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Four Letter Clown Car or Not?


Wolfbane

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On 10/30/2019 at 2:27 PM, jason str said:

 

Pontiac used the same block from the 287 to the 455.

And?  Big is BIG and SMALL is small...and medium is medium.  From a raw engine block casting viewpoint, anyway!  I still think that the Pontiac "big block 400" is the best engine they ever made!  The only problem I ever had with its design was the stupidity of having the alternator core at the rear of the block, IMHO!  Nothing like having to sit on an air-cleaner to change out points and condensers while your head is bumping against the rear of a '73 Poncho GP "J" engine compartment hood!

 

Now...the Chevy 265 block was a SMALL BLOCK...but it was also the basis for the Studebaker overhead valve V-8s used in the Lark VIII series, which ALL came balanced and blueprinted from the factory...unlike any OTHER American car companies did back in the day!   Technically-speaking the Chevy 283 was a MEDIUM block, IMHO!  LOL!  Not that I wanna ARGUE or anything!  🤣  Yeah...my very first car was an extremely-low-mileage already 10-year-old 1960 Studie Lark VIII when I got it!  250 bucks!  Butt ugly, but dependable as hell!  But I seldom got to drive it much on the weekends...all my high school classmates wanted to swap cars with me for their hot dates...once they figured out that all I had to do was remove the front seat head-rests, slide the split front bench seat forward, lay its back dow3n to the rear and VOILA!  I had a queen-sized BED!  So on weekends I was tooling around in things like Poncho Judges, and other goodies like 69 Mach1's....vettes….you name it...I got to tool around in it on weekends!😉  And YES, I had outfitted the seats with heavy duty CLEAR vinyl "houndstooth-patterened raised bubble" fitted seat covers, a roll or two of paper towels and a large jug of Windex and some pine-sol...and told my buddies, "This car had better be returned to me with any mess you made in it all totally cleaned up, Or I will be driving what you have until it happens!"🤪  It was always returned clean as a whistle, and smelling of fresh "pine-scent" and windex!  Needless to say, the gals in my high school class gave it its nickname, based upon its sun-faded dark beige to "pink" hue...and the way its grille and headlights looked from the front...."Here comes Andy in the "Pink Panther"!  Mine was the two-door version, though!

1960Lark_VIII_Regal_4dr_sedan.jpg.ad3baed2ddb116400bda4a3813610cfe.jpg

 

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On 11/2/2019 at 5:41 PM, BigStewMan said:

 Fix It Again Tony didn’t hold true ... not even Tony could fix that thing. 

 

My younger brother, USNA ‘75, like many Midshipmen, ordered a new Corvette for a graduation present to himself.  For some unknown reason — although probably influenced by his wedding the day after graduation — he passed on the Vette and bought a brand new Fiat similar to the attached photo.

 

What a POS.  Among other chronic problems it had an expensive tank mounted electric fuel pump that failed regularly.  After the third one we installed an aftermarket pump that lasted indefinitely for a small fraction of the cost of the factory pump.

 

One day, while my brother was on a cruise in the Mediterranean, his wife was driving it on the base in Charleston, SC, when it caught fire.  She grabbed the baby and the groceries and went to the curb to watch it burn.  Story goes she body blocked a seaman with a fire extinguisher who thought he was doing her a favor.

 

 

5185D53C-B680-483E-BAB6-B71086F63560.jpeg

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13 hours ago, Wolfbane said:

 

No chance of picking up chick’s either. Well maybe really old chicks.

 

Wb

Not much point in having a car that attracts chicks if you can't do it in the car easily, now is it?  I bet that Packard has attracted more than its fair share of chicks over the decades it has been around!

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2 hours ago, HDBRbuilder said:

Not much point in having a car that attracts chicks if you can't do it in the car easily, now is it?  I bet that Packard has attracted more than its fair share of chicks over the decades it has been around!

 

Throw in some Hurst Lightning Rod Shifters and like maybe Linda Vaughn in her heyday? 

 

Which was before my heyday.

 

Here's an interesting comparison between the 2019 Ford Mustang GT350 and the new 2020 Toyota Celica Supra  to get back closer to on-topic: https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/comparison-test/a28783877/2020-toyota-supra-vs-2019-ford-mustang-shelby-gt350/

 

Wb

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32 minutes ago, richieb said:


^^^^^
* Difficult to believe mass produced engines installed at the factory balanced and blueprinted. And in particular for a Chevy,  GM’s budget brand. An expensive and time consuming process even for aftermarket builders. 

 

Read it again.  Andy was saying that Studebaker balanced and blueprinted it’s V8s.  Some would argue that Studebakers we’re not mass produced, or that the expense of balancing and blueprinting contributed to its demise.

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1 hour ago, richieb said:


^^^^^
* Difficult to believe mass produced engines installed at the factory balanced and blueprinted. And in particular for a Chevy,  GM’s budget brand. An expensive and time consuming process even for aftermarket builders. 

