[JUDGE3]

never had chokes on any of my performance cars. didnt like em and had no problem working the throttle till all is warm.

had a new 301 non turbo TA. still dont like thinking about it, zero power got out ran bad by a friends piece of junk el camino with a poor running 350. that moment I knew the TA was goin away. moved to a original 1969 RA3 4SPD judge and became a hero.

would love to buy a 1980 TA turbo car, put a pontiac 400 with a turbo charger on it and have a "real" pontiac turbo TA. avenge my pain!

stuck with my 42.5 year aircraft factory job because it paid great with great benefits. no college so it was the best job around then. once married and having a family, no luxury to risk moving to something I may like better as needed the pay scale where it was at. yep, nvr really liked it but still had job appreciation.

cinder block story scary. awhile back a fella did that and cost him his life.

I have changed oil, dbbl seal and leak, also backed off the ramps with dry engine. dad freaked out.

amazing how threads/e mails are mis-interpreted. makes for great humor. seems only moderators can "provoke". I once chided about football and got a pm threating to ban me. lol

[carcrazy]

I've made many over the years but a few regrets still linger. Selling m 67 Ram Air GTO during the 70's gas crisis for a mere pittance. Not purchasing a really nice 62 SD Grand Prix for $2500 back in 73.

[77 TRASHCAN]

Judge,
I test drove a new 81 turbo, off the lot. Mostly because it was the color I wanted my 77 to be, silver. That turned out in my favor. We all know that most all silver colors essentially fell off of cars Around that time, revealing primer and shortly after....,rust.

When I went on the test drive, the car was nearly empty on gas, so I offered up $5.00 of my own money for the drive, salesman didn't argue. I drove it about 10-15 miles. Got it up to operating temp. I gave it 3-4 full throttle stomps from about 25 MPH. It had NOTHING!!! It sure looked nice though...

[JUDGE3]

Originally Posted by 77 TRASHCAN

Judge,
I test drove a new 81 turbo, off the lot. Mostly because it was the color I wanted my 77 to be, silver. That turned out in my favor. We all know that most all silver colors essentially fell off of cars Around that time, revealing primer and shortly after....,rust.

When I went on the test drive, the car was nearly empty on gas, so I offered up $5.00 of my own money for the drive, salesman didn't argue. I drove it about 10-15 miles. Got it up to operating temp. I gave it 3-4 full throttle stomps from about 25 MPH. It had NOTHING!!! It sure looked nice though...

still cracks me up I still feel pain having had that car. Please 1980-81 TA guys, no slight to you intended. the cars were still incredibly cool looking at least.

sigh, heres the brief painfull story though: I had my dad take me up because there were 6 or 8 used 1977-78 Trans Ams I wanted to look at. wanted a 77 or 78. it literally was not until we got to the dealer dad said "gonna spend that much you may as well buy a new one". I was 18, he was guiding me away from the 400 engine cars, I didnt know it but i'm sure he did. he had the power being the co signer.

anyhoot, sadly, love pontiacs, but that was the worst car I ever owned. cool looking but thats it.

[71GP76TA]

When I was 20 I blew the rearend in my '65 chevy P/U.. a week later I blew the rearend in my '59 Impala. A friend of the family offered to buy the Impala so I sold it to him as I didn't have anything to drive to work the next day. Later that day I bought a '75 Caprice so I could get to work. Young and dumb.....

[poncho-mike]

I rebuilt several engines over the years. I would always have my local machine shop install the crank and main seal, and I would do the rest. Once the long block and heads were installed, I would use an oil pump primer rod to pump oil through the oil passages. I would rotate the crank a few degrees, then run the oil pump for about 15 seconds seconds, then repeat. I would do this until I saw oil coming out of all of the rocker arms.

On one engine, I had one rocker arm that wasn't getting oil. I took the rocker arm off, confirmed the push rod wasn't bent or clogged, and spun the oil pump again. No oil was coming out of the lifter. I took the lifter out, looked directly into the lifter bore, and had a friend hit the trigger on the drill. A solid stream of oil hit me right between the eyes. I ended up going to the emergency room over that. I finally went back to the parts store and got a new lifter.

