'78 Monte Carlo? Had one. Tossed the bench seat (actually it is sitting in the corner of the shop by the main door with a stack of 85 headlight buckets sitting on it) and put in a pair of Grand Prix buckets that matched the existing upholstery color. (Yeah, up on the mezzanine floor, snigger, snigger) It came with a 231 V-6 that was so done that it needed 50W in the winter to show any oil pressure. Tossed that, really Ah did, and plugged in my refugee 262 V-8 from my departed Monza. Ran that with a 350 turbo that almost had to have bananas stuffed down the filler tube to get the clutch plates to grab. Finally blew 2 out of it, shift was from 1 to 3 with just a momentary peek at 2 on the way by. Scored another 350 Turbo but discovered shortly there after that the only pair of body mounts that were still working were those under the rad cradle. Pulled the motor, tossed the resident transmission, kept the buckets and their matching back seat bottom and back, kept the motor, kept the rad cradle; it was out of a 78 cutlass and cherry, kept the gauge cluster, kept the steering mast assembly, kept the console that i had scored up at the yard,, got deep enough into it that I pulled and kept the dash!, and as many of the nuts and bolts and fiddly bits as I thought might prove useful and chucked the balance to the scrappers. Found out during the post mortem that the modifications I had my old garage do to go to dualies were so badly done that the crossmember had rusted out completely-even the welds that were supposed to hold the chunk of angle iron that was meant to be the brace to replace the sections that had been relieved to get the pipe room had rotted out. Tried to cut out the floor pan just to get to the stainless steel brake and gas lines that i had stuffed in as a preventive measure against salt rust but couldn't get at them; the body mounts had collapsed into the frame holes literally. (Did persevere and pulled the brakes eventually.
Ah, memories. it was ten years old when I found it and the owner's kids were pissed because I had bought their toy so they couldn't jump on it anymore; never did fix that dent in the hood. Got ten more years of mostly winter time driving out of it. Hated to see it go but the running joke most appropriate would have been the one about jacking up the horn button, pushing away the old car, and pushing its replacement under the button. That was about as much of the old car as was salvage-able. Oh yeah, did keep the rear end and drive shaft; the prop is now under my 85, seems the 350 yoke matches the tail shaft on a Muncie 4 spd!! More fun.
Ah, memories. it was ten years old when I found it and the owner's kids were pissed because I had bought their toy so they couldn't jump on it anymore; never did fix that dent in the hood. Got ten more years of mostly winter time driving out of it. Hated to see it go but the running joke most appropriate would have been the one about jacking up the horn button, pushing away the old car, and pushing its replacement under the button. That was about as much of the old car as was salvage-able. Oh yeah, did keep the rear end and drive shaft; the prop is now under my 85, seems the 350 yoke matches the tail shaft on a Muncie 4 spd!! More fun.
