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Explain? If you use a piston stop, and it stops the piston just before TDC while turning the crank cw, and you mark the balancer, and then you turn the crank ccw and again it stops the piston just before TDC, and you mark the balancer, the exact center of those two marks is TDC. It's not ballpark, it's TDC. I'm not making this up, it's how you find TDC when using a camshaft degree wheel. If there's a better way to find TDC, please let me know. Thanks.

Thanks!

Yeah, that makes sense. The white car wasn't off at all, but a buddy of mine in a different state, he was having trouble getting his timing right. No matter where he set it, it ran really bad so I made these videos to show him how to verify that his balancer's timing marks weren't lying to him. He was running the original balancer, so I told him the outer ring isn't attached to the inner ring, it's just two separate chunks of cast iron, with rubber in between, all press fit of course, and shouldn't come apart, but we're driving these old cars longer than anyone including the car builders thought we would.....or should. With the orange car, just once, and years and years ago, the inner piece of the balancer started to get away from the outer piece, slowly at first. So if you spin the inner piece, without spinning the outer piece, that puts your factory timing mark in the wrong spot. The crankshaft is spinning clockwise (forward looking aft), and it's bolted to the balancer, so if the rubber starts to let loose, the inner balancer will outrun the balancer's cast iron outer ring, in a clockwise direction. If you are looking down at the factory timing mark (on your balancer's outer ring), it's now to the left of where it should be. So on that orange car, when I found true TDC, and made my own new mark, it was to the right of where my outer ring told me it should be. The outer ring was lying. Of course, let it keep slipping and eventually you'll need to make a new mark again, and this time it might be on the left, if it's slipped around far enough.....or it could even be 180 degrees off, so not left or right.......so the moral of the story is that if you find your harmonic balancer is slipping on you, replace it right away. If you don't, eventually that outer ring will come completely free, and it'll just freewheel, can't go anywhere, it's got an engine behind it, and a crank pulley in front of it, but it'll make a hell of a racket.

Cool man, hope it helps.

Yup, I'm pretty sure I need to get my steering box rebuilt, and I should really rebuild the front suspension while I'm at it. Won't be cheap, and I have lots of other projects. I took registration and insurance off of it though, so no rush.

Acceleration doesn't help, only slowing to a stop. Maybe on other trucks, not this one. You saw how much play there is in the steering right? My steering wheel is all over the place, just to go straight down the road. That's not tires. Tires won't fix this. I've owned this '75 Bronco since 1999. I know this truck, I've driven it on good tires and bad tires, never had death wobble before. Right now I'm on good tires, BF Goodrich All Terrains. Like I said in the video, I need to go through the steering and the front suspension, because this is a new problem that only recently sprung up on an old truck that's been neglected by me for too long. Old suspension, an old steering box, and an old steering linkage, and that steering play was trying to tell me that it's time to rebuild. I ignored it. So now Death Wobble is telling me time to rebuild.....so I took registration and insurance off it, and I'm saving up for parts. I have other projects though, so it's been on the back burner. I've just been using this Bronco for yard work around the house. www.motortrend.com/features/what-is-death-wobble/

@@owenrobertson My 83 K5 did the same thing with 38's. Only solution is to either stop and go again, or better yet, fabricate a steering box stabilizer. I run one on my 3500 Ram with a heavy Cummins on 35's. Check out BD Diesel steering stabilizer. They don't sell one for your Bronco but you'll get the idea of what it takes to engineer one. I paid $350 for a fab shop to make one for my K5 and haven't had the death wobble since I put it on 6 years ago.

@@twinnevans971, I've only got 32 x 11.50s on my Bronco, but you're right, I need to upgrade my steering stabilizer. I've had this Bronco since '99, put around 60,000 miles on it. The steering wheel play only recently got bad and then got worse and worse fast. I ignored it, and now death wobble. I haven't torn into it yet, but I think my steering box needs to be rebuilt. I need to figure out what it is for sure, then fix the play in the steering wheel first, because that's not right. My Bronco has a steering stabilizer on it, but it's nothing fancy, and it was on the Bronco when i bought it, so for sure the single shock might be shot by now. They make stabilizer kits for early Bronco, as heavy duty as you want to get, but like you said, I could fabricate one as well. This guy has two on his Bronco (scroll down to the photo of his front suspension), one down low like mine is, and one up above it: www.motortrend.com/events/1909-paul-perrys-1977-bronco-inspired-broncos-lot-overlanding/

@@twinnevans971, Oh, this kit: us.bddiesel.com/products/dodge-steering-box-stabilizer-bar?variant=30073634390080 Yeah, I've never seen one of those. I was thinking of the steering stabilizer shocks. Yeah, that's a good idea. But first, I still have to find out why my steering wheel is all over the place, just to go straight down the road.

@@twinnevans971, good video for that that box stabilizer as well: ruclips.net/video/3wfrW3a5MQI/видео.html

😂

Thanks, it was easy to make, works great, and I just used stuff that was laying around my garage to make it. If you've got a friend that fabricates, make a nicer one, and sell it way cheaper than this thing on Amazon: www.amazon.com/4-Point-Adapter-Floor-Transmission-Jacks/dp/B0779QG7XJ You might make some money. Of course if you do make money, big names will make one just like it and put you out of business. Or if someone has a patent on the idea already, and someone probably does, then you might get sued. Anyway that one from Amazon will work on differentials and lots of other things, but it's over $300, which is crazy. You should just make one. If you've got something with a 9" rear end, and you're the kind of guy that might want to swap out third members......then you've got tools, and you're the kind of guy that should buy a welder. My welder is the best tool I've ever owned, I don't know how I ever lived without one, I use it all the time.

Hey, how have you been? How's the weather over there? Rainy? How is yours running? I gave mine to my son. He's in the Navy, stationed in Virginia, he's got the GTO there with him. It's his driver. It's been a while since we've talked, did you know we got it painted: ruclips.net/video/L4lDwohNILw/видео.html Just a cheap paint job, but it's nice enough.

@owenrobertson Well done, the car looks great and you must be very proud of your boy. I bet you miss him. That looked a big job. Just realigning the front end is a nightmare ;)The weather here is bad and everyone is ill with a 6 week cough!. Roll on Spring. I finally swapped in the original rebuilt motor, got about 500 miles on it and I think it's blown a head gasket. It's bubbling brown stuff from the waterpump joint. I now have four cars , no three as I fixed my Grand Cherokee, with cooling problems. Thank goodness its nearly the biking season coz most are air-cooled, ha!

Yeah, old cars and their issues. It's always something. It's warming up here, so that's nice. Soon though, it'll be way too hot, not looking forward to that. :)

Go to the bench seat discussion on the GTO forum, there are no doubt four-speed bench seat GTOs, but does yours have AC, but no PS and no PB? You already know that a four-speed bench GTO is somewhat rare. Something like 1% are bench seat cars. Less then half of 1% are four speed bench seat cars? How many GTOs have a four speed, bench seat, and A/C, and no other option? This car is a rarity inside a rarity. Some 60s cars were special ordered with A/C and no PS or PB, but not many. PS and PB were affordable, and A/C was big money, over $300, and that was a lot in 1968. The math is easy, start with about 80,000 '68 GTO coupes, I'm rounding up. 1% have bench seats, again, just someone's best guess, and I'm no GTO expert, but there are plenty of experts on the GTO forum, and no one seems to dispute the 1%. So 1% of 80,000 is 800. That's about 800 '68 GTO coupes with a bench seat. I'm guessing about 70% of them were column shift automatics, but again to make the math easy, let's say that only 50% are automatics and the other 50% are manual transmissions. I have no idea what the split would be between a four-speed you could pay for or a three-speed you could get for free, but I'm guessing the four-speed was more popular, even with the bench seat fans. No matter what, we're looking at less than 400 '68 GTO coupes with a bench seat and a four-speed. Maybe less than 300, no one knows because PHS never entered their wealth of knowledge into a searchable database. Now I've been driving since 1985, and I've never owned a car or truck newer than my '75 Bronco. And I know a lot of car guys, and they've owned their fair share of classic cars as well. And I've been to a lot of car shows. And I remember the days when you could still find a good number of 60s cars at the Pick-A-Part. That's a lot of 60s cars that I've seen under the hood of, thousands of cars, and I can't think of one car that had factory A/C, but no PS or PB. They were made for sure, but not many. How many have you seen? Out of 400 random 60s cars, all makes and models, how many do you think have factory A/C, but no PS or PB? You have to admit that's unusual. When I first bought this GTO, I figured it was an A/C and PS car, and someone ditched the PS, taking the manual steering from another car, I've seen that before. Then I got the PHS Report, and thought that's odd, A/C with no PS or PB is rare, and bench seat four-speed is rare, so this car is a rarity within a rarity, way more unusual than any other car I've ever owned. It's a real oddball, not valuable, just odd......so years ago, I made this video, challenging anyone to show me another one like it. So far, no one can. Why? Because, out of 400 random bench seat '68 GTO four-speed coupes, how many do you think have A/C as the only other option? And if you can find that car, it either has black or parchment interior.....I'm guessing black was more popular, this one has parchment. And how many exterior paint options for a '68 GTO? Again, I'm not a GTO expert, I've owned all kinds of old cars, Ford, Chevy, Pontiac, Mopar, Studebaker, Sunbeam, but it looks like 15 paint codes for '68 GTO? This one is a three option Parchment interior car with April Gold Paint. I'm guessing that April Gold wasn't the most popular color for GTO, not when it's competing with around six really nice shades of red or blue. So far, no one can show me a bench seat, four-speed GTO, with A/C as the only other option.....and if someone can find that car, I'd love to see it, and is it also a '68 coupe with Parchment interior and April Gold paint? How many '68 parchment interior April Gold GTOs do you think were special ordered with the four-speed, the bench seat, air conditioning, and nothing else? 10 of them? I can't see an argument to support that idea, not when you're starting with only 400 bench seat four speed GTOs in the first place, so 5 of them? 3 or 2. I can't make this argument for any other classic car I've ever owned, but for this special ordered '68 GTO, my best guess is 1 of 1. No one can explain to me why these three options and only these three options would be a normal thing for a guy to want from a '68 GTO.