[will slow gto]

Originally Posted by nytrainer

My first car was a 70 Chevelle SS and I was hurrying to get it ready for a big car show. I multitasked quick vacuum, changed oil and filter, quick detail (back then the hot ticket using was lemon pledge lol).
Anyway start the car and then remembered I needed things from in the house. So I shut car off (ran maybe 20 seconds) got what I needed and as I came out of the house I saw a river of oil running down the driveway (a new cement paver driveway my mom had recently had put in). I forgot to put the new filter on . Fearing mom would have my azz I screwed on the filter, topped off the oil and parked car in the street leaving a nice oil tire mark the length of the driveway. Luckily it was a one car driveway so I put the spilled oil to use (luckily mostly new clean oil) and on my hands and knees spread it with some shop rags and used more fresh oil to blend it into the other pavers.
I was wondering what was waiting for me as I returned home but nobody noticed it.
My moms 92 now. I think it may be safe to own up to it now. Maybe..

“They‘ll never notice!” Yikes!

[nytrainer]

Originally Posted by will slow gto

“They‘ll never notice!” Yikes!

My first blend job! Looked liked it was sealed.

[mgarblik]

Dumbest non-purchase mistake. Test driving a 1970 Superbird, 440 6 BBL. not buying it because it was a cheap, pile of junk, poor fitting, rattle trap. Along with running lousy and being slow! Seller wouldn't take a penny less than $1500.00 for it. Yikkkess!!!! Orange, black bench seat interior, auto on column, good body, paint. Tiny bit of rust along the edges. Who Knew??

[John Eiseman]

Rebuilt the original 400 engine in a.72.GTO post and installed the distributor 180 degrees out. Took.us a.day to.figure it out.
Twisted the oil drain plug the wrong direction on a girlfriends.Dodge D 50 pickup the wrong way and.tore.the oil.pan.
Sheared a few.small bolts off by over torquing on dirt bikes. The early days in training of a shade tree mechanic.

[64speed]

Oh god I have missed so many cars it’s hard to even take its measure but personally I had the opportunity to buy a 68 GTO in great shape in about 2003 or so for 4500. I dragged my feet getting to the bank that day and when I got back later that day I had just missed it.

[tekuhn]

Biggest mistake? In 1981, fresh out of college and newly married, I had recently moved to a small West Texas town. The local mechanic had an assortment of cars parked all around his property, including a '69 Carousel Red Judge. Four-speed car. I went in and asked about it. He said it was for sale. The owner was off in the military and didn't want to pay to have it diagnosed or repaired. It had water in the crankcase. He felt the owner wanted too much for the car that might possibly have a cracked block. I was young and broke and didn't pursue it further. There's no question the car was real, and it was complete - all ram air pieces intact. It was only 12 years old after all and cloning wasn't yet much of a thing. I'll always wonder if it was an RAIV. I didn't know enough at the time to check, but probably not. Several months later, the car was gone. Asking price - $500.

[Jimbobeast]

Passing on buying two genuine 1970 GTO Judge convertibles in the early 80's because the $3000 each they were asking was way too much. Ditto for a 1974 Jag XKE V-12 in 1977 because it was a convertible and I had nowhere to park it indoors.

[dataway]

Wow ... those XKEs just sky rocketed in price about ten years later. I remember around the late 70's you could get one for 5,000, by the 90's they were $50,000. Tons of them in the 70's had SBC installed. People were literally junking them in the 70's.

[hurryinhoosier62]

Originally Posted by mgarblik

Dumbest non-purchase mistake. Test driving a 1970 Superbird, 440 6 BBL. not buying it because it was a cheap, pile of junk, poor fitting, rattle trap. Along with running lousy and being slow! Seller wouldn't take a penny less than $1500.00 for it. Yikkkess!!!! Orange, black bench seat interior, auto on column, good body, paint. Tiny bit of rust along the edges. Who Knew??