It wasn't done FOR A CHEVY....it was done for Studebakers...the Chevy 265 raw block was sent to Golden-Line, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Studebaker-Packard!  Then the engine builders there went to work on them...the vast majority of those engine builders were retired GM engine builders at the time!  They were supplementing their GM retirement checks by continuing to build engines for Golden-Line.  Once the raw blocks arrived they went throught the entire milling and machining processes...and they ended-up as factory balanced and blue-printed engines for at least the Studebaker Lark VIII series, and some more Studebaker vehicles.  Studebaker never actually made any of the raw engine blocks for their over-head valve V-8 engines.  THey used what was available from other manufacturers, instead at a great cost savings...which they in-turn  invested in ensuring that all of their V-8's wouild be balanced and blue-printed.  This is one of the main reasons why the Studebakers had engines which out-lasted many other company's V-8's, when properly-maintained....they were simply better-built!  The final displacement of those engines was somewhere around just  259 CU...but they have often been called the "262".  Golden-Line division was already famous for its engines used in the Studebaker Golden Hawk models...but they evolved from a different raw block than the Chevy 265.  I'm not exactly sure when the 265 engine was completely dropped by Chevy, but it was probably at or just after the introduction of the 283 which first showed up in Chevys in 1955...which was the parent of many different Chevy engines...and still is....the 327, 350, and a few others...for decades, now!   Chevy undoubetdloy saw an advantage in continuing to cast those raw blocks as a propriety sort of thing for other companies...at least for a few years, anyway!  My 1960 Studebaker Lark VIII was a great car!  It only had around 18,000 miles on it when I got it at an estate auction in late 1970.  It had actually been put up on blocks for storage OUT IN THE WEATHER....by the original owner who was departing for Viet Nam in early 1962...and who never made it home.  His mother passed away and it was auctioned off in the estate sale, which let me get it for 250 bucks!  Before the auction, Dad and I checked the car out...windows had all been left slightly cracked open for all those years...so carpet was rotted a lot, but the rest of the interior was just fine, not even any rust under the carpet!.  When we checked under the hood, the first thing my Dad said was:  "DAMN!  This car has a Golden-line V-8!"  I asked him what that meant, and he said it meant it was a damned well-built engine!....and He told me all about them!   By the time I sold it in mid 1972, when I went into the Army, it had almost 80,000 miles on it...the guy who I sold it to told me that he put another 35,000 on it before he sold it 4 years later!  Back in those days most people traded off a vehicle prior to getting just 50,000 miles on it!

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1 minute ago, billybob said:

Called Avanti...the Ambassador or the President had 5 forward gears.

Older brother prided himself on grabbing rubber in all of them, trying to impress my dad back in early 60's... impressed me...

My Lark VIII had a "2-speed automatic" with overdrive option...one helluva passing gear, too!  Just an oil-bath air cleaner atop a 2 bbl, though!  It was still good for a solid 90+ mph top speed though!...just took it awhile to get there, the couple of times I did it!  It was a mechanically-sound vehicle the whole time I had it...no engine problems at all!   It just purred right along! 

 

One mechanical issue though...the right front spindle broke...it was a weird thing....I had been parking it in the same spot for almost a year in the college parking lot...and it had no hubcaps on it...somebody must have knocked the spindle grease cap off somehow...and there I was...freezing rain...with a CAR LOAD of people wandering around outside of town looking for a "free" poor specimen of a tree to decorate for Chrismas...and all of a sudden I heard some squeaking, then a "SNAP"!  Off to the ditch alongside the road went my right front wheel and tire...GEEZ!  SO, I hollered at everybody in the car to get as far over to the left side as possible...because we were in trouble...I let the car coast to a stop...everybody got out...there was a closed country store about 100 yards ahead on my right...so three of my passengers sat on the left rear fender...and I slowly got to the store and got it parked, and slid a concrete block under the right front remainder of the spindle.  We the finally caught a ride back to town!  Two days later I was in a wrecking yard with the entire right front spindle in my hands...looking for the only Studebaker the wrecking yard owner said he had...and 1957 President....which I PRAYED had a right front spindle which would work...and thankfully, it did...SORTA!  the only difference was that its tie-rod end was reverse threaded to the one on my Lark VII...so all I had to do was put the original tie-rod end of the Lark onto it...and it was a perfect match after that!  I had a bit of time so I checked out that 57 President...it had a hump in its dashboard with rolling numbers in it...and NO SPEEDOMETER....the rolling numbers were the speedo!  Later on, I found out that Studebaker did that for ONLY one year model on the President, then went back to an analog dial speedo....due to customer complaints...that they had to actually READ the numbers which took their attention off the road ahead...instead of using their peripheral vision to tell where the needle on an analog speedometer was!  More on this later...but...one other thing, that President had a GOlden-line V-8, too...larger than mine...with no carb, but a box thingie instead...which I found out was a single point fuel injection unit from the factory!!!  Just like those used on the early Vettes!  GO FIGURE!!  So...back to the speedometer...those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it....back in the 1980's one or more of the Japanese car makers went to a digital speedometer in the dash, and did away with the analog dial version...and again, it lasted for about one year...same buyer complaints...GO FIGURE!  🤣

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I'm not exactly sure when the 265 engine was completely dropped by Chevy, but it was probably at or just after the introduction of the 283 which first showed up in Chevys in 1955...which was the parent of many different Chevy engines...and still is....the 327, 350, and a few others...for decades, now!