Thanks! Wow, this video was 8 years ago? Drove the car today....don't drive it often in the rain, but the wipers still work, still park themselves. Not always right away, but they park themselves when they feel like it, usually within 20 seconds....maybe a minute. I'm good with that. It's an old car and I love it.

No doubt, but that's only half of what I'm looking for. Now find one where the only other option is A/C. No PS, no PB. It's a three option GTO, it was special ordered with the bench seat, the four-speed, the A/C, and nothing else. If you could only pick three options for a GTO, would you pick those three? I don't think anyone would. Well one guy for sure, but no one can show me another one like it. Just finding any 60s car with factory A/C and no PS or PB is hard enough. A/C was big money back then, around a $360 option, and PS and PB were way cheaper, $95 for power steering, $46 for power brakes, according to the internet. There's a discussion thread on the GTO forum for bench seat GTOs. It's about 1% of the GTOs made, since buckets were standard with GTO. Of that 1%, I'd guess that most are column shift automatics, but like you said, some have the standard three-speed or the optional four-speed. You can find those cars online, but starting with just the 1% of GTOs made, there aren't a lot of them. The math is pretty straight forward, start with about 80,000 '68 GTO coupes, I'm rounding up. 1% have bench seats, again, just someone's best guess, and I'm no GTO expert, but there are plenty of experts on the GTO forum, and no one seems to dispute the 1%. So 1% of 80,000 is 800. That's about 800 '68 GTO coupes with a bench seat. I'm guessing about 70% of them were column shift automatics, but again to make the math easy, let's say that only 50% are automatics and the other 50% are manual transmissions. I have no idea what the split would be between a four-speed you could pay for or a three-speed you could get for free, but I'm guessing the four-speed was more popular, even with the bench seat fans. No matter what, we're looking at less than 400 '68 GTO coupes with a bench seat and a four-speed. Maybe less than 300, no one knows because PHS never entered their wealth of knowledge into a searchable database. Now I've been driving since 1985, and I've never owned a car or truck newer than my '75 Bronco. And I know a lot of car guys, and they've owned their fair share of classic cars as well. And I've been to a lot of car shows. And I remember the days when you could still find a good number of 60s cars at the Pick-A-Part. That's a lot of 60s cars that I've seen under the hood of, thousands of cars, and I can't think of one car that had factory A/C, but no PS or PB. They were made for sure, but not many. How many have you seen? Out of 400 random 60s cars, all makes and models, how many do you think have factory A/C, but no PS or PB? You have to admit that's unusual. When I first bought this GTO, I figured it was an A/C and PS car, and someone ditched the PS, taking the manual steering from another car, I've seen that before. Then I got the PHS Report, and thought that's odd, A/C with no PS or PB is rare, and bench seat four-speed is rare, so this car is a rarity within a rarity, way more unusual than any other car I've ever owned. It's a real oddball, not valuable, just odd......so years ago, I made this video, challenging anyone to show me another one like it. So far, no one can. Why? Because, out of 400 random bench seat '68 GTO four-speed coupes, how many do you think have A/C as the only other option? And if you can find that car, it either has black or parchment interior.....I'm guessing black was more popular, this one has parchment. And how many exterior paint options for a '68 GTO? Again, I'm not a GTO expert, I've owned all kinds of old cars, Ford, Chevy, Pontiac, Mopar, Studebaker, Sunbeam, I'm not picky, but it looks like 15 paint codes for '68 GTO? This one is a three option Parchment interior car with April Gold Paint. I'm guessing that April Gold wasn't the most popular color for GTO, not when it's competing with around six really nice shades of red or blue. So far, no one can show me a bench seat, four-speed GTO, with A/C as the only other option.....and if someone can find that car, I'd love to see it, and is it also a '68 coupe with Parchment interior and April Gold paint?

Show me one. So far, no one can, and I posted this video years ago. You can't even find another GTO with just these three options with a google search. Good luck finding one in your salvage stash, because I'm guessing only one guy was nutty enough to special order one like this. It's not the three options I would have picked, it's not the three options anyone I know would have picked for a GTO. You're looking for these three options: A/C, four-speed, and bench seat on a GTO......and nothing else. No PS, no PB. I'd be happy if you just found just that, and any year...... because, so far no one has.....but even if you did show me a GTO with just those three crazy and unusual options, my next question would be, is it an April Gold '68 with Parchment interior? Good luck.

Don't ask them for an AOD kickdown bracket, ask them for an AOD tv cable bracket. The AOD transmission doesn't use a kickdown linkage. It uses what's called a tv cable. I'm not the guy to ask about that because none of my cars have overdrive, but the TV lever on AOD transmissions and the kickdown lever on older transmissions are two completely different animals. You need to do your homework on "AOD tv cable" and "AOD tv cable adjustment". Figure out what you need and how to adjust it. Here's a good discussion on the topic: www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/aod-kickdown.371130/ And here's a video, showing how easy the brackets are, one on the transmission and one on your carb or fuel injection: ruclips.net/video/6L3hNzxdiYw/видео.html If you can't find a tv cable bracket for your sniper injection, just buy any tv cable bracket, and modify it to fit your setup, but be careful, do your research because the geometry needs to be correct. I'm pretty sure you need a special lever on that sniper, one that matches the geometry of the tv lever on your transmission. Or, since you've already got a clutch pedal in the car, you could just install a 5 speed manual transmission, and get your overdrive that way. I'm not the guy to ask about that either though, I'm more than happy with the old top loader four-speed. I will say this, I've been driving old cars since 1985, I've never owned a car newer than 1975.....and my manual transmissions have never left me stranded, smoked clutch, got home......jammed shifter linkage, got home.......completely broken z bar, so that the clutch pedal did nothing, still got home, even stopped at some of the stop signs. Some of my cars have automatic transmissions of course, and I've definitely been left stranded by a few of those. A good sized transmission cooling line leak, and you're walking to a parts store. Loose your tailshaft seal and you're walking to a parts store and removing your driveshaft to replace it. Loose your front pump seal and you're calling a tow truck. Lose a decent amount of automatic transmission fluid and you aren't moving anymore. Other than those three times though, my automatic transmissions have been very reliable, just not as reliable as my four-speeds have been. If you're married to the AOD idea, main thing to remember is that the geometry needs to match, from your sniper to your transmission's tv cable lever. I just looked at the 1100 sniper, there's just a throttle lever on it? That can't be right? Am I missing something? I've never looked into EFI before, never wanted it. There's no kickdown lever, like a lot of Holley carbs have? And no tv lever, like some Holley carbs have? So what then? Holley made that EFI for guys with manual transmissions only? No kickdown lever means you need to rig something up to run an old 3 speed automatic. No tv lever means you need to rig something up to run your 4 speed AOD ......but the guys online say that if you rig it wrong, you'll destroy your AOD. Seems risky, like everything else, automatic transmission shops are more expensive now than ever.....and they were always too expensive for me. This guy ran a GM 700R4 behind his sniper, and needed a transmission rebuild soon after: forums.holley.com/forum/holley-efi/sniper-efi/5832-700r4-tv-cable-bracket-that-works-with-the-sniper Obviously it can be done, you can run a straight six and a sniper EFI and an AOD, nothing is impossible, people have done it, but it would seem that even professional car builders are getting this wrong at times, so why not just hit the easy button and run the sniper and keep your three-speed manual? Do that and you're almost back on the road, assuming it was a running driving car with the carb still on it. Whatever you decide, good luck with your car.

Hi @@owenrobertson, I appreciate your response. Yeah, I am aware that it is not officially called a kick down because it actually controls a valve that adjusts your shift rpm points and the kick down feature. It has to be set up at the right pressure or you will ruin your first and second gear clutches within a couple miles. The problem is that all of the kits for the (passenger valve) TV cable on the AOD are made to fit either Holley 2 or 4 bbl carbs, or Edelbrock or Carter 2 or 4 bbl carbs. There are none that fit the single bbl carbs that Carter, Holley, or Autolite (Ford) made. The crazy thing is that years ago, Holley came out with a single bbl to replace the Autolite 1100 because Ford stopped making them, and also came out with this new Autolite 1100 EFI sniper, which looks a lot like the original 1100 except it is EFI, and they do not even make it kick down or TV cable ready!! The throttle lever has only 1 hook up point. There are no holes for multiple connections etc. Nor do they offer a bracket system to that will bolt up to it like on ALL of the 2bbl and 4 bbl carbs. I am forced to fabricate one, which is not an easy project and the single bbl carbs only have 2 mounting bolts very close together situated under the carb body.

