Lemon Owner

I bought an aftermarket chrome dipstick and tube for the 351w but I could not get one concours. It was here in OZ so I can't tell you brand but they do exist.

I wish all problems were that easy.:closedeyes:

If you find your neutral switch is bad just bypass it by disconnecting the plug and jump a piece of wire across the gap. Easy, I needed to do it last week when I installed a manual trans into my auto harness. It will at least allow you to get it running.

That pillar will need a little attention, hard to tell without the windscreen out. Be carefull using the sander with the windsreen uncovered as the sparks will melt themselves into the surface. Always keep glass covered even if you are only doing a little sanding.

I think it is time to take some measurements of the lifter oil hole height. Then cross reference it to the cam base and full lift heights. That will give you the real truth. It will only cost a little in a new intake gasket set.

It is just a bad earth connection like mach1 said. Just go around checking the earths.

Check that you were given the correct year hinges. You can do this by checking the linkage lengths. There are very subtle differences between 67-69 and they look almost identical. I was given one incorrect hinge and had the same problem. After closing the hood about 10 times it destroyed the hinge. lol

Unless the person is very experienced at body work I would not go opening up that gap. You will open a big'ol can of worms you might not be able to shut. Shaving the bootlid sounds rough but they did it at the factory that way. Panels generally do not fit from car to car and must be modified. What you are finding is the extensions and bootlid are off a different car. Combine that with the lower rear quarter replacement and a complete lack of detail to the last paintjob. Maybe even some crash damage. Modifying the boot lid and extensions will be much easier and safer and will last just as long as any other mod. As a matter of interest it is common knowledge that the Walkinshaw Commodore panels were as much as 10mm out on the body kit. That's how bad commodores were made!! And is why we all drive Fords right?? :thumbup1: Have you had a chance to look at that crack on the other side pillar?

Wow that was quick, and the sale too! Would have been a blast to drive.

You both have nice looking cars. Great stance, especially with the roof down. Love the colour and boss blackouts/stripes. Good to see your on the home stretch and actually enjoying the car!!

As said earlier there is a factory lead filled seam there around the windscreen. It is not uncommon for them to rust between the seam and leadfill which is likely why you can see a repair and the other side is cracked. Lead fill sounds like a wonderfull idea to most but it is actually a curse in some circumstances. Heat tends to cause oxidisation of the metal and actually promotes rust. If you have ever welded something and left it uncovered it will always rust around the weld first. As for the bootlid and extentions, they could be off another car which is why it does not fit well. Or as you said the rear quarters have been replaced. To check if they have been replaced look on the inside. If you see a big thick streak of body deadener around middle of the quarter it is original. They did that big blob from the factory to stop resonance in the panel. Either way when you go to paint the car just shave a little off the edges of the bootlid. Easy fix. :smile:

Hahaha skinned knuckles is not from big engines and no space! It's from inexperience, after you skin them a couple of dozen times you learn to get your knuckles out of the way. lol:thumbup1:

You won't have to take the seat out. It is a pain but it is not too bad.

It could also be the lifters are sitting above the oil hole for most of their travel and not getting full pressure. I read somewhere that the retrofit cams have a much smaller base circle than the normal roller cams due to the lower lifter bore height.

Are you sure there is no damage to your old bumper mounts? I had a similar problem with my bumpers and after close inspection the mounting brackets were ever so slightly bent. I found my repo bumpers to be very good if a little lighter. Also make sure all the bumper to bracket bolts are loose while you tighten the bracket to chassis bolts. That way it will make it easier to align the bumper.

I'm inclined to agree with sportsroof. A "knock" in the traditional sense probably won't affect compression so I would look elsewhere. Maybe bent pushrods/valves and the piston has slapped the valves around a little. Or as sudgested blown head gasket? Good luck, hope it is easy.

Good luck Steve, hope your friend gets it sorted out without too much cost. As for what the clevo and toploader is worth. I just bought a toploader with all the bits to transfer from auto to manual and I paid $1350 here in Australia. Just for the box, no engine. They normally fetch around $1800 with all the bits. The shifter alone for an XW-XC falcon in need of a rebuild is around $300, again here in OZ. A 351 clevo generally goes for around the $800 to $1000 mark complete.

For my coupe I used a few cans of a comercial rust proofer that is sprayed with a body deadener spray gun. I found it a little too thick so I ended up using the good old fashion fish oil in the spray can. The only problem with that is the stink for the next couple of weeks. But it comes out almost like water but sets in a few hours to a thick dry film. In the past I have used a tectol and fish oil mix with great success. For my mach1 I intend to use lanolin oil in the spray can. it does not last as long as the fish oil but it will allow me to spray subsequent layers without build up. Also because the mach is complete I cannot get into ever nook and cranny with the compressed air so if there is anyth mud left anywhere the lanolin will allow it to break up in the future. Fish oil would not. Also the lanolin tends to penetrate the seams more than fish oil. I use it on both cars on the underside of the bonnet and boot lid where there is surface rust and it seems to have pulled it up.

That rust proofing sounds pretty good, but at that money you would want to get more than just a small can. You will be fine with the windscreen. Just use a couple of screw drives on either end of the trace as hand grips/ T handles. One person on the inside and one outside working together make it easier, but you can do it alone. You won't break the screen because you really don't even touch it.

Any update on this? I am very interested to know how it all went as I have a clevo to rebuild soon too.

You need to elongate the existing holes and add one. But it is not hard and well worth the effort. I used a die grinder to make the centre hole larger. Then just a regular drill to elongate the existing holes etc. The factory brake booster works far better than the CSRP booster I have that mounts to the orignal drum brake holes. In fact in hind sight, I wouldn't even bother with the CSRP kit.

And this is exactly the reason why I changed my master cylinder from drum/drum to disc/drum even though my drum M/C was just reco'd. There is just too much going on I do not know about so I just did it the right way. Whenever I try to dodgy things together it just goes wrong. lol

In regards to using a manual master cylinder as buening said as long as it is disc drum then fine. Mine however was drum drum and had the same size bowls. I opted to change the master cylinder to a disc drum when I went to power brakes. After a quick search on the interwebz apparently the drum brake master cylinder has a residual pressure valve used by drum brakes to keep them from leaking and other important stuff. This valve built in to the master is not suitable for disc brakes.

Factory disc in my experience all have the spacer. To change from drum to disc you will also need to enlarge the hole in the firewall as per the template in the link I provided. It is easy and well worth doing.

All distributors have mechanical advance. Mechanical advance works by firing the spark sooner and sooner as engine revs increase. The reason for this is the TIME for the spark and explosion in the combustion chamber to take place never varies. But as the engine revs increase the piston takes less time to reach the top of its firing stroke. This means that the spark timing needs to be sooner and sooner so that the explosion happens at exactly the right moment. Vacumm advance on road cars is designed to operate at cruise speeds. It does this to optimise the fuel consumption at these speeds as there is little load. Low load allows for more advance in the timing and less fuel usage. But under high load like acceleration there is little advance so as to combat pinging. This is when using the ported vacumm port on your carb. However with a race engine you want to have full control over the advance because they operate mainly at wide open throttle. And you don't want the advance coming on at unusual times. On my coupe's engine I use the manifold vacumm. Because my cam is so large I need huge ammounts of advance at idle to allow my engine to idle in gear. But it is so much that under load with just mechanicle advance it will ping. By using the manifold vacumm on the vacumm advance it raises my timing by a good 20 degrees at idle. But as I open the throttle the maniflod vacumm drops and the advance lessens which allows me to have a lower mechanical advance timing to combat pinging. As for dual points or electronic. No question, IMO electronic all the way.