ordered with 3.08 gears but nothing taller than that, so it’s a pretty decent street performance and highway ratio behind a 421.

Happy with the way it drives now and the splitters complete the look I was after.

[67drake]

Originally Posted by b-man

Finished with the rear end swap and splitter tips.

The gear change from 2.56 to 3.08 made a huge difference, no more flat spot on acceleration when you crack open the two secondary carbs. The 1964 389 GTO could have been ordered with 3.08 gears but nothing taller than that, so it’s a pretty decent street performance and highway ratio behind a 421.

Happy with the way it drives now and the splitters complete the look I was after.

Awsome!

[tempest1964]

Splitters look great. And not another pair on the planet that’s exactly the same!

[Scarebird]

Got up before dawn to run around the patch a couple times to keep the seals loose, move some fluid around, etc. Last section I gave it a bit of gas and it kicked out - surprised just how little throttle it took...

She cannot wait for the Portuguese bureaucracy to get their kit together and issue the plates - Summer is here!

[b-man]

Originally Posted by tempest1964

Splitters look great. And not another pair on the planet that’s exactly the same!

I also built these 3” stainless splitters in the early nineties for my ‘64 GTO bracket car along with the complete exhaust system system behind the headers:

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...hlight=Exhaust

Kinda over the top compared to the little 2” ones, and a whole lot noisier.

Regarding the 1964 Tempest/Le Mans 8.2 10-bolt swap to the 1971 Olds Cutlass/442 8.5 10-bolt rear, the width change was only 1” overall so it pushed the rear wheels outward by only 1/2” per side.

My 14X6” Hurst wheels (the only size they made) fit perfectly but they’re looking somewhat close to the inner wheelhouse. The Hurst wheels have a shallower backspace than factory 14x6” wheels by around 1/2” or so, which already pushes the tires out further.

The control arm mounts are in the same place and consequently the shock mounts that are part of that are the same as well.

The rear springs no longer bolt down using a retention plate to the lower spring perch like on ‘64-‘66 rears, they rest over a raised stamping now and aren’t a problem unless you’re using shorter springs than stock. The limited shock downward travel doesn’t allow the springs to come out, i did however have the 8.5 rear in my Tempest modified to use the early spring perch and spring retention plate because it does have shorter lowering springs.

One bonus is the better pinion yoke design in regards to U-joint retention. With the 8.5 the joint cups fit much deeper into the yoke using the straps as retention than with the old 8.2 where the joint sits only about halfway into the yoke saddle and is retained by U-bolts.

Speedometer driven gear had to be changed from 36 tooth to 44 (drive gear is 19 tooth) along with the appropriate housing that accommodates 40 to 45 tooth gears. Accurately is within 1 mph at 50 so all is good.

Total cost for the rear end swap came in at $1250 not counting the driveshaft which I was previously using in the Tempest. The driveshaft had been shortened by 1-3/8” (I had asked the shop for 1”) many years ago when I swapped a TH400 into it and it worked fine. Luckily enough it was the correct length for the 8.5 rear end swap, I knocked in some new U-joints and swapped to a TH350 output yoke.

[Scarebird]

Originally Posted by b-man

...The rear springs no longer bolt down using a retention plate to the lower spring perch like on ‘64-‘66 rears, they rest over a raised stamping now and aren’t a problem unless you’re using shorter springs than stock. The limited shock downward travel doesn’t allow the springs to come out...

I also use a 71 Olds 8.5 in my 71 but do have issues with the springs (1971 442 FE2 spec). The issue is the Koni shocks have too much stroke, so if you are not careful the springs could come out. I put in some longer guides but really should shorten the shock travel.

[71GP76TA]

Bought another Pontiac yesterday.

[Scarebird]

Originally Posted by 71GP76TA

Bought another Pontiac yesterday.

...don't overwhelm us with info.

[tempest1964]

Hope you keep it as a LeMans

[camerjeff]

Changed the Spark Plugs on the LS2 powered Solstice, 6 easy, 1 difficult, 1 very difficult, had to unbolt the ABS module and move it as far as possible to snake a long extension with a universal and a wobble end extension on the Spark Plug Socket. Probably didn't need to but after 19 years and 46K miles I figured I would do it before driving it to New Mexico and back. Seems to idle a bit smoother.

[71GP76TA]

Originally Posted by Scarebird

...don't overwhelm us with info.

Word of mouth deal.. '64 Lemans convertible. Has a recently rebuilt '69 400 with a 3spd auto trans(haven't gotten under car yet). Disc brake conversion. Car was restored about 25 years ago. Runs and drives excellent. Overall a pretty nice car... that I could've driven home.

[BILL BOWMAN1]

Mounted my hood prop rod, retaining clip. Did a poor man’s front end alignment with fishing line, adjusted shocks to sit level side to side, dropping plumb bobs off rear housing to verify all is square. More cleaning, hitting a couple local shows soon.

[RocktimusPryme]

Painted my 62 in the garage. Silver metallic. Little mottling and striping. Shoulda just stuck to a solid color. But in the words of Vice Grip Garage. We aren’t trying to win awards here. Looks way better than it did and it’s one color going down the road.

I’ll probably respray the hood. The cars so damned wide the hood and roof were really hard to maintain consistent overlap

[Tempest]

looks great Rocktimus, I bet that roof is difficult to paint

Great looking car

[PAUL K]

Originally Posted by BILL BOWMAN1

Mounted my hood prop rod, retaining clip. Did a poor man’s front end alignment with fishing line, adjusted shocks to sit level side to side, dropping plumb bobs off rear housing to verify all is square. More cleaning, hitting a couple local shows soon.

Very nice ..... Most likely better off doing your alignment that way.

[RocktimusPryme]

Originally Posted by Tempest

looks great Rocktimus, I bet that roof is difficult to paint

Great looking car

Thank you. Just don’t get overly close to it lol. Your opinion would likely change.


Absolutely miserable that roof was. I read that some painters will use scaffolding to paint long roofs like that. That was a bit high tech for me.

If I do respray the roof to fix the striping I might let all the air out of the tires. Try to buy myself a couple more inches.

The hood I’m just going to take off and paint it propped against a wall.