Yeah, that's the real problem then, when they built that sniper, they didn't bother to offer one that works easily with AOD. And you don't need just a bracket, you need a lever as well....so a lever, a bracket, and a cable, all correct for AOD, and you're in business. I might be wrong, but from photos, it looks like they didn't make that sniper throttle lever easy to remove and replace with something else. There should be a jam nut on that thing, remove the jam nut and the lever comes off. If they had done that, it opens up the aftermarket for people to make an AOD lever for your sniper, or a 700R4 lever, whatever.....and once you've got the lever, the bracket and cable are easy, so there's a whole kit they could be selling, if Holley had made that lever easier to remove. In that youtube video that I linked to, at 2 1/2 minutes in, it looks like the original Ford EFI (designed to work with the AOD), it has a pivot point, with the throttle cable attachment on one side, and the tv cable attached on the other side of that central pivot point. If you had that lever on your sniper, with the right geometry, that would be a start. You're right, it's crazy that Holley made this with no consideration for what transmission guys might be running.....and not just AOD, the 700R4 guys, and the 3 speed automatic guys are also screwed by Holley's simple design flaw. Your sniper is perfect for a manual transmission though, can you keep your 3 speed or install a 5 speed? Or if you've already got both the EFI and the AOD, then like you said, you'll just need to fabricate something as you're already invested. Of course, if you haven't bought the EFI or the AOD yet, then forget all that and leave it stock, just drive the thing, that's what I do. It's easy. Old cars get terrible gas mileage, and they can be tricky to cold start, but they are still way cooler than anything else on the road. I enjoy my cars to no end, flaws and all.

Yeah, you said it Owen, if they made that lever changeable, that could be a start. Really good ideas there as well. Believe me, I have already taken off the lever linkage on my old carb and am waiting for the sniper that's on back-order until Dec. 29th from Holley. The shifter idea is a great one too, and I couldn't agree more except, I bought this old 67 Ford Econoline window van, and had the engine rebuilt by George's Speed shop. They did a really fine job. George (The NHRA gassser legend and friend) passed in Aug. George's Speed Shop is the worlds oldest continuously running speed shop, located in Dayton Ohio. Then had it shipped to me here in France, where I wanted to take my family on vacation in the south of France each summer. Problem being, is the 240s had an overheating and vapor lock problem when installed in the Econoline dog house. The first year we went down, there was a heat wave of around 110 degrees. That with the fact that the speed limit is 80 MPH and the final gear on that old 303 manual 3 on the tree is 1:1, all makes for about 3500 RPM non stop for 6 hours. The 240 cooped up in that dog house couldn't take it and it overheated and vapor locked several times. She ended up breaking down in Lyon France. That's with an electric fan added and insulation around the fuel lines too. So, I decided to jet-hot coat the intake and exhaust manifolds along with the entire exhaust, and install an AOD to bring the final gear ratio to .67:1, introduce EFI to have a constant fuel flow in order to eliminate the vapor lock by continuously pumping fuel at 60psi. All of this stuff is sitting in a garage back in Ohio waiting to be shipped to me. The tranny is a gift from a friend so that's why the AOD and not the 700R4 (aside from the fact that the AOD bolts right up to the motor with the original bell housing and no spline issues). However, I still have time to change my mind. The thing is that I am not sure how to make a 5-speed work on that column shift application, especially with the old school double solid shifting bar linkages that go down to the tranny. There is no room for a floor shifter as the engine dog house is fitted between the seats. So, as you can see, my options are limited. I would put a 2 or 4 bbl Offenhauser intake on it, but I am no carb expert and as far as I know they would drown the engine. Also fuel here is over $8 a gallon so I have to keep it fuel efficient. No radical camshaft etc. Anyway, I thank you for your input. Have a great one.

Well that explains it, now I know why you need the EFI and overdrive. Most guys don't, but you do. My '63 Vette vapor locks on really hot days, but I have other cars that I can drive, so it's not a really big deal. I used to have a '70 Mach 1, it vapor locked until I cut a hole under the fake Mach 1 hood scoop (it wasn't a shaker scoop car).....and as soon as I made that fake scoop functional, the cold air induction fixed my vapor lock. That Mustang had a cramped engine bay, with the big 351 Cleveland stuffed between the space restricting shock towers, but your van's engine bay is a bigger problem, with no easy way to ventilate it with outside air. Your idea to have an EFI style constant fuel return is the answer, but you can do that with a carbureted vehicle as well. I gave a '68 GTO to my son, that car never vapor locked, it came factory with a four barrel carb and a mechanical fuel pump with a return line to the fuel tank, three lines at the mechanical fuel pump, one line from the tank to the pump, one line from the pump to the carburetor, and one line from the pump back to the tank. That '68 Pontiac GTO never vapor locked, from the factory, it was designed to keep circulating fuel, so the fuel in the engine bay never got too hot, while waiting for the carburetor's needle and seat valve to let it in. Pontiac did this by adding a third line at the pump, and a port at the fuel tank to receive the returned fuel. It's a great idea, all 1960s automotive engineers knew there was a vapor problem, only a few were allowed to spend some money to try and fix the problem. I've owned 15 classic cars over the years, from a 1955 Pontiac to a 1975 Bronco, and only two of them have had a factory return line to the fuel tank, the '68 GTO and the '70 440 six pack Road Runner that I used to own. The Road Runner engineers did it differently, they added the return port to the fuel tank, but they didn't make a 3 port mechanical fuel pump like Pontiac did, instead, they added a component between the fuel pump and the carburetor, one with a 3/8" line in from the mechanical fuel pump, a 3/8" line out to the carburetor, and a 1/4" line to return hot fuel to the fuel tank, they called it a fuel vapor separator, you can get them on ebay for about 40 bucks.....Pontiac and Mopar were both trying to do the same thing, get rid of that hot fuel, so that it gets replaced by cold fuel. So they knew they were going to have issues with the big 440 and the massive 426 hemi in that engine bay, and they added something that most Mopars didn't get. I thought about adding a fuel return to tank line in my Corvette, one external from the pump, between my Corvette's mechanical fuel pump and the carburetor, like my '70 440 six pack Road Runner had. Seems like the closer to the carburetor the better, for what it's job is. I haven't done it yet, maybe next summer, it's an easy modification, just have to drill a hole in my Vette's fuel tank fill neck, then add a fitting there, for the fuel return line. There are youtube videos on how to do it, and it's not an expensive modification at all. If you did this, you could keep your carburetor and possibly fix your vapor lock issue. Here's a good video, a Mopar guy, simply duplicating what Mopar had already done with their fuel vapor separator that was factory on the big engines. All he did was put a fuel filter between his pump and carb, but one with a third, and smaller diameter return port on it: ruclips.net/video/-t6geNGbEXM/видео.html Neat idea, and way cheaper than the Holley sniper kit. But I'm tracking, you still need that AOD to keep up with modern traffic. I just hang out in the slow lane behind 18 wheelers, doing about 65 or 70mph....but if that's not an option in the south of France these days, then I get it, you need that overdrive. And it'll be just as difficult to rig your tv cable to your factory 1100 carb, as it will be to rig the tv cable to the new 1100 sniper. Also, the overdrive should help with your overheating issue. Right now on a hot day, you're boiling fuel, turning it to vapor, and a fuel pump can only pump liquid.....and you're boiling coolant in your radiator. So not good at all. The easiest fix is to buy a 2000 something Mercedes camper van, but then you're just like everyone else, and that's boring. The only thing better than owning a vintage vehicle is using it for what it was designed to do, especially in a world where people tell you that you can't do that, because it's not practical. Well, I was never into camper vans, but in the 24 years I was active duty Air Force, never once did I drive a car to work that was newer than 1975, so I get it, my first car was a '65 Mustang when I was 15 years old, and my daily drivers have always been old, and they've always been cooler than most anything else in the parking lot.....although I did have a commander once, Lt Col Desordi, he drove a '70 Buick GSX, 455, four-speed car, and that was pretty cool, he didn't drive it every day, but at lest a couple days a week, so that was nice to see when it was there. So options? Like you said, 5 speed is out, that doesn't seem like an easy option at all, not in a van. So you need that AOD, and you probably need to rig your own tv cable set up. Can you run a Holley 2 barrel carb? Holley makes the 350cfm or the 500cfm 2300, but I don't know if you can get it with an AOD lever on it. Also, 500cfm is a bit much, for a 240 cubic inch engine, but like a lot of silly kids, back in the 80s, I ran a Holley 750 vacuum secondary on a little 289. The nice thing about Holley carbs, they are easy to re-jet, and the Holley 2 barrel is just the front half of the Holley 4 barrel, so all the jets and gaskets interchange. I think a 350cfm Holley 2300 would be just fine on your engine, but I bet they don't make it with the AOD lever, probably just the kickdown lever. I agree with you that a four barrel might be too much. Way cheaper though than the sniper kit. And your 240 takes the same intake as the 300, so you can get an aluminum four barrel intake manifold for it, or you can get an aluminum two barrel intake manifold for it. If you cancelled your backordered sniper, and installed the smallest four barrel possible that's got the AOD lever, that's easiest, I think, just run the vapor return line back to your fuel tank. The nice thing about a 600cfm vacuum secondary is that the secondaries are only going to take what they need. I made a video with my 440 six pack, showing just this. The six pack used Holley 2 barrel carbs, so it's basically a Holley 4 barrel vacuum secondary, with secondary secondaries. The center carb has the accelerator pump and primary jets in it, the carb in front and the carb in the rear don't do anything without a serious vacuum demand on them, and as seen in this video I made, just driving around at 55 or 65 mph, they aren't open at all, to open them up, I needed heavy acceleration: ruclips.net/video/apOpB0jMYMg/видео.html Just below the rear carb's float bowl, you can see where I painted the vacuum secondaries throttle linkage with some blue rtv. It's a pistol grip four speed car, and at 4:12, I'm doing around 50mph, I floor it, and that 440 is mostly just taking gas from the center two barrel carb, very little movement in the secondaries and the secondary secondaries, as shown by the blue mark, and that surprised me, I had to downshift to third and then floor it, to really open them up. The way that linkage works is that the gas pedal controls the center carb, and only when the gas pedal is down a bit, will that center linkage allow the vacuum linkage to move even a little bit, and when the gas pedal is floored, the secondaries linkage is free to move all the way, so that all three carbs can be wide open, but as shown at 4:12, just the gas pedal floored alone doesn't create the demand, that engine only takes what it needs. I learned a lot from this video, mainly that just about every mildly built SBC in America is over carbureted, if that .060" over 440 is mostly happy with just the 500cfm Holley in the center. And I learned that the nice thing about being over carbureted with vacuum secondaries is that the engine is only going to take what it needs. It's a long boring video, because I was stuck behind more slow cars than normal on this country road, and because I didn't know how to edit the video down yet, but if you fast forward to 7:30, you can see what it looks like when there's a drag racing style demand on those outboard carbs.

