[mscicluna007]

1st Decal was on passenger side inner guard.

Second one on Radiator Support Panel.

[LeighP]

Nice thing about this car is that surprisingly, an huge amount of the original car is still present.....seems the only thing that was removed was the SD itself.
Given it's gone through many owners, a lot of whom were not Pontiac collectors, I am truly surprised it was not modified, chopped about or otherwise destroyed. Even the original Rally IIs are still on the car.
My 76 T/A had the same multi owner treatment, and a genuine 455 Starlight Black 4 speed T/A ended up, by the time I bought it, as a light blue, 350 SBC powered auto with almost none of the original options still fitted....sad, but not unusual.

[mscicluna007]

I think the 70's was too well known for racing and the cars probably saw the drag strip much more than they would today.

[mscicluna007]

This was probably the worst area. The original carpet was thrown out and a custom one fitted some time after conversion back in 1981. The Dash is a fibreglass dash in RHD which has now been pulled from the car as I am now prepping the car to return it to LHD.

The seats not much was left off as they had detiorated and had basic repairs over the vinyl. Their is obviously no build sheets tucked in any crevice and trust me I have looked everywhere.

The rear frames were in poor condition.

I have since sourced a good second hand set.

[mscicluna007]

I obtained these seats last weekend. Travelled 900kms from home to collect and 900 kms back to home and they were well worth the trip. Much better condition than mine.

[mscicluna007]

Floor Pans are nice and solid. LH side of Cowl is nice . RH Side needs a little bit of repairs were the heater box area was due to the conversion where the steering colomn and brake booster and pedals were mounted. A piece of sheet metal was used to block the hole and plenty of rivets but this will all repair up back to original nicely.

Also many of the bitumen sheets were still intact from original and their is just one under the drivers seat that was removed but is nice and clean under their.

[mscicluna007]

The first pic is the RHD setup where the steering column mount was riveted to a plate but I have since found it a nice home back on the LHD side and will have it reweleded into its original location. Thank god they left me a template to get it back in position.

[mscicluna007]

RHD Setup on the rails was not too bad. The RHD steering Box was attached to a plate which sat over the rail and bolted thru the poriginal idle arm location and the idle arm was bolted thru the steering box holes location.

I fitted a LHD steering box.

Flipped the drag link around and reversed or corrected the tie rod ends and its all gone back together nicely using all the original parts except the steering box for now.

Oh yeah and the two bolts used on the LHD setup for the idle arm definately only temporary until I get the right ones.

[mscicluna007]

So here is some pictures of the rear inner guards where the beating took place for the tyre clearance in the Car and Driver June 73 edition. This is the RH Rear.

[mscicluna007]

So here is some pictures of the rear inner guards where the beating took place for the tyre clearance in the Car and Driver June 73 edition. This is the LH Rear.

I had no idea of any of this all I was told is go look in the guards and see what you can find. I didn't know what I was even looking for and it was late in the night when I first checked. I had to have a second look as initially I missed the area as their is no distinct colour change due to the age of the vehicle.

[mscicluna007]

Boot area with original paints. As you can see the boot is still in very good condition.

[mscicluna007]

I will get some good pics of under the car soon.

I want to try and get paints as correct as possible if they need to come off for any reason.

Boot lid has a bit of rust under the spoiler that has gone through it so I think a replacement is on the picking list.

I have one at dads not sure of the year yet . does anyone know how to read the codes on the boot for year coding.

[mscicluna007]

The Grills are still in nice shape and should restore up nicely. Their was a crack around one of the mounts but I am sure some sort of decent resin will solve that problem.

The valence is not the correct one which should be Plastic with two cut outs under the bar area. Thanks to Baron for his keen eye in picking that one up.

And the horns sit nicely shame I forgot to try them before dismantling the car. Not hard to test I know but would have been nice to hear from behind the wheel.

The electrics like blinkers and lights and wiper were all slow to begin with as they hadn't been powered for over 25 years but everything kicked in eventually. The main harnesses will need to be rebuilt or replaced But they are all their with connectors so I might be able to source correct replacement wire down the track. Far from that stage though.

[LeighP]

If you're going the full resto, my personal opinion would be to get a full repro harness for the car....so many old plugs, corroded joints, high resistance in corroded wires....just not worth re-using the old system.
The metal valance is not necessarily wrong....the plastic ones broke on a regular basis and were replaced under warranty with the metal ones...from what I recall reading.
If you check one or two of the restoration threads (I think njsteve's?) you'll find reference to how to mod the repro plastic valance to fit better and reduce the likelyhood of it cracking...if you go with plastic.

[mscicluna007]

Thanks Leigh,
I have seen some of the repro kits for wiring and I do think for the price they are definately a good option. I noticed on the engine wiring harness the Dizzy connector was slightly melted and then the mallaroy twin point Dizzy the wires seem to have been tapped into that as an easy option. Other than that the engine bay harness is in tact but your right the wires get quite hard and the resistance increses on old wiring.

All them connectors get a little tired and brittle and sometimes aren't worth saving.

I'll have to go through them all later and see whats what But will most likely replace the Fuse Box and under dash harness.

I heard about the plastic Valences not being too crash hot wonder what the repro quality is like . I'll track down that thread at a later date.

[Jim Robertson]

Wow! A great thread. Super find and to have that historic machine mostly intact is truly remarkable. Congratulations and best of luck with the restoration. We are watching with great interest.

[mscicluna007]

Thanks Jim,
I hope to keep it as correct as possible where budget allows of course but I am hoping to get alot of tips along the way of ways things can be done better or easier. I have seen some great threads so far that have helped alot with ideas like the under body paint and restoring the console I have which is in reason able condition so I will be bouncing Ideas off the forum for advice on alot of things especially where to source the right parts.

Michael

[LeighP]

People don't think about the wiring getting old....for most of us, unless we think about it, we don't really believe these are "old" cars...to me, an old car is a 30's or 40's car.
But then I have to stop and think and remember that these cars are 40 years old.......they aren't the 10 year old cars that we remember from when we were in our 20's.

A friend with a 65 Galaxie had a recurring problem where his engine ran rough and lost power after running for around 20 minutes. He spent ages, rebuilding carbs, swapping distributors, new leads....his mechanic had him thinking there were mechanical issues with the valves....I told him to bypass the wiring harness and run new wire for his ignition - coil. Bingo! It was internal resistance build up in the old wiring, as it got hotter the voltage dropped and the engine ran poorly.
Its one of the reasons I didn't even try and salvage any original wiring on my car.

[mscicluna007]

Finally Updated on to the website so if anyone wants a read its up.

http://www.highperformancepontiac.co...m/viewall.html


High Performance magazines article in the January 2013 Edition.

[falcon4]

Wiring in cars this old is about the same as Kapton wiring in aeroplanes.