Helpful hints

[Bonnewagon]

Most car guys accumulate a lot of dangerous/flammable/corrosive substances. Please don't store them in your house, or garage attached to the house. Take a tip from the military and dedicate a POL locker in a safe area of your yard (for you civilians, that's- Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants). If you have kids, lock it. Paint it red if you want, as well as write "flammable" on it so the fire department knows what it is. I used a steel cabinet I found at the curb and with an occasional painting it has lasted 20 years.

 

[Bonnewagon]

Are you plagued by crummy electrical connections? The original wiring harnesses were very good with WeatherPack connectors common. But any splicing usually allows corrosion to muck things up. I like to use marine grade connections like Ancor's glue filled/shrinkwrap connectors. Otherwise I use lots of Liquid Electric Tape which is a liquid neoprene that seals out moisture. My routine is to do this- solder, seal, shrinkwrap, seal again, wrap with electrical tape, seal again. I never have corroded connections on a car or boat using this method. I have even spliced battery cables by stripping back 1/4" of insulation, inserting the ends into a short length of same size copper tubing and butting them up, drilling two tiny holes in each side, and using a blowtorch to get it hot and feed solder into the tiny holes until the tubing/cables are solid. Be sure to polish the copper strands and the inside of the tubing, just like sweating copper pipes for plumbing. I then continue with the seal, shrinkwrap, seal, tape, seal routine. No voltage drop and no corrosion.

 

[pencero]

Mike Judge is going to base King of the Hill II entirely off of this thread when it comes back out

 

[565bbchevy]

If you use aluminum rims and have them balanced with stick on weights one thing I always do is run a piece of Gorilla brand duct tape over the weights and make sure it seals all the around them to the rim just for added protection.

 

[Bonnewagon]

One lousy chore every A/G-body owner goes through is the rear shocks. Whoever designed that upper bolt configuration should be shot, revived, and shot again. So do yourself a favor and after you FINALLY get them off and the cussing subsides, replace them with stainless steel nuts, bolts, and washers. And use plenty of anti-seize to reassemble too. I just redid mine today and they came right off, easy peasy. Oh, you say why bother, you will never have to do that crappy job again? Silly boy........

 

[pontiacgp]

If you install a hitch when you wire in the connector for the trailer do not tap into the aluminum solid wire that GM used for the harness for the rear lights on these cars, the aluminium wire will break

 

[jeremyandthemonte]

use vacuum cap caps on the seat mount stud with some anti seize to keep the thread clean and not get rusty

 

[Bonnewagon]

If your 1157 brake light bulbs aren't making good contact then the metal strips in the socket are probably weak/worn and laying flat. Changing the socket is the best cure but in a pinch, adding a small dab of solder to the little t*ts on the bulb's base will fix it. Be careful, it's easy to overheat it and ruin the bulb.

 

[Bonnewagon]

I heard a scraping noise from my driver's side disc brakes and pulled the wheel off for a look see. The pads and rotors were fairly new so I couldn't imagine what the noise was. Turns out the lower caliper bolt was missing! And the pad was gouging the rotor hat. A new bolt didn't catch so I knew the threads in the spindle were gone and that's why the bolt vanished. Correct fix is a heli-coil or a new spindle. I had neither so what I did was drill a hole in the end of the bolt and inserted a stainless steel cotter pin to keep the bolt in place. I'm not worried since first gen F-bodies with 4-piston disc brakes did the same thing. Fixed for 0$.

 

[ssn696]

Using a quart can of paint, etc. and hate it when the paint drips? I discovered that one of those small margarine tubs fits down into the valley around the rim. Cut the bottom of the tub off, and you have a pour spout. You can even use the brush to get the paint off the lid to get that last 2 square inches of coverage from a $50 quart of POR-15...