I believe you. You can go to the GTO forum, there's a whole discussion thread there for bench seat GTOs about 1% of GTOs were special ordered with the bench seat, most are column shift automatics, but some are 3 speed cars, and some are 4 speed cars. They are out there, just rare. This one is a double rarity, as A/C only with no PS or PB (or both) is rare in any 60s car. This car only has three options, A/C, four-speed, and bench seat (which is more of a downgrade than an option, since buckets were standard on GTO). If you look at any other 3 option GTO, those aren't the options you'll see. I still want to see pics of your car though. What color is it? I gave this one to my son, it's blue now: ruclips.net/video/L4lDwohNILw/видео.html

It looks like your intake manifold has no accessory bolt holes in it. If I had to rig something up, I'd make a bracket that uses two of the bolts securing the intake to the head. Bolt the bracket to the head, and it's basically just going to be a flat surface, like a table top, just aft of the Holley. It needs to be strong enough so it won't flex, but it won't be too hard to fabricate. Then buy a '65 Mustang passing gear bellcrank, as seen in my video at 52 seconds (or make your own, it's a simple mechanism). Mount that bellcrank to the bracket you made, and the rest is easy, just a cable to your Holley, and a cut-to-length kickdown rod from your bellcrank to your transmission. In my video, I'm running a throttle cable, and not a throttle linkage like the '65 Mustang had......so I'm using my '65 bellcrank differently from how it was originally designed to work, but the result is the same, the bellcrank creates downward force to the transmission kickdown lever. Here's how it was originally designed to work: www.vintage-mustang.com/threads/65-289-automatic-kickdown-lever.1038098/ The throttle linkage physically hits the forward bellcrank leg, forcing the other leg to push down on the transmission lever. In my video at 1:03, you can see that the carefully cut to length cable, with slack in it, allows a pulling of the one leg (only at full, or near full throttle), and that pulling action creates the same pushing down action on the other leg. If you're running a throttle cable like my '69 Mustang has, then this is probably your best bet. If you're running a metal linkage like a '65 Mustang, then just rig it like the Mustangs in that vintage Mustang forum link above.

@@owenrobertson thank you so much, I’ll look into it and see what I can do

I am needing a kickdown bracker for an AOD with a 240 inline 6 with the original single bore Autolite 1100 carb. No one makes them. It's crazy because I will be switching out my original Autolite 1100 for the Holley Autolite 1100 EFI sniper, and changing the 3 speed manual for an AOD, but no one makes a bracket for that. Not Lokar, not even Holley !

I love drop-top Goats, beautiful cars! Yup, all GTOs came standard with bucket seats, it was part of the GTO package. If you wanted to, you could special order your GTO with a bench seat. They didn't care, they just installed a LeMans bench, easy enough, it's just that very few people wanted a LeMans bench in their GTO. On the GTO forum, there's a whole discussion page for bench seat GTOs, and it's estimated that it's about 1% of them that were ordered that way. Of the 1%, most had column shift automatics, like you mentioned. This car was special ordered with air conditioning, a four-speed manual transmission, and that silly bench seat.......and nothing else. Those are three odd choices, for your special order '68 GTO. I think it makes the car both weird, and rare, I mean really, how many GTOs had just these three options, and no other options? No power steering, no power brakes, none of the normal stuff. A four-on-the-floor bench seat GTO is somewhat rare, but they are out there. A 60s car with factory AC but no PS or PB is somewhat rare, but they are out there. This car is both, it's a rarity within a rarity. Not valuable rare, just very unusual rare. And weird. Air conditioning was big money back in those days, probably a $300 option, and that's a lot of money back when power steering and power brakes were relatively affordable options. In my video, at 10:41, you can see the PHS Report for this car, showing just how it was special ordered. And in this video, you can see it once we got it painted, what color was your '69 convertible, we went with Windward Blue on this one, it's a '69 color, check it out: ruclips.net/video/L4lDwohNILw/видео.html

It's painted now, here's that video: ruclips.net/video/L4lDwohNILw/видео.html

Ivory with a black interior, that's a good looking car. When did you drive it last? I gave this one to my son, he joined the Navy a year ago, it's his daily driver. We got it painted his senior year in high school, here's that video: ruclips.net/video/L4lDwohNILw/видео.html

Thanks that's nice of you. Yeah, I just like talking about old cars. I've never owned anything newer than 1975, and I wish there were still lots of old cars on the road on any given day, not just car show Saturdays and Sundays. I'm pretty happy to share what little I know, if it means another classic will get out of hiding, and people can see it again. I like all makes, mostly 50s and 60s cars and trucks. Fun to drive, easy to work on, and from what I can tell, you can drive these old cars forever. I've got a '55 Pontiac that still has it's original engine, transmission and rear end. A buddy of mine has a 1920 Model T, that he's planning on driving coast to coast for charity: ruclips.net/video/qogkMsPo-2U/видео.html It's a good hobby. Cool that you're in Dearborn. I like your '67 Mustang, very nice!

@@owenrobertson Thanks Owen, It is a 67 S-code originally a 390 4 speed. Most of it's life has been a race car. Ran in the 8's but now a retired car put back to period correct for the most part. Just have a mild built 460, C-6 manual valve body, 9 in nodular with 4:11 gears. She is still pretty fast for a street car. So I went to fire up the car after engine work and it backfired big time. So I must have got the timing off. I did mark it though, all wiring is right. I think I should have erased the old distributor mark off and not had two, lol Will do the Piston stop tomorrow and get it right, lol. Take care. Blessings from The home of Ford Motor co.

@@robertclymer6948, nice! '67 and '68 are such good looking cars. There was a red '67 convertible in that movie "Innerspace", I always loved that car, had some Shelby stuff on it, and fender flares. The flares were a bit much, and the side view mirrors were terrible, but overall, it was a really good looking car: ruclips.net/video/SpanZh0xSo0/видео.html

All GTOs are special, this one is extremely unusual on top of that. This GTO came special ordered from the factory with three options: A/C, four-speed, and the bench seat, everything else on this car is standard GTO equipment. Those three options only, on any 60s car, would be unusual. As far as three-option GTOs go, it's highly unlikely that anyone else optioned one just like this one was optioned. Lots of comments here, no links to GTOs optioned as this one is, and that was the challenge.......I think that says something, especially when the entire internet is there for the searching. Bench seat GTOs are rare, it's 1% of all GTOs. A/C only cars are rare, meaning no PS or PB (or both) to go with the A/C. Bench seat and A/C only, on any GTO? It's a rarity in a rarity. Not to mention that April Gold with Parchment interior isn't one of the more popular color combinations.

John Blutarsky, yeah, not easy on a Vette, that's for sure.

@@owenrobertson No doubt. Harder with no lift and on an angled driveway, outside...but I budgeted for this and there's a good shop three miles away. Oh well.

I hope you've got it back on the road soon Bluto.

@@owenrobertson thanks!

I hear you, I'm working on my '65 Mustang right now, originally a Wimbledon White car, but black when I bought it, and at some point it was painted red. Probably red in the 70s? Black in the 80s? I bought it in '98 or '99, and the black paint was in terrible shape. Still I painted it black again, seemed easier, and it looked good. 24 years later, and I'm prepping it for another paint job, and this time it's finally going back to it's original color. Same kind of story with this '68 GTO, I'd want my son to keep it the original color, if it was the original color when I bought it. I'm guessing it was painted black in the 80s, since my buddy bought it in '89 or '90, and it was shiny and black when he bought it. When they painted it black, they did the door jams and everything, just like they did with my '65 Mustang. My son wasn't a fan of April Gold, so we did the body work, and let Maaco paint it blue in their paint booth, single stage, he picked the color. We told Maaco to leave the door jams alone, they still look good in black (that part of the black paint job held up). It's not a bad look at all, it's a very dark blue car now, with black door jams, black dash, and black carpet, it works. The idea is that when my son is old like me, and wants an old man color like April Gold, it'll be just as easy to sand down the blue, as it was to sand down the black, and he can have the door jams done in April Gold as well. Easy enough, it's just paint. Here's what the car looks like now, painted blue: ruclips.net/video/L4lDwohNILw/видео.html

Nope, it's his car. I bought it for him. He just joined the Navy. He deserves this car. I'm positive that Pontiac didn't make a lot of '68 GTOs with just three options, four-speed, bench seat, and A/C.....but it's only rare because what kind of guy would special order those three specific options for a GTO, and only those options? A/C was a very expensive option, over $300 I think, big money in 1967 when this car was special ordered. And the bench seat isn't even an option, it's a downgrade. It's an oddball car for sure, but it's just a novelty, and that's not why I bought it. I bought it because it was a four-speed GTO, at the time I would have bought any four-speed GTO, and this is the one I got a good deal on. I just like four-speed cars. There aren't a lot of them ordered just like this one, I personally think this is the only one, but it's rare for the wrong reasons, it's not worth any more than any other '68 four-speed GTO with the base engine. Fun car though, and thanks for your comment.

