Hit the annual spring swap meet in a neighbouring city an hour an a half north yesterday.
My attendance record for this meet every year is usually hit or miss, depending on disposable income at the time and personal commitments, but this year I was free so off I went.
I usually go to these things not expecting much, and more often than not I come home empty handed. This time however, my perseverance paid off even tho I wasn't really looking for too many things in particular.
With springtime progressing along nicely and the days and weather getting longer and warmer, my thoughts have been on the list of things I'd like to do to Olds Cool for the upcoming season a lot more lately. So it was mainly parts for that, that I was keeping an eye out for.
Lucked out in finally finding a set of G body headers to help wake up the SB...
They're Hedman full lengths, 1 5/8" primaries and 3" collectors. Great shape, no rust, dents or dings, and the head flanges aren't warped.
$100 made them mine. 🙂
Ive also been keeping my eyes peeled for a set of 15" N90's locally for quite a while now. Our dollar absolutely sucks wind, so bringing anything up from the States is out of the question till things improve, leaving me with trying to find stuff locally.
Problem is, N90's are fairly rare and scarce here to begin with, and the ones that I did find were beat to hell and the seller STILL wanted a small fortune for.
Unable to find N90's, I was keeping my options open to another possible 15" wheel. As awesome and period correct as my current aluminum '80 442 wheels look, they're only 14" diameter, and 6" wide. Availability of 14" tires is really limited these days, and you're not putting a very wide tire on a 6" wide rim.
Plus, the shorter 14" wheel/tire combo, while awesome for "off the line" launches, wasn't so great at highway speeds with the 3:73 gears.
Came across a seller looking to unload a full set of 15" Camaro RS/Z28 wheels. These are in the IROC "style", but are not actually IROC's.
He had 5 for sale, but upon closer inspection, one was pretty banged up in a few spots:
I told him that I didn't want the beat up one, but that I'd take the other 4 at his selling price of $60 per wheel (including good Bridgestone tires!).
He says "tell ya what, one of the 4 good rims has a mismatched Goodyear tire on it, but the damaged wheel has the matching Bridgestone tire to the other 3. Gimme $10 for the damaged wheel and tire, and you can take all 5".
Done deal. 5 15x7 Camaro wheels with 80% or better rubber, out the door and in my truck for $250. Once I got home, I just quickly placed the Camaro rims infront of Old Schools "storage rims" to get an idea of what they'd look like. The hideous gold colors' gotta go, but I like the overall sportier vibe it gives the car.
"Before" with the storage wheels:
"After" with the Camaro wheels:
(Don't mind the surface rusty section on the rear quarter, that's an ongoing repair that'll get fixed up this year too)
Because it's still a bit hard to judge what they'll look like on the car, last night I found a picture of a fellow member's car with the same wheels on it. Hopefully he won't mind me borrowing his pic!
The 215/65R15's may or may not stay on the wheels, I'll have to see what clearance and rubbing (if any) is like with my drop spindles.
They're not N90's, but I think they're still a fairly attractive wheel at a bargain price. At least now I can run a bit wider tire on the rear safely and have a bit better tire selection to choose from.
So in addition to the headers and wheels, I also picked up 2 sets of new header gaskets, a set for the 455 in The Juggernaut, and a set for the 350 in Olds Cool when I get to installing the "new" swap meet headers. All in all, it was about $400 for the day, including parking, admission, and lunch. Think I did pretty good...
...let me know what you guys think!
D.
My attendance record for this meet every year is usually hit or miss, depending on disposable income at the time and personal commitments, but this year I was free so off I went.
I usually go to these things not expecting much, and more often than not I come home empty handed. This time however, my perseverance paid off even tho I wasn't really looking for too many things in particular.
With springtime progressing along nicely and the days and weather getting longer and warmer, my thoughts have been on the list of things I'd like to do to Olds Cool for the upcoming season a lot more lately. So it was mainly parts for that, that I was keeping an eye out for.
Lucked out in finally finding a set of G body headers to help wake up the SB...
They're Hedman full lengths, 1 5/8" primaries and 3" collectors. Great shape, no rust, dents or dings, and the head flanges aren't warped.
$100 made them mine. 🙂
Ive also been keeping my eyes peeled for a set of 15" N90's locally for quite a while now. Our dollar absolutely sucks wind, so bringing anything up from the States is out of the question till things improve, leaving me with trying to find stuff locally.
Problem is, N90's are fairly rare and scarce here to begin with, and the ones that I did find were beat to hell and the seller STILL wanted a small fortune for.
Unable to find N90's, I was keeping my options open to another possible 15" wheel. As awesome and period correct as my current aluminum '80 442 wheels look, they're only 14" diameter, and 6" wide. Availability of 14" tires is really limited these days, and you're not putting a very wide tire on a 6" wide rim.
Plus, the shorter 14" wheel/tire combo, while awesome for "off the line" launches, wasn't so great at highway speeds with the 3:73 gears.
Came across a seller looking to unload a full set of 15" Camaro RS/Z28 wheels. These are in the IROC "style", but are not actually IROC's.
He had 5 for sale, but upon closer inspection, one was pretty banged up in a few spots:
I told him that I didn't want the beat up one, but that I'd take the other 4 at his selling price of $60 per wheel (including good Bridgestone tires!).
He says "tell ya what, one of the 4 good rims has a mismatched Goodyear tire on it, but the damaged wheel has the matching Bridgestone tire to the other 3. Gimme $10 for the damaged wheel and tire, and you can take all 5".
Done deal. 5 15x7 Camaro wheels with 80% or better rubber, out the door and in my truck for $250. Once I got home, I just quickly placed the Camaro rims infront of Old Schools "storage rims" to get an idea of what they'd look like. The hideous gold colors' gotta go, but I like the overall sportier vibe it gives the car.
"Before" with the storage wheels:
"After" with the Camaro wheels:
(Don't mind the surface rusty section on the rear quarter, that's an ongoing repair that'll get fixed up this year too)
Because it's still a bit hard to judge what they'll look like on the car, last night I found a picture of a fellow member's car with the same wheels on it. Hopefully he won't mind me borrowing his pic!
The 215/65R15's may or may not stay on the wheels, I'll have to see what clearance and rubbing (if any) is like with my drop spindles.
They're not N90's, but I think they're still a fairly attractive wheel at a bargain price. At least now I can run a bit wider tire on the rear safely and have a bit better tire selection to choose from.
So in addition to the headers and wheels, I also picked up 2 sets of new header gaskets, a set for the 455 in The Juggernaut, and a set for the 350 in Olds Cool when I get to installing the "new" swap meet headers. All in all, it was about $400 for the day, including parking, admission, and lunch. Think I did pretty good...
...let me know what you guys think!
D.