My first automotive mistake was almost as bad. I
passed on a numbers matching ‘65 K code Mustang fastback. Orange with a black interior with a bit of surface rust on the left quarter; at fifteen years old I felt $500 was too much. First mistake in engine building: my sister had a ‘79 Sunbird with the Iron Duke 151 and a four speed. Sis managed to spin all four rod bearings, so I volunteered to rebuild it for her. Everything went well until I went to start it for the first time. It wouldn’t fire; no spark. I triple checked everything I even pulled the timing cover to
check the timing marks. I was bumfuzzled until I pulled the distributor cap. When I rebuilt the distributor( as to why I don’t remember) I
managed to get the distributor shaft 180 degrees out of time. Switched out the old distributor for a different distributor; engine fired and ran like a top.

[Hotrodfarmboy]

In 1969 I was a wet behind the ears teenager but I had an eye for cars. I bought a black on black '64 GTO 4 spd. convertible at a local used car lot. It was really fast and of course I drove the s%$# out of it. It had the ugly big car bathtub air cleaner on it so I went to the auto parts store and bought three small chrome air cleaners. The center studs were too short so I got three one foot redi-bolts. I installed the air cleaners.... it looked so cool! I slammed the hood and punched three holes in my hood. Then, to make this a double stupid, I threw the ugly air cleaner in the trash! This story does have a happy side. When I changed my oil I couldn't get my oil filter off because it hit the lower A-arm. I looked at a bunch of Pontiacs and noticed that Tempests had an angled oil filter and big cars had a straight one. It had a big car engine in it so that would explain the air cleaner. I took the code on the block and looked it up......44B 1964 421 350hp! Wish I had that one back!

[F ROCK]

I've got one...
So I'd just bought my little MIG welder, and offered to patch the floors in my friends Maverick. I had my metal positioned, and my welder was ready to go.
I went over to the bench and fiddled with my helmet for a few minutes.
When I came back he said "All clean and ready to go!" I didnt know why he'd said that.
I climbed in, put down my mask;...and maybe I DID smell that carb cleaner at that last second as I struck my arc and KABOOM it blew me right out of the car and the dried up headliner was smoldering around the ripped edges.
Yeah so later that day as I'm learning to weld it started getting unbearably hot in the car. Everything was hot, even the parts that I didnt weld. Wow really really hot. Battery was smoking. Whoops. Car fired right up without issue.

Missed opportunities? oh yeah i've got some.
I picked up a hitchhiker when i was 18 (1984). He kept talking about all these cars he had and offered me a 1968 torino fastback roller for helping him out.
When i'd got to his house, there it was, sitting on the street, along with some nice fords. I passed because i didnt think it was cool. LOL
Another time, a good friend had a 69 (ish) Buick Riveria with the 455. His wife was making him unload it. I could have it for free. Nice condition. I passed. Yes I was the dumbest kid on earth.
But my brother is pretty dumb too:
Around 1979 my mom, brother and me were going to look at some cars he'd selected from the classifieds; shopping for his first car.
Our first stop: two GTO's out on the lawn for sale. a '68 and a '70 judge. the '68 was $1000 and the Judge was $1500.
He passed on both and bought a ratty '69 camaro.
I had a helper back in the day. He was a little slow in the head but a good laborer. He'd somehow gotten a bright yellow/black stripe 1970 (?) Cyclone Spoiler with a 428 (429? I cant remember) Cobra jet. It sat in the yard for years but still looked nice when I'd last seen it. I'm sure someone swindled him out of it by now. (sorry strayed off topic)

Edit: About the Torino; It was red and had hubcaps. i didnt get out to look at it. No engine, but otherwise nice. I was REALLY into first gen Cougars at that time; and the Torino seemed like a step backward lol. I love torinos now .
The GTO's: I suppose those were fair prices for nice cars in 1979? But the camaro sucked and could barely burn the skinny tires.