What Did You Do To Your G-Body Today? [2020]

[Oldscarnut]

Very carefully, to avoid the electro-jolt from an active wire, use a pair of plug wire pliers to, one at a time, pull a plug wire from its plug. The one that makes no change in the sound of the motor or the idle, is your dud.


Nick

Today was the day to lay under the El Camino with Olds power and look for nuts and bolts that didn't get tightened down correctly. I actually found a few, and one was one of the flexplate bolts. That would have been a nightmare if it actually worked free later! So I got out the flywheel turner and gave it a 360 to be sure the rest of them were tight. The one was only finger tight. The rest were on snug! I tried so hard to double check every torqued bolt, but when this was on the stand I was having fun trying to torque them while the engine teetered and spun. Anyway, no harm no foul. I am certain the mains and rods were correct, and before this the heads, intake and exhaust manifolds were double checked. The flexplate cover is now is now installed. The distributor is in and pre-timed, about 12 degrees BTDC. There is oil pressure!

Water is in and has not lost a drop, One more check of the ancillary nuts and bolts and it for the belt driven things, water pump, brackets and carb, and it is time to get the battery off the tender and see what electricals work, then finally the starter.....some gas in the carb....and noise and smoke hopefully....Tomorrow is the day! When I am sure it is running, the cam break-in will follow and a lot of walking around and looking/listening. Fingers are crossed, wishes and prayers, four leaf clover and rabbits foot and a dream catcher. Any outside help is appreciated.
__________________

 

[mclellan83]

Looking forward to see how they work out.
On my OG cutlass it still had OE hubs and never had an issue. On the El Camino I had to replace the one of the Ebay hub twice in a couple drives.
I'm contemplating the route to take with front brakes on this cutlass.
Wilwood Hubs are $125 each on Summit. I was also looking at the hubs from Big Brake Upgrade. The a Billet hub with bigger 1LE bearings they are $390 with JEGS studs pressed in.
At this point I am unsure which route to go.
Cheapest would be junkyard spindles with new rotors and calipers. Then later buy the adaptor and do the ATS-V Brembos.(fits behind my 17s)
Next would be my stock spindles and used C6 stuff I found local.
Last would be to just go straight to Brembo stuff now. That's gonna be around $700( all new parts) just for the front.
Where the junkyard Blazer parts with new pad,rotors, and calipers is gonna be less than $350 front Blazer front AND rear setup.


Yesterday I was bored at work.. I mean waiting for parts. I had these two sitting in my van and got an idea.View attachment 157802View attachment 157803

You can do the junkyard brembos much cheaper if you decide to, I got 2 pair of the ATS Brembo which is the same as what goes onto the ATS-V and C7 vettes for very cheap. For the Blazer it was just gonna be too much work, everyone there runs the CTS-V V1 setup and had an adapter kit and everything for a decent price so scrapped it and went that way instead

 

[DSPbuilt]

You can do the junkyard brembos much cheaper if you decide to, I got 2 pair of the ATS Brembo which is the same as what goes onto the ATS-V and C7 vettes for very cheap. For the Blazer it was just gonna be too much work, everyone there runs the CTS-V V1 setup and had an adapter kit and everything for a decent price so scrapped it and went that way instead

this is with parts from BigBrakeUpgrade and rotors and calipers from Rockauto cant seem CTS-V1 on rockauto are a couple bucks more expensive

Mini Brembo stock spindle
Actual Expenditure				684.60​
Part	Part #	QTY	Unit Price	Extension Price
ATS-V LH Caliper	1722777​	1	123.00​	123.00​
ATS-V RH Caliper	1722587​	1	123.00​	123.00​
C7 Brake Rotors	12162146​	2	24.00​	48.00​
Russel Brake lines	692100	1	82.00	82.00​
BBK Brembo Brackets w/ Hardware		1	85.00	85.00​
BBK Machined HUBS with ARP Hardware		1	195.00​	195.00​
Centric Pad	10310010	1	17.00	17.00​
Banjo M10x1	14100	2	4.00	8.00​
Banjo Washer	21012386	10	0.36	3.60​

