Everything posted by SAmadei
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Buick News: Teased again: Buick's upcoming Encore
Car and Driver would have still featured the Buick Kadett in a junkyard. It would have still failed miserable. Buick's rep would have taken a bigger hit and sales plunge. Buick itself would have been phased out in 1981. Better A, X and J cars are built due to not needing a Buick version, and they successfully fend off the Asian invasion. Oldsmobile moves upmarket and fills the Buick void, but Pontiac moves into the sweet spot and becomes GM's biggest division on massive global Sunbird sales. GM is broken up in 1995 due to antitrust violations. ;-)
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Cheers or Jeers: 2011 Chevrolet Caprice
I was going to say that, because deep in the back of my memories, it was my understanding ALL police cars in NJ must be of either US or NA build... but I couldn't remember the details. And I remember the Crown Vic and Charger being built in Canada was a possible hitch in that concept. But then again, times change. NJ used to be against photo enforcement, but the traffic light cameras are still moving in.
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Cheers or Jeers: 2011 Chevrolet Caprice
This will be a problem for NJ State Police, as well.
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California car pics
Yep the Chevrolet FS sold about 1 million that year and Imps & Belairs had the same lights. Caprice was still ramping up from 65 intro so they're harder to come by I think the price on the Caprice was $10K. Thats kinda insane for a sedan. It had better be brand new in all aspects.
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Cheers or Jeers: 23,000 Mile 1967 Pontiac Grand Prix
H said he wanted a '68- not that common to find. I like the '68s- on the funky side. But I'd prefer the 1st gen, specifically '64, before they bloated up. So you mean he wanted a '68 GP coupe... No convertibles made in ANY year other than '67. While I like the '68 fullsizers, I really don't care for the '68 GPs...
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Balthazar, late for a high school class...
Balthy is right. The cameras had a slit shutter, which exposes the film top to bottom... which is inverted, of course, but during the exposure, the car moves... giving it the forward lean. The whole effect is called focal plane shutter distortion. Read more here... http://people.rit.edu/andpph/text-slit-scan.html
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Cheers or Jeers: 23,000 Mile 1967 Pontiac Grand Prix
I don't really have any available, except perhaps the originals the previous owner sent me... If I come across them, I'll post 'em.
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California car pics
Interesting... I don't recall ever seeing a '67 Chevy B-bod with 6 red taillight segments and the whites in the bumper. Must be a Caprice thing... just like I didn't recall the two-segment Biscayne ones. I guess the Impala red-white-reds outnumbered the others during this one-year taillight permutation.
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Daily Driving Through Strange Times
IMHO, if you have less than $5K liquid, you are basically broke. You are quoting '90 Hondas with 150K at $2K and being a maintenance nightmare, but that it not you have previously owned... your previous maintenance problems were a Camaro, '80s Regal and a Jeep. You don't have to have a '90 Honda to enjoy relatively problem-free bliss... you can have a W-body Impala and pay $1000 for it. But this is all conjecture because going to that from a brand new Challenger is like going back to a digital watch after have an IPhone... people fight tkaing a step backwards in apparent status. But your 20s are a time when you need to invest in the future, not splurg on luxuries. Either stick it out with the Challenger (if you can) or buy something dirt cheap. Anything in between is a boondoggle. You will have plenty of time later to buy something sweet.
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Cheers or Jeers: 23,000 Mile 1967 Pontiac Grand Prix
One of my favorite GM cars of all time... and one I actually own. Unfortunately, its nowhere near that condition.
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Industry News: China Withdrawing Support For Foreign Investments Next Year
Flat pull out? I feel this is the first step towards China throwing GM (and other foreign companies) out. It don't affect China... they will go making Wulings and Buicks without GM. GM gets a kick in the nuts short term for investing so much in China and a stab in the back when China eventually starts dumping rebadged Wulings in the US for chump change. Unless China plays fair, I don't see how GM could exit China gracefully.
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Come out of the closet...
I need a time machine so that I can go back and kick my ass. Wait until you're 40 or so...
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Canadian-only Oddity: 1955 Dodge Mayfair 2dr
Due to Wildwood, NJ being a popular destination for beach going Canadians, I remember these invading south Jersey every summer for years between '88 and '95. It was especially interesting to me, as my car was what I thought was the last of the Tempests ('70). Some days I'd see 2-3 of them. Needless, to say, in those days before the Internet became popular, it was MUCH harder to explain what was going on. Had they made a coupe, I may have seeked one out, simply for its novelty factor. Edit: Typo.
