EL CAMINO Hi there from Texas

[TX84ElkySS]

My name is Dean and I am from around the Houston area. I have a 1984 El Camino SS that I bought in late 2019 as my daily driver after my 2011 Ford Ranger was rear-ended/totaled. It was/is in excellent condition, but some serious driveline issues have cropped up in it that I will need to address. I plan on keeping any upgrades to the 1980's as the car itself doesn't need that much power, but I want it to be more SS-worthy along the lines of the Monte Carlo or Camaro Z28. The LG4 305 was good enough for what I'm using the car for, but apparently misuse by a previous owner has exposed a problem that became evident when I used the car as my daily driver. As a result, the driveline was compromised from a mildly warped crankshaft that wasn't a problem for the previous owner since the car was only driven once in awhile.

I have included a couple of pics of my Elky, I will be posting in the near future regarding the repair of the Elky and looking for advice and parts...Happy trails, all!

 

[melloelky]

welcome Dean,that's a clean start you've got there.

 

[TX84ElkySS]

welcome Dean,that's a clean start you've got there.

Yeah, I lucked out on that, I got it in 2019 before the pandemic started. It had 42K miles on the clock and was described as original by the owner. I have looked recently at Elky prices and I would be hard pressed to find the value I got in 2019.

The work so far has been minimal up to this point, I replaced the water pump when I started hearing some noise from it about six months into ownership, as well as replacing the belts and hoses since I was using it for my daily driver. The Quadrajet has been overhauled and the engine tuned. I changed from the factory 14x6 rally wheels to 15x7s as seen in my avatar. My last modification was having the exhaust dualed-out with a pair of Flowmasters still coming from the factory catalytic converter, no headers.

With my current issue, it looks like the originality of my car (i.e. matching numbers motor) will end, so I figure I might as well "upgrade" the motor to a higher performance variant from the era, say the L69 motor. I'm not looking for gobs of horsepower in the Elky, I have a 1974 Z28 for that kind of fun. I just think the Elky SS should have had the L69 option like the Monte Carlo SS and Camaro Z28 did. My work will be to see what can and cannot be used from my near-original LG4 for the incoming L69. My TH200 transmission and torque converter were just rebuilt when the crankshaft problem came up, so I'm keeping that in place. I don't think the kind of use and the 190hp would tax the TH200 that is in there.

Well, back to researching, melloelky, I have a lot of cross-referencing to do...have a good one!