I totally ignored those upstream cats and focused on just the downstream cat, but I'll tell you all about it. Today the car has 378,513 miles on it (I just checked), it runs great, my wife drives it every day, and to this day, I've never touched the exhaust manifolds on that Escape. And I never want to. We had gremlins in my wife's car. Turns out when these Escapes get a little bit old, the CoPs crack, water gets in when it rains hard, and you lose a cylinder or two, no spark, flashing check engine light, and a rich condition, still getting fuel but no spark. Okay, so I've never owned a car newer than 1975, and what do I know about flashing check engine lights? Turns out that's the one you never ignore. You stop driving the car immediately and figure out what's wrong. What was wrong was that I needed to wrap all my CoPs in electrical tape, problem solved, but I didn't solve that problem until a fuel injector went bad, because the gremlins thing was always temporary, and went away when the CoPs dried off, so I wasn't too worried about it. The bad fuel injector was just bad and stayed bad, and that's when I made these videos, because I learned a lot, and wanted to share what I learned with other Escape owners who might be having the same issues. So 270k miles on the car when I made the videos six years ago, and 378k today, and in the past 108,000 miles, we've had no gremlin issues, ever, wrapping them in tape did the trick for good.....and no other fuel injectors have gone bad. Five of the six fuel injectors, are still the factory installed fuel injectors, 20 years old, and still going strong. It's been a really good car. A year ago the purge valve went bad, no code, no engine light, just a really rough idle. I had no idea what it was, so I took it to Ford. They thought it was an alternator and replaced it (I had just done an alternator a year earlier), and their new alternator was no fix. They thought it was spark plugs, no fix. They were just throwing parts at it for a couple weeks. Eventually the purge valve was the fix. Other than the purge valve on turbo equipped cars, I had never heard of one. Turns out it's an emissions control device, and it's super easy to change, it's near the EGR valve, but sits higher, and closer to the driver's side of the car. And speaking of EGR valves, that's where the cat story begins. About the time that I made these videos, the wife calls, says her car is really loud and it's not driving right. She was in town, and I told her to take it to Ford, have them look at it. They said it's a blown EGR valve, and that valve isn't expensive, or hard to change, but it only blows out like that, when the catalytic converters are clogged, so I needed a new EGR valve, and three new cats, $3k total.....for everything. Well I didn't have $3k, and I told them that. They showed me the EGR valve, and sure enough the aluminum body had a dime sized hole blown right out of it. I paid Ford for their diagnosis, and bought a new EGR valve from their parts counter. I told them to give me the car back, and I'd drive it home and change the parts myself. They warned me to only use legit Ford cats, because the cheap ones would cause problems. I limped the car home with that bad EGR valve, it wasn't far, then I bought the cheapest downstream catalytic converter that I could find for a 2003 Ford Escape, it was like $100 on ebay. And that's the only one I changed, just the downstream cat that's easy to get to. I took one look at the two upstream cats, and said, nope. The old downstream cat was clogged, that was the blockage point. My first car was a '65 Mustang that I bought in 1985, and the cars I've bought in the past 5 years have been a '68 GTO, '55 Chieftain, '61 Studebaker, and '68 Coronet R/T.....what would I know about catalytic converters? Not much, but with a new downstream cat and a new EGR valve, the wife's car ran great again, for about six months. After six months, the wife calls me, says it's doing it again, and I ask what, and she tells me. Okay, another EGR valve, no problem. Exhaust is clogged, and with nowhere to go, it blows out the weakest link, the aluminum body of the EGR valve. I grab some tools and meet her where she's at, I loosed the bolts at the downstream cat, creating a major exhaust leak, just ahead of the blockage point, so less exhaust will have to shoot out the EGR valve, into the engine bay. Nice thing about the Escape, you can do stuff like that without having to jack up the car, it's really easy to get to that downstream cat. So she gets the car home, and I buy a used EGR valve for cheap from the local parts yard, and I buy another $100 cat from ebay. And the car ran great for about a year. A year later, we go through this whole thing again, and I install our third EGR valve and our third downstream cat. So I posted this video 6 years ago, and that's about when the first EGR valve blew. Then six months later, then a year later......so that third EGR valve and that third downstream cat have lasted over four years now? Something like that. Moral of the story is that you can't ignore a flashing check engine light, bad things will happen. Or the moral of the story might be to drive old cars, cars so old that they don't have check engine lights or cats, because those things didn't exist yet. Good luck with yours, if you take on that job and fix it the right way, let me know how it goes.

@@owenrobertson you have no idea how helpful that was because I kid you not I just picked up this 01 escape 3.0 fwd and there was a blown egr in the cup holder and the new egr was unplugged and the cast was unbolted at the flange. Could I please call you and talk about this so I buy the right things the first time?

@@vhockada, I hate talking on the phone. Anyway, you've got this. If you knew enough to figure out that it's not as easy as installing your half-installed EGR valve, then you know what's up. If you install that EGR valve right now, it'll blow, for the same reason that the one in the cup holder blew. You've already figured out that you need to replace all three cats. Or you can roll the dice like I did, and just buy this one: www.ebay.com/itm/403548382819?fits=Year%3A2001%7CModel%3AEscape%7CMake%3AFord&hash=item5df55ba663:g:FcAAAOSwc~ZiM~lL&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAA0K6iAFF%2BPYPg5Sjl87TOBv19ulxWbjOfwWm8MJ4Mi6S15bwEwyWEsfsF8CM%2Fg48PpLQELoUeeQ%2BfqHmINZqNiihl44Vj77KwIU5qICGZfjmAYQKXKXJ2vZAb53%2Fs309QxMoPaCwANoeBYvYtNwKT%2Fbd9uLUerP57vj9LdOZC%2Bg6Sm3lsXT%2BZXWOmtKNT%2BXaHio6b6kDOhShLiNMk5kLeTtUGsg8nuzD6KFIG7WFYquNlPFX1H2UsUn29RMGrhzrYpElVjkVotg%2BeIluJpGHQKsU%3D%7Ctkp%3ABlBMUKyUntPKYQ

@@owenrobertson so it looks like you just replaced the cat in the back and not the cats mounted on the manifolds under the engine. The reason I wanted to call is when I glanced under the engine I found that 4 or 5 bolts had already been broken off so basically the headers were hanging by a few bolts. And the manifold in the rear was intentionally disconnected from the flange just as you did to allow the fumes to vent away from the cabin. Well I want to fix it to not have to worry so now I have to figure out how to back those broken bolt ends out of the head.

@@vhockada, oh man, that's a nightmare! That's exactly why I didn't even try replacing the exhaust manifolds on my wife's car. You're sure they aren't studs, that are simply missing the nuts? For sure, they are broken off bolts? The bolt heads have snapped off? If so, that's bad, really bad. The previous owner set out to replace all three cats, and got himself into a real jam. Each exhaust manifold has six bolts attaching it to the cylinder head. It sounds like almost half of the bolt heads have been snapped off? I was a jet engine mechanic in the Air Force, before that, I worked in an automotive machine shop. I've extracted a lot of broken bolts. When I worked in a small town machine shop, local mechanics in town used to bring me cylinder heads with broken bolts in them, and I'd extract the bolts using this break free we had, basically PB Blaster type stuff, it's a penetrating oil, and I'd use heat from a torch, and vise grips if I was lucky and had something left of the bolt to hold onto. If I wasn't lucky, I'd have to drill through the exact center of the broken bolt, making the hole big enough to install an extractor called an Easy Out. ruclips.net/video/XVTn6wI4g6s/видео.html If the bolts are broken flush with the cylinder head, you might be able to coax it out with a hammer and a punch, by tapping it in the loosening direction, but that rarely works. An Easy Out is probably your best hope, but Easy Outs are never easy, if they were, legit mechanics wouldn't be taking customer's cylinder heads to machine shops to get the job done. And if the easy out doesn't work, then you have to drill even bigger and install a helicoil. ruclips.net/video/zAXVvhpnuUU/видео.html And I'm not sure but from the factory, the Escape's cylinder heads might already have steel helicoils in them for the exhaust manifold bolt holes, given the heat in that area, and the inherent weakness of aluminum compared to cast iron. Watch a bunch of youtube videos on broken bolt extraction, and then look up again at your broken bolts, and you tell me if it's possible to do that job in the car. I'm guessing it's not, but if you manage it, I'm very impressed. I'm pretty sure that if you've got broken bolts in both cylinder heads, your next step is to remove both cylinder heads. If I'm right, then the next question is what's the easiest way to remove both cyl heads? In the car? Or remove the whole engine from the car, and then remove the cyl heads? At least yours is front wheel drive. My wife's Escape is four wheel drive. Looks like a real pain to remove the whole engine, and I'll be honest, if after all these years of owning that Escape since it was brand new, and even after it's been so good to us.....mostly......and even as eager as I am to see 500,000 on it's odometer..................if I had to remove both cylinder heads today, I'd seriously consider scrapping that car, and buying something else for my wife to drive, maybe an early 2000s Dodge Durango, my neighbor has a V8 2002 Durango, and it seems like a good truck, and easy to work on. And again, if I had to pull both cylinder heads off of any of my vintage cars, that's the sort of thing I could easily have finished before lunch, then again, try getting almost 400,000 miles on a car that was built in the 1960s, doesn't happen very often, and that's the trade off, I suppose. Please let me know what you decide to do. I'm rooting for you. If you pull those cylinder heads, watch some good youtube videos first, and buy a good Chilton's manual. In the end, if it's not so bad, then let me know, so I won't be as worried, if the cyl heads ever have to come off my wife's car. Good luck!