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Honda News: A Honda Owner Takes The Company To Court, Minus The Lawyers
Is CheersamdGears.com an evil twin site? ;-)
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Cheers or Jeers: 1961 Pontiac Catalina Sedan
Yeah, same here. White walls bigger than 3/4" are just a bit too early for most of my automotive 'zone'. Edit: Same for 'blue dots'. Also agreed, however, the OEM steering wheels, especially the clear sections, didn't always age well. Cracks and the clear turning cloudy and yellow make a decent argument for many to "upgrade". Who would have guessed one could get their original wheel remolded 50 years later. Edit: I prefer the vintage aftermarket items like Cragers, Hijackers, Hurst, Fuzzy Dice, and all the vintage window stickers of the era...
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Cheers or Jeers: 1961 Pontiac Catalina Sedan
Actually, the wheels and steering wheel appear to be vintage aftermarket, which would make them somewhat collectible to someone. Not my thing, but still cooler than then modern overplayed 20" wheels and billet flame steering wheels.
- Rare Mercury only, Panther option
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Rare Mercury only, Panther option
This is an old photo thats been floated around on the 'net for awhile. I discussed it somewhere else, and I surmise that it was a combination of well used rotor and a caliper that likely froze so only the inner shoe was pressing on the rotor... once into the venting, it probably only took a few thousand miles to eat the whole rotor apart. Keep in mind that the last parts of the rotor probably fragged apart. Also, being a rear wheel, were brake usage is very low, I suspect something may have failed in such a way to keep pressure on the inner pad... the heat would have also accelerated the wear. I really don't think that this was simply an issue of maintainance failure... as properly working calipers would have needed 300K to eat that rotor up, and would have been picked up eventually. Unfortunately, I don't know what the true story behind those was.
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It takes a Pussy to be a ricer...
Staged. A cat might have crawled into the pipe, but would be unable to turn around. So some human loaded that cat in there. Not that it makes a difference.
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A very Dear Buick...
That's only a small one. I've never been so lucky to hit a small one. All the ones I hit had huge racks.
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The venerable 3800 V6 engine
Yeah, more than NVH, as Balthy mentioned, the odd fire engines ran very rough. At least rougher than the public would accept. I suppose to some, it sounded like a constant miss. A friend of mine had a V6 powered '61 Special. I don't recall it being too rough, but I was young and anything that moved under its own power was acceptable to me. Of course, it was slightly possible someone swapped in an even-fire late model V6, but I really would doubt it.
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The venerable 3800 V6 engine
Wikipedia has a good explanation of this under 'V6 engine'. Basically, it has to do with design limits of the early V6s based on V8 designs, where three shared crankpins were arranged 120 degrees apart. This caused the firings to occur at odd intervals because of the 90 degree banks... 0, 150, 240, 390, 480 and 630 degrees... instead of 120 degree intervals. The even fire design uses split crankpins, 15 degrees apart to achieve an even 120 degree firing interval.
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1964 Pontiac Bonneville project car, light rust but restorable with effort
I figured the hood and roof rotted away. Usually when people take a hood, they leave behind the hinges, which pop up. The hinges are not popped up, so either they were taken with the hood... possible, but unusual... or the hinges are rust frozen in the down position. I'd love to see what the engine was like. I wonder if it is still there... I have to assume the city would tow it away (or more likely, sweep up the remaining solid parts) after it reappeared.
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This little Pony went to the glue factory
I don't doubt you... but I never heard it, probably because most B-bod fans are sedan owners... I thought my ECM was untouched. I have no governor. Yes, but you can use a wire jumper. Its my understanding that the ELM OBD1 would work... but finding cheap software is problematic. Mine is a '95... it is OBD1.5... the wire jumper doesn't work, neither does OBD2. Not bad, but lots of big egos, IIRC. I stopped hanging there back in 2006 or so. I preferred 9c1.net, but that vanished. My wagon is in pieces in the garage anyway, so I dropped off the B-bod world except for the 91/96 B-bod wagon email list. IIRC, nobody there ever mentioned the governor, either.
- Hey Camino...