Mini Brembo Blazer spindle
Actual Expenditure				654.60​
Part	Part #	QTY	Unit Price	Extension Price
ATS-V LH Caliper	1722777​	1	123.00​	123.00​
ATS-V RH Caliper	1722587​	1	123.00​	123.00​
C7 Brake Rotors	12162146​	2	24.00​	48.00​
Russel Brake lines	692100	1	82.00	82.00​
BBU Brembo Brackets w/ Hardware		1	250.00	250.00​
Centric Pad	10310010	1	17.00	17.00​
Banjo M10x1	14100	2	4.00	8.00​
Banjo Washer	21012386	10	0.36	3.60​

 

[Turbolq4]

Managed to get it to run well enough to drive it over to my aunt and uncle’s house to pressure wash it.
FILTH
View attachment 157810
And washed. Got a ton of mud caked up in the rear wheel wells thanks to rain I didn’t account for a couple of months back.
View attachment 157811
I think I’ve got a dead plug due to fouling, it smells dead rich. Currently running NGK’s in their 4 heat range, might step up to 5s to see if I get any improvement.

Relatively sure that NGK plugs heat goes up as the number goes down.

 

[MrSony]

Decided to take the car out today, and during my pretrip inspection, I found the transmission was about a pint low on the dipstick. No biggie, I'll just drop into autozone on the way into work and get some. When I went to turn into the autozone driveway, someone pulled out on front of me and nearly t-boned me. I floored it to get out of the way and was treated to a quart or so of transmission fluid geysering out of the dipstick tube and covering the engine and passenger exhaust manifold.

I ended up refilling it and didn't have any more issues for the rest of the trip, but I am guessing that the vent at the top of the transmission is plugged. Will have to keep the spirited driving to a minimum until that is resolved...

glad ya made it

 

[UC645]

Relatively sure that NGK plugs heat goes up as the number goes down.

It does, but the monkey wrench thrown in here is the rings might not be seated yet. I’m still getting oil on the threads when I pull the plugs, so I’m going to grab some more 93 and run the car for a couple of hours tomorrow.

And the 4 series plugs are the second highest heat range NGK has 😵

 

[Wageslave]

glad ya made it

Sadly enough, that was the 2nd time I about got ran over on that trip.

 

[1320John$$$]

The summit brand Chinese valves we’re sitting on the front porch when I got home today since they were made in China along with the cylinder heads should be a perfect fit

 

[UC645]

It does, but the monkey wrench thrown in here is the rings might not be seated yet. I’m still getting oil on the threads when I pull the plugs, so I’m going to grab some more 93 and run the car for a couple of hours tomorrow.

And the 4 series plugs are the second highest heat range NGK has 😵

Some good news, only one plug came out with oil residue still on it, so I ran it a little harder for about 15 minutes.

Bad news: having only front brakes and a clutch posi in the rear isn’t exactly a recipe for 24/7 fun. It’s actually quite terrifying when it comes unhooked:

About 30 feet of both front wheels locked up after I hopped on it in second and the tail just shot out to the left. That should’ve ended much worse. Like Mustang meet tree worse.

I now have to check the rear suspension for anything loose, I got a rather loud clunk from the rear when I was driving it back to the barn but I can’t replicate the noise by bouncing the car up and down by hand.

 

[Rktpwrd]

Drove it.
Attended a mid-week cruise in tonight, and ran into Randy (ranlett here on the forum) there. Spent some time catching up with him and chatting, then met up with my buddy Mike (with the ‘57 Chevy that helps out on garage days). We walked around and caught up before heading home. Absolutely embarrassed a Lexus F Sport something or other going two wide into and out of a traffic circle chicane and even got a chirp out of the tires into third on the way out.

Very satisfying.

Then got an enthusiastic thumbs up from some guy in the lane next to me a few minutes later. Icing on the cake. Great way to spend the evening!