Yup, it's a good hobby.

It's a good car. We got it painted: ruclips.net/video/L4lDwohNILw/видео.html

It's real easy, disconnect the battery, remove the #1 spark plug, and have someone turn the crankshaft clockwise with a ratchet and socket on the crank bolt. While they are turning the engine over by hand, you'll have your finger pressed up against the cylinder head, where the #1 spark plug was. When you first feel air pressure forcing itself through the #1 spark plug hole, and passed your finger, tell your friend to stop turning, because you're coming up on TDC of the #1 compression stroke (you know it's not coming up on TDC of the exhaust stroke, because you won't feel air when it's all going out the open exhaust valve). Next look at your timing mark on your harmonic balancer, and your fixed-location timing pointer that you use to set your timing with a timing light. Slowly turn the crankshaft until the timing marks line up with the fixed timing pointer. Next question is where should your initial timing be set on an '88 Grand Wagoneer? I don't know where you want it, and I don't have books that go that new, but let's say you wanted 12 degrees of initial timing. Using your ratchet, and looking at your timing marks, put it at 12 degrees before TDC. Once you've done that, here's what you've got, your engine isn't running, the battery isn't even connected, but physically your crankshaft is positioned so that the #1 piston is sitting 12 degrees before TDC on your compression stroke. This is where you want your distributor to fire your #1 spark plug. Look at your distributor cap, find where your #1 spark plug wire is, and using a marker, put a mark on your distributor housing that lines up with #1 on your cap. Now when you remove your cap, you can still see where the rotor should be pointing. Remove the cap, and if your rotor is pointing at the mark you made, then you know your timing is pretty close. If the rotor is pointing the opposite direction, then you're right, and you've got the timing set 180 off, set to the exhaust stroke (I doubt that though, I don't think it'll even start if you've done that, and you said it's just running rough). If your rotor is a little bit off, you can adjust the distributor to get it right on the mark you made, then tighten the distributor hold down. While you're at it, look up your firing order, and which direction your distributor turns, and starting with #1, make sure that you've got your firing order correct, if you find two wires are swapped, that's your problem, that would make it run rough for sure. Now connect the battery and set your initial timing with a timing light, because everything you did with the battery disconnected was just to get you in the ball park. If it's still running rough, after you've verified all of the above, then maybe it's what this whole video is about, and the outer ring of your harmonic balancer has walked away from the inner ring, making all of the timing marks on the balancer useless now. This video series shows you how to check if your balancer's outer ring has shifted, by using a piston stop. It's rare for balancers to come apart like that, but it happens. It's happened to me twice, and both times, I ended up with an engine that ran terrible, after setting the timing, because the timing marks on the balancer were lying to me. That's how I do it anyway, with the ratchet on the crankshaft that is. And normally I don't have a friend around to turn the crankshaft for me, so I've got one hand on the spark plug hole and my other hand on the ratchet, turning the crankshaft. Some people like to skip the ratchet idea, and use a remote starter, they remove the coil wire so the engine doesn't try to start and they use one hand to bump the starter motor, and they use their other hand to press a finger up against the #1 spark plug hole. And if you don't have a remote starter, you can still skip the ratchet idea, just have someone bump the key to turn the engine over. I don't like doing it that way, because you've got more control with a ratchet, the starter motor can go too fast for me, but either way will work for you. You can turn the crankshaft around and around, but you'll only feel air blowing out on the compression stroke, you'll know it when you feel it. I typed a lot, but it's really easy, the main thing isn't to memorize what I typed, it's just to understand what you're doing and why it works, it's just common sense.

Oh yeah, and if you do use a ratchet on that crankshaft bolt, be sure to remove that ratchet before you hook up your battery and start the engine. Put the #1 spark plug back in as well. :) Good luck!

No doubt, it's seriously one of the best cars ever built. And we got it painted: ruclips.net/video/L4lDwohNILw/видео.html

Nope. What makes you think panel alignment was much better than this in 1955? I think it's perfect just the way it is, anyway, it's a driver, not a show car. I've got a bunch of old cars, and I've never owned anything newer than 1975. They are all drivers. I drive them everywhere. Most people in town, they only get to see an old car if they head out to a car show. My cars show up all over town, any day of the week. Used to be me and an old lady driving her four-door '69 Chevelle, not a show car, just an old car that she never stopped using as daily transportation. I used to see her all the time, and all over town. I'd wave, she never waved back, even when I was driving my Chevy, a '63 Corvette, so she's not a car guy, just someone still using an old 60s car for what it was built for. I haven't seen her, or that four-door Chevelle in three or four years, so I guess I'm the last guy in town using these old things as daily drivers. I don't know why, used to be a lot of us. They are so easy to work on, and so fun to drive, and you can keep them on the road forever. Technically, I bought this '55 for my daughter, but to be honest, it's been my primary daily driver since 2018. It's almost as reliable as my Vette (and it seats more people), and with it's little Pontiac 287 V8, it's slightly better on gas......and way better on gas than my 440 six--pack Road Runner. It needs a front end alignment and four new tires, other than that, it's perfect, and ready to drive anywhere, wont get there fast, but I'm never in a hurry anyway. I love this '55, and from what I can tell, none of the panels have ever been off the car. I can't say for sure, because it was painted flat black when I bought it. Under the flat black (some of which had flaked off) it's just the original Castle Gray paint job. I'm just saying that it was never red or blue, or anything like that, but I'm sure there's plenty of bondo and bad body work under the flat black, but the body fit isn't all that bad in my opinion. All the panels are where they should be, and probably where they've been since 1955. This car is no time capsule, but the seller found it in a large storage building with a bunch of other old cars, and I have no reason to doubt him, I got it at a bargain basement Pontiac price, a fraction of what people pay for Chevy's, and he didn't tell me the history of the car until after I had paid him for it, and was about to drive it up on my trailer. I was just happy to buy a running driving car for a change. He says it was in storage since the '70s, then he bought it, and his mechanic got it road worthy again. That's good enough for me. It's still got it's VIN stamped original engine, and the original four barrel carb, oil bath air cleaner, generator, fuel pump, and starter. If I pulled a cylinder head, and found a standard bore, it wouldn't surprise me at all, but I'm not making any predictions. The starter was the first to go, and mostly I'm into 60s cars, that's what my daughter grew up driving around in, and getting dropped off to school in. She's not into 60s, cars, she likes the lines on 50s cars. She spotted a four-door '55 Pontiac for sale locally, and fell in love with it, it was very very cheap, but it had no power steering and three-on-the tree, so not the perfect '55 for her. When I shopped ebay, I found this one in Kansas. Long family road trip to get it, but I like family road trips. Anyway, the starter goes, and being used to 60s cars, I look online for a replacement starter. None of the parts stores sell one. So I take the starter to the local automotive electric shop, luckily we still have one. Are you an old car guy? Have you noticed that a lot of the shops have disappeared? All my cars still have copper / brass radiators in them (except the Vette that still has a vintage '63 aluminum radiator in it, as that's what they came with from the factory), have you tried getting a copper / brass radiator re-cored lately? Used to be a radiator shop in every small town, not anymore. Just not profitable, I guess, not when you can buy a cheap aluminum radiator from China for such a small amount of money, or a quality USA built aluminum radiator that outperforms any vintage copper / brass unit.....but damn it, I like copper / brass radiators. Of course there are still specialized radiator shops, just not many, and not in my state. Chrome shops disappeared as well, had to drive to Tennessee to get the bumpers rechromed for this '55. Drove it around town with no bumpers for a couple months. Times are changing.....have changed. Anyway, the old guy that rebuilt my starter told me it might be the original starter for the car, because back in the '50s and '60s, if your starter, generator (or alternator for most 60s cars), or carb, or fuel pump went bad, you didn't go to the parts house, you probably went to your local garage and the guy there could rebuild anything. Or you went to the parts / service department at the dealership, but Tony at the garage would have been cheaper. I grew up on the tail end of that, those guys were still in business in the 80s, but I suppose they were already in decline by then, things were changing in the car world. Like I said, this '55 wasn't perfect when I bought it, but for it's age, it wasn't bad, the seats have been reupholstered, but the rest of the interior is all original, even the original cloth headliner is still in one piece, I've owned a lot of old cars, and that one thing alone amazes me. The original cloth headliner in my '61 Studebaker is in absolute tatters, and all of my other 60s cars lost their original headliners decades ago. That '55 headliner won't last forever, but that's okay, it's not like I'm afraid to drive an old car because at some point the original headliner will completely deteriorate and come apart on me. Everything can be fixed, even the body fit.

