BUILD THREAD '79 Monte Carlo body-off restoration NL

[rednas]

I would like to share with you some of the history of the car (for those who care 😛). Because I've decided to fully restore the car and keep it for a longtime (I was doubting about this for a while) I like to dig into the history of the car.

The car was imported into the Netherlands from Switserland in 2012 and I bought it in 2015 from a BMW specialist who traded the car in and was stuck with it. A good customer of his needed a new car and wanted to use the Chevy as part of the payment. As the BMW specialist wasn't too keen on this he gave the owner a low-ball offer and he took it... That's how the car ended up on our local version of ebay:

With the car came a bit of documentation

Including a big part of the maintainance history until 1992

It also contained the name of the original owner who bought it new in 1980 from a GM dealer in Switserland. With the help of Google I found out that the man still lives on the same address and I also found an email address.
I just sent him an email asking him if he could tell me more on the history of the car. Hopefully he has some old pictures of the car.
Via the BMW specialist I hope to get in contact with the previous owner.

To be continued.

 

[rednas]

A little question for the experts here.

When I bought the car it came with an extra set of carbs:

According to the seller it was purchased to give the car a bit more power.

Does anyone know this model? Is it indeed better than the original? Would like to know if it is worth cleaning/rebuilding or if I can better buy another one.

It also came with an Edelbrock intake, will this make a good combo?

Thanks

 

[TURNA]

What engine and carb are in it now?

 

[rednas]

it has the original 305 V8 with quadrajet and it is slow as &^^%

 

[TURNA]

Do you have a yearly inspection for emissions in your country?

 

[rednas]

Do you have a yearly inspection for emissions in your country?

No, just a safety check. The emissions are not inspected for older cars like these (fortunately 😛)

 

[fleming442]

it has the original 305 V8 with quadrajet and it is slow as &^^%

Switch the 5 and the 0 to get 350. That'll wake it up.

 

[TURNA]

I would say it all depends on part availability in your area.

Edelbrock carbs (Carter AFB's) are readily available since the still sell them.

Q-Jets not so much and then to send it to the states have it rebuilt shipped back and if there is an issue with it the car will be parked more than driven.

What are your plans for the engine?

 

[rednas]

Switch the 5 and the 0 to get 350. That'll wake it up.

That s an advise I read more often. Is it just a swap.of the engine or do you also need to switch carbs and ignition and stuff like that?

 

[rednas]

I would say it all depends on part availability in your area.

There's not too much locally but I have been ordering from rockauto and that works like a charm.

Q-Jets not so much and then to send it to the states have it rebuilt shipped back and if there is an issue with it the car will be parked more than driven.

I have found a rebuild kit for under $30 and could do the overhauling myself so that would be an option .

What are your plans for the engine?

Well the plan is/was to reuse it. It should only have around 100k miles on it but it does sweat oil just about everywhere so I was planning on taking it apart and checking it out, put some new gaskets and paint on it etc
However I really hate the lack of power and the more I read about spicing this engine up the more depressed I get 😛 this thing definitely wasn't build for speed.. so more and more I am leaning towards an engine swap (350, but what year??). I do however feel like it is a shame because it now is a matching numbers car (not sure what that really is worth though when I am driving a slow car just to maintain resellvalue...). Furthermore I would really want to make sure that there is a significant increase in power involved.

I think I will slowly get reading about these 350 engines amend the work that goes into a swap.

Thanks for your comments