 

I beg to differ- I've never heard of a stock '55 Chevy with a 283. Not till '57, I think.

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18 minutes ago, HDBRbuilder said:

My Lark VIII had a "2-speed automatic" with overdrive option...one helluva passing gear, too!  Just an oil-bath air cleaner atop a 2 bbl, though!  It was still good for a solid 90+ mph top speed though!...just took it awhile to get there, the couple of times I did it!  It was a mechanically-sound vehicle the whole time I had it...no engine problems at all!   It just purred right along! 

 

One mechanical issue though...the right front spindle broke...it was a weird thing....I had been parking it in the same spot for almost a year in the college parking lot...and it had no hubcaps on it...somebody must have knocked the spindle grease cap off somehow...and there I was...freezing rain...with a CAR LOAD of people wandering around outside of town looking for a "free" poor specimen of a tree to decorate for Chrismas...and all of a sudden I heard some squeaking, then a "SNAP"!  Off to the ditch alongside the road went my right front wheel and tire...GEEZ!  SO, I hollered at everybody in the car to get as far over to the left side as possible...because we were in trouble...I let the car coast to a stop...everybody got out...there was a closed country store about 100 yards ahead on my right...so three of my passengers sat on the left rear fender...and I slowly got to the store and got it parked, and slid a concrete block under the right front remainder of the spindle.  We the finally caught a ride back to town!  Two days later I was in a wrecking yard with the entire right front spindle in my hands...looking for the only Studebaker the wrecking yard owner said he had...and 1957 President....which I PRAYED had a right front spindle which would work...and thankfully, it did...SORTA!  the only difference was that its tie-rod end was reverse threaded to the one on my Lark VII...so all I had to do was put the original tie-rod end of the Lark onto it...and it was a perfect match after that!  I had a bit of time so I checked out that 57 President...it had a hump in its dashboard with rolling numbers in it...and NO SPEEDOMETER....the rolling numbers were the speedo!  Later on, I found out that Studebaker did that for ONLY one year model on the President, then went back to an analog dial speedo....due to customer complaints...that they had to actually READ the numbers which took their attention off the road ahead...instead of using their peripheral vision to tell where the needle on an analog speedometer was!  More on this later...but...one other thing, that President had a GOlden-line V-8, too...larger than mine...with no carb, but a box thingie instead...which I found out was a single point fuel injection unit from the factory!!!  Just like those used on the early Vettes!  GO FIGURE!!  So...back to the speedometer...those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it....back in the 1980's one or more of the Japanese car makers went to a digital speedometer in the dash, and did away with the analog dial version...and again, it lasted for about one year...same buyer complaints...GO FIGURE!  🤣

A Lark...what a car to go on a date with...lol...cool story...Yes those haul azz Studebakers even got the attention of author Ian Fleming. His old CIA buddy picked Bond up in his modified Studd in NYC...think it was LiveAndLetDie

Had an old Ford car...70's that broke a tierod kingpin bushing tying up an entrance to FSU...was going 5 mph...lol...embarrassing.

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39 minutes ago, oldtimer said:

  Ar!aLast true five speed (no overdrive) I'm aware of is the early seventies Alfas.

I have experience with those...for a few months, anyway...LOL! 

 

Back after I got to Italy in 1973, I noticed this Alpha Giulia 1300 sedan regularly going up for sale...for less money each time...the body was great, but it had running gear issues...and other mechanical issues...that none of the short-term owners wanted to have to pay to get fixed....so...when it got down to an extremely favorable-to-my-budget price I grabbed it up!  You see, on base there was a "PDO YARD" which is where derelicts and major accident cars and bikes often ended up!   I had already been checking it for parts cars, and it had a few Giulia 1300's in it!  And we had a great auto craft shop on post!!  All I would have to do is remove things one at a time that were in bad shape, and trade them out for good things from the cars at the PDO YARD.  We were not actually IN ITALY very much due to training all over NATO most of the time, but I got started on that Giulia, anyway.  SO the engine in it was basically a good engine, but there was also a good engine in a fairly low KM Alpha Giulia 1300 SUPER which had been totaled out in its rear end!  It was actually a Carabieneri police special Giulia 1300 super, too!  So my mind started thinking..."HOLD MY BEER"...having a sleeper police special 1300 super would be a crazy thing to drive!   Needless to say, since the front suspension was in great shape and the rear end was good to go, along with that 5-speed...guess what I did??  It tooki me about 6 months to "Git 'er done"...including a nice new interior out of two wrecks which supplied it all...but what a fun experience driving that thing was!  It had the finned "inverted mushroom" high-cap oil pan...the two each Weber 2bbl carb set up (which I added velocity stacks to!), and all the bells and whistles of the police special in a "sleeper" labelled as just a Giulia 1300!!  And it was a screamer, to say the least!  By screamer, I mean whoever rode around in it with me was SCREAMING a lot!  What a blast that thing was!  Unfortunately, by the time I finished it, I just had around 7 more months to go in Italy...but I made lots of money from it right before