The guy I bought it from got it running and driving, and I bought it to drive it and fix it when it breaks. It's a simple game plan, and a simple car to work on. It rarely breaks though, almost 5 years, and it's been very reliable transportation. I don't get out much these days, and when I do, it's just around town, but it gets me around town just fine. Some guys see a car like this, and they want to bring the body fit up to modern standards, ditch the original Pontiac V8, and install a modern fuel injected SBC, ditch the original dual-range 4 speed Hydramatic, for a modern overdrive automatic. Ditch the four-wheel power drum brakes and go with power disc all-around. Ditch the factory 15" rims for a set of 18" rims? I mean if everyone in the hobby is doing the same exact thing, then it must be the thing to do, right? I'm just not that guy. I don't even get those guys, seems like they want it to be a new car? But they want it to look like an old car? Just buy a new car and be done with it. And to be fair, when I see them around town, they are driving a new car or truck....and I'm in a '55 Pontiac, but I'll see their restomod, the next time they pull it out of the garage and shine it up for a car show. Oh well, to each their own, I do what I want with my cars, they can do what they want with their cars. Some day, my daughter will have her own house, and her own garage, and she can do what she wants with this '55 Pontiac, and the '63 TBird I gave her. That's how it works right? I just put a cheap Maaco paint job on this one, only because the flat black was depressing me. If it was still original paint, and no flat black, I wouldn't have touched it. Maaco had the car painted in exactly two weeks, not a single day longer, being a daily driver that I relied upon, that was worth a lot to me. I've had a good body and paint man take as long as six months on one of my cars, and I've been on waiting lists for years on other cars of mine. Is it really a waiting list, when it's just a "list" in the guy's head, nothing written down? That's not a list, that's just a guy that doesn't want to paint my car. They have that luxury, to pick and choose their work, and I don't blame them. They never say no, it's always, well it'll be six months to a year before I can get to it. I was on one guys "waiting list", he had two cars that he was working on in his barn. He did good work, but he dropped dead with both of those cars still torn apart. I've got a friend that had his '67 Mustang at a guy's shop, again, all torn apart, then the COVID hit, and all his guys quit on him. He folded shop, and told my friend to come pick up the unfinished Mustang. It's not like the old days, it's tough out there. I finally gave up and started doing my own body work, and painting my own cars, like this one: ruclips.net/video/BeO9nFfL1_0/видео.html And these two: ruclips.net/video/AmQMVVTU2Is/видео.html ruclips.net/video/L4lDwohNILw/видео.html After the first two, I gave up on the painting, so now I just do the body work, as well as I can, and let Maaco paint it in their paint booth. I'm no pro, but the pros are in high demand, and the collision body shops only want insurance work. Also, some of my friends are paying $10k or more (sometimes a lot more) for quality body and paint, and I can't afford that. The most I've paid is $3,500, about 25 years ago, and that almost gave me a heart attack. So I'm a cheap bastard with a cheap Maaco paint job on a '55 Pontiac, but the door jams, firewall, and inside the trunk haven't been touched by Maaco or anyone else on that '55, they are still the original Castle Grey. The cheap Maaco paint job on my '75 Bronco still looks good after 24 years, no telling how long the cheap Maaco paint job on this '55 Pontiac will last, but it's only paint, and it's only on the exterior of the body. It can easily be sanded away some day, and if my daughter one day has the means to have it professionally done, more power to her. And if she wants to ditch the whole car (and her '63 TBird), that's fine as well, but for now, she loves this '55 Pontiac, and that's good enough for me, because I love it too. Anyway, this video was never to document panel alignment, I only made this video, because some guy saw me at the bank, adding brake fluid a few days ago. He looks at the body tag (1:48 in this video), and he looks at the "66" written on the firewall (0:05 in the video), and he tells me what a great car it is, because it's the number 66 car, probably built on the first day of production. I knew he was wrong, because the first thing I do is decode all the numbers, on all of my cars, and I knew there was nothing special about this '55. I decoded this one back in 2018 though, and I didn't remember any of the specifics, so I didn't even know what this guy was talking about. I looked at the body tag, where he was pointing it out to me, but without my reading glasses, I couldn't read any of it. How are his eyes still so good? He was mid to late 60s, at least 15 years older than me. I had no idea what he was seeing. Anyway, he was talking like he really knew his stuff, and he was a really nice guy, so I just told him, hey thanks, that's great to know, then I closed my hood and drove off. I made this video, so the next time someone tells me something like that, I can show them the video. And of course this video clearly shows that he was looking at the trim code, which is 66. It's all fun though, and I do like talking about cars. Hopefully this video lasts, even if Tik Tok or some other platform sends youtube to an early grave. Might last, who knows how this internet stuff will pan out? I checked Myspace recently, and amazingly all my car pics are still there, and I haven't used Myspace, since everyone jumped ship in 2007 or 2008. Mostly I use youtube to document what I know about my cars, because when I'm dead and gone, those cars aren't likely to be crushed, it's more likely that they'll end up in the hands of new owners, and one or more of them might want some history on the car. The only car I know the full history on, is my Vette, Vette guys love to keep logbooks, and that car has 297,851 miles on it. It's the only car that I know the true mileage on, since they all flip to zeros at 100k. This '55 Pontiac shows 13,986, but is that 113,986 or 213,986? No one will ever know. I can't even make an educated guess based on the headliner or brake pedal wear, I'd have to pull a cylinder head and measure a cylinder bore, and even then, it's still just a guess.....and I'm not likely to pull a cylinder head unless I have to. The Vette's original owner documented every time he got gas, the date, the odometer reading, how much he pumped, and how much he paid per gallon, going back to the first time he put gas in it, on 25 May 63. The odometer showed 4.8 miles and he pumped 8.4 gallons of premium, at 35.9 cents a gallon. That set him back 3 bucks, but I suppose you could do a lot with 3 bucks back in '63. He also used his logbooks to document any repairs he made on the car. He was an engineer, and did all his own work on the car. He even estimated his mileage, when his speedometer wasn't working for a short period of time, based on how far his commute to work was. The trip odometer stopped working in 1980, and on 12 May 80, he disconnected it from the main odometer and manually set the broken trip odometer to read 196.3, and of course that's what it still reads today, "1963". Log books are fun, at least for me, ruclips.net/video/l7veKIdqANw/видео.html I'm not even the guy that noticed that trip odometer, I sent a bunch of photos to a friend in Texas who owns a really nice '64 Corvette. It was when I first bought the car, and I didn't even have it running yet. He replied and asked if I had noticed what the trip odometer was set to, and of course that was way before I had read all of what's in those old log books. I bought that '63 Corvette in 2011, and from day one, I kept a log book of my own in the glove box, documenting everything, in the same style that the original owner had. Just the Vette though, I don't keep any log books for my other cars. For them, it's mostly just youtube videos, and whatever lands in the video description or comments section. So yeah, this video is just to document the numbers off the body tag and VIN for a run of the mill 1955 Pontiac Chieftain. And to decode those numbers for what it might be worth to anyone in the future. I only added a bunch of photos to kill time, while the song plays.

Says the guy that just happened to stumble onto a video called how to rig a kickdown. I've never owned a car newer than 1975, been driving old cars my whole life, and my improvised kickdowns work just as well as any kickdown equipped Holley that I've ever owned. The first carb in the video is a kickdown equipped Holley, it works fine, but so does the factory style '63 TBird kickdown on the second carb in the video. And so does the cable improvised design on the third carb, they all work fine. All it's doing is pushing down on a lever, down at the transmission. It's just letting the transmission know when the gas pedal is floored, it's not rocket science....you understand that right? All the kickdowns shown in this 6 year old video still work great. No issues with any of them, ever. Can you explain why Holley advises against it? As for the improvised cable design, from an engineering point of view, what's the worst that could happen? From what I can tell, the worst would be that the cable breaks, and then I don't have a kickdown until I can get to any hardware store and replace the cable, and that's not terrible at all. Terrible would be a failure that causes the throttle to get jammed in the wide open position.....and my improvised cable kickdown could never cause that. None of the three kickdowns in this video could cause that. So what's the harm? And do you really think that cable is going to break? Hasn't broken yet, it's way tougher than the job it's been given. That 53 year old factory throttle cable will break way before that beefy kickdown cable breaks, and losing your throttle cable has the potential to be way worse......like if you wanted to gun it for a left turn, through a couple lanes of oncoming traffic....that might be a bad time to find yourself with idle acceleration only. Does Holley advise against 53 year old factory throttle cables? They should, because that's the weakest link that I can find in my video. This video isn't rhetoric, it's just what I've done, and what works, the proof that it works is the video itself. Not only does it work, but it's not even my design, this isn't something I just made up, it's clearly based on the factory engineered kickdown on that '63 TBird in the video. I just replaced the clumsy rod, with a smooth pulling cable.....does the same thing though, rod or cable.

