My son and I road tripped up north for him to buy this Catalina. We never got the Catalina in Canada.
California car, zero rust, never seen winter, always parked inside. We'll be heading up again when winter is over to bring it back.
My son and I road tripped up north for him to buy this Catalina. We never got the Catalina in Canada.
California car, zero rust, never seen winter, always parked inside. We'll be heading up again when winter is over to bring it back.
Is that Mr. Laheys car? Looks good!
That thing on bags, a half inch off the ground. Hnnnngh.
You guys need to know your sofas.
Holy smokes (let's go), a boney-fide genuine wide-track Pontiac-powered Pontiac. How rare is that in Canada?
I feel like I saw that car on FBM and saved it. Love it, when I was born I rode in a 68 two door.
He found it on FBM and saved it.
In reply to SkinnyG (Forum Supporter) :
I wondered if I'd seen that on FBM recently, it looked familiar.
That looks ridiculously clean
Land Yacht, Barge, Boat, Barcalounger on wheels...
So much awesome here.
Great car! I've been a fan of full size Pontiacs all my life (I've had multiple '61s, a '65 and a '71.)
We went up this weekend and brought the car back.
Not a lick of trouble in 350km. Around half a tank at $140.
I actually owned one of those back round 1985. It is the only American made vehicle I have ever owned. Have to admit that, despite being "Wanted by the FBI" ugly, it was also indestructible.
A couple of weeks ago, I had SkinnyKid1 do points, condenser, cap, rotor, plugs, and wires. He really struggled to even reach plug #2, but I found a tear in the fibrous seal on the right inner fender which conveniently fit a spark plug socket on an extension.
We also got the horn going, which required a full disassemble of the steering wheel buttons and horn contact in the column, but the wiring to the horn relay was inconsistent, so I just ran another wire and wired up a typical relay instead of the $65 OEM-style one.
This weekend we went after the fuel filter and fixing a couple oil leaks. One leak was the steering box input seal.
To remove the steering box, you need to remove the inner fender. To remove the inner fender, you need to remove the front valence. The front valence has been hammered against many a curb and it was almost (almost) impossible to remove the fasteners, so....
A lot of nasty and poor body work in there, requiring the removal of a CRAP ton of filler, the filling of six holes from past slide hammer mayhem, welding four cracks closed, adding metal where a fastening tab was torn off, and a whole LOT of hammer and dolly.
Have I mentioned that I HATE doing bodywork?
The goal is epoxy primer tomorrow evening, then once it's cured, quite a bit of high-build, then spray. I'll be ordering a pint of the correct paint (plus reducer, plus hardener) on the way to work tomorrow.
A couple coats of Epoxy Primer, followed by some Slick Sand:
In reply to SkinnyG (Forum Supporter) :
What is Slick Sand?
In reply to SkinnyG (Forum Supporter) :
What is Slick Sand?
Slick Sand is a sprayable polyester based high build primer. It's a bit thicker than a polyurethane high build, so much better at smoothing surfaces.
Yes, and it's freakin' MAGIC.
It makes bodywork so much less awful.
Got paint on. Today we put the valence on, hooked up the signal lights. Pulled it out of the shop today, finally.
Kid blew up the engine on the way into town shenaniganing with a friend. But then continued to drive it another 10 miles with no oil pressure.
So.... it'll be parked for a while. Especially once he prices out the rebuild of a 400 Pontiac. Assuming he didn't window the block.
Some kids need to learn the hard way.
And Pontiac 400s need to learn to be tougher, as Chevy 350s fit very easily in their place. 
We can't get a tow truck around to the back, so we had to see if we could drive it.
It did fire up, and clattered its way around to the shop. I used a boroscope to try and see any windows in the block or pan to account for the loss of oil, but found none. Except..... an excessively thick o-ring on the new oil filter. No!
Yes.
Kid didn't notice the original o-ring still stuck on the block, and just threaded the new filter on. "Pop" at road speed! Oil everywhere! Clatter-clatter-clatter!
I was still sticking to "you ran it out of oil - it needs to come out" but then on a whim I though "what if we just fill it up with oil again and see?" So we did.
Sounds ok.
Quiet at idle. I don't hear any death knocking from below. There is the faintest clatter at cruise that only I can hear, and I don't think it was worse than when I first heard this engine running at the sellers place....
Kid1 may have dodged a bullet!
We ran it up to temp, and then drained the oil. He's heading into town now for a fresh jug and filter, and we'll cut the old filter apart and have a look inside.
I'll downgrade this to "potentially hurt." Time will tell.
In reply to SkinnyG :
Hey a big scare with a narrowly avoided painful outcome can *sometimes* be just as good at teaching a lesson! Here's hoping it isn't terminally hurt.
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