You think about 50% of '68 GTOs had factory A/C? Wasn't that about a $300 option? Even if it was only $250, that was big big money in '68. I wouldn't guess that 50% of any muscle car had factory A/C, but I've never looked into it. It just seems that if I go to a big GTO show and look under the hood of all the GTOs there, I don't see factory A/C in 50% of them, but I could be wrong. Not that it matters, my main point on the A/C, isn't that this car has A/C, it's that it has A/C, but no PS or PB. It's something you never really think about, because why should you, but when I think of every 60s car that I've ever seen, cars at shows with the hoods up, cars that my friends have owned over the past 40 years, cars that I've owned myself.....two things come to mind, if it's a 60s car with factory A/C, that A/C probably doesn't work, and that factory A/C car probably has PS or PB, or both, because that's what the factory thought people wanted, they figured that someone that wanted the luxury of A/C, would also enjoy PS or PB.....or both. Now if it's a special order car, like this GTO that we're talking about, then sure that guy gets whatever he wants, but most people that wanted A/C, they seemed to want either PS, PB, or both.....and I don't know why, because I'm not a fan of either. PS is one more thing to leak, and PB is one more thing to break, but I'm not a fan of A/C either, roll down the windows, and position the wing windows, and you'll be just fine, and I would know, I've never owned anything newer than 1975, and none of them ever had working A/C, and I've lived in some of the hottest places......and life is fine without A/C. I'm just reporting on what I've seen, and what I can remember, and I can't recall a single A/C car that had only factory A/C, but no PS or PB. They exist of course, they have to, because this '68 GTO exists, but they don't exist in large numbers. You mentioned the southwest and the southeast. I lived in the southwest for 7 years, Las Vegas, didn't see it there, that I can recall, and I went to a lot of car shows, and knew a bunch of guys with 60s cars. And of course I'm mostly familiar with my friends' 60s cars, cars that I've wrenched on, but even that's a large sampling of 60s cars. I currently live in the southeast, South Carolina, been here 15 years, and again, I've been to a bunch of shows, and I know a bunch of car guys, and I can't think of a single factory A/C car that didn't also come factory with PS, PB, or both. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just saying there can't be that many of them. Since I started really paying attention to this, when I see a 60s car with A/C and no PS or PB, it's always been an aftermarket A/C setup, like Vintage Air. To be fair though, before I figured out from the PHS, that this GTO never had PS or PB, I never really thought about it. I've only been looking hard for A/C only cars since buying this GTO in 2017. It's all just talk, but do a google search for "1968 GTO engine compartment". Click on the photos with A/C under the hood. Most of them seem to have that very visible brake booster as well, so that car's out. Just click on the A/C Goats that don't have that brake booster, most of them have power steering right? You have to admit, it's unusual to see a GTO with A/C, but no PS or PB. I'd call it a little bit rare, but they're out there for sure. I'd call a bench seat four-speed GTO a little bit rare as well, but again, they're out there for sure. I'd call the same GTO with both, a rarity within a rarity. Not so? Show me some. It's a big internet. Where are they hiding? Totally agree, if a gearhead had ordered this car, he'd want the four-speed, and he'd want to keep the options low, to keep it light, but he'd want ram air, and this GTO has the base standard engine.....and he'd be fine with the standard bucket seats, because if he really wanted to lighten things up and go racing, just one bucket seat is a lot lighter than that bench seat. That bench seat is really heavy, so is the bench in my Road Runner. Bucket seats were standard on GTO, you really think 10% to 15% of people said no thanks to standard bucket seats in the GTO, and special ordered a bench seat from the factory? I'm not a Pontiac expert, I've only owned two, but no one on the GTO forum thinks it's anywhere near 10 to 15%. Can you share your source? Or is it just a guess on your part? I'm no expert, I don't think anyone is, since PHS never made that count. I'm only going by what I've read on the GTO forum: www.gtoforum.com/threads/gtos-with-bench-seats.28560/page-2 "I know I'm bringing up an old thread but I just saw a quote in an old back issue of Pontiac High Performance that they made 759 bench seat GTO's in 1967. What % of production is that? 1 or 2% at the most? I still have had no luck locating information on any other years." "There were AROUND 88,000 GTOs made in 67. So ABOUT 1%. Eric:cheers" No one suggested on that four page forum thread that 1% was way low, for production numbers of bench seat '67 GTOs, just curious why you think demand for a bench seat GTO would jump from 1% in '67, to 10% or even 15% in '68? It's a new body style, but not one that screams for a bench seat. Here's a guy on ebay with some serious GTO credentials, he's selling the bench seat Hurst shifter handle that's correct for my son's GTO. He wants a grand for it, and my son's GTO shifts just fine with the incorrect bucket seat Hurst shifter handle that's been in the car since at least 1989, so I'm in no hurry to drop a grand just to make the car correct, and neither is my son. Hopefully he can sell his bench seat Hurst GTO shifter to someone with a bench seat Judge that absolutely needs to be correct.....and hopefully that bench seat, four-speed Judge owner, just happens to have lost his correct shifter over the years. Because I think most guys with lower value GTOs, we aren't looking to spend that kind of money. Here's his item description: "1967-72 Pontiac GTO Lemans and Yenko Duce Nova Hurst 4 speed Shifter Handle 4177 Bench Seat OEM - Original chrome - this is excellent original - NOT REPRODUCTION JUNK - I have been told it is the same as the 68-70 mopar bench seat also but have not confirmed other part number I bought this off a guy for a car I never did so it is extra. I have only ever seen a couple of these in a lifetime. How rare is a 4 speed with a bench seat and, how many of those have you ever seen. I am not new to the parts world or the classic car market. I have worked at inline tube for over 25 years and developed thousands of parts for them. I know the in's and out's and what is reproduced and what is available. I have a collection of cars and parts from the 1980's and have finished most of my projects and must start thinning the amount of stuff I have. I have kept the best stuff for myself but have way too much so I will be listing many high dollar items. Some of this stuff you will never find again in this condition. Don't send me questions I wont answer, look at the pictures and read the description and if you like buy." So that guy has worked at Inline Tube for over 25 years, and he thinks a four-speed bench seat GTO is rare. How rare is a four-speed bench seat GTO with only one other option, air conditioning? Check out his ebay listing: www.ebay.com/itm/334027951293 Look at the photos of his dogleg Hurst shifter, because he's also added photos of his car collection, and it's impressive to say the least. That guy knows Pontiac. He doesn't know Mopar though, I've got a four-speed bench seat Mopar with a factory Hurst shifter, and his GTO Hurst bench seat shifter isn't right for it....even though he suggests in his listing that it might be. This GTO that I gave to my son has three options: -bench seat -four-speed -Air conditioning If you search the entire internet, you won't find another GTO (any year) with just those three options and nothing else. Now try to find one with just those three options, and it just happens to be April Gold with parchment interior, and it's a '68. Good luck! Shoot me a link if you find one. So, no offense, but I think you're off on your calculations. Not that it matters, PHS doesn't care how many bench seat GTOs were made, so why should we? It's not even my car, I just think it's fun to talk about it. The main thing is this, like all GTOs, it's a great car, and it's fun to drive, and it's even painted now, here's the paint video: ruclips.net/video/L4lDwohNILw/видео.html He didn't want April Gold. I don't blame him, it's not my favorite color either. Anyway it's just paint, and we left the jams black, as they've been since at least 1989. I bought it in 2017, and I don't know the car's history before '89. If my son wants it to be April Gold when he's an old man, he can always make that happen. Some cars were built to last a lifetime, and then another lifetime....and then another lifetime, the '68 GTO was one of those cars. It's a good car. My daily driver right now is a '55 Chieftain, it's nice that some cars won't die.

Nice!

I love first gen Broncos, mine's a '75. You're right about the length, it doesn't matter, because you're just splitting the difference. It just has to be long enough to contact the piston and keep the piston from making it to top dead center. The length of your piston stop will be different on different engines as well, like Ford to Chevy, or even SBF to BBF, so it'll never be one size fits all. Just experiment with it. Make your piston stop's length adjustable, like the one I made, or just buy one, it'll be adjustable, they all are. If the piston never hits it, you've got it too short. If the piston hits it too early, then you'll end up with marks on your harmonic balancer that are so far apart that it'll be difficult getting the measuring tape on there to find the center of your two marks. You want your piston to get as close to TDC as possible before the piston stop, stops it. A good length on your piston stop will give you two marks on your harmonic balancer that are about 5 inches from each other, finding half of 5 inches is easy. If you end up with 6 or 7 inches, that'll work fine as well. Just disconnect your battery first, and don't reconnect it until your piston stop is removed and your #1 spark plug is back in. You don't want to engage your starter while that piston stop is in there, it will destroy your piston.

@@owenrobertson Thanks for the reply. Happy Bronco'ing.

No doubt, and this is a special order car for sure. I've got a '68 Dodge Coronet R/T that's also a special order car, but it's not very unusual, 440, 727 Torqueflite, bucket seats, and get this, they deleted the R/T bumble bee stripe (that's not cool), oh and they ordered it with a black vinyl top (I'm not a fan of that either). I think I'll restore it without the vinyl top and with the bumble bee stripe. Here's the R/T, it needs a little work: ruclips.net/video/2AIx0NuB3y4/видео.html

Thanks for sharing stories like that, young guys like me can't even answer the American Graffiti question, "Where were you in '62?", because we were born in or around 1970. Well I was born in '70. I think I'm part of the American Graffiti wanna be generation. I've heard some interesting Boss '9 stories from guys that were in the position to buy a new car back then. I've heard of insane dealer markups, because that dealership only had one of them and it was on the showroom floor bringing in traffic, and they had no intention of selling it. Then when the '71 Mustangs came out, I've heard of left over 1970 Boss 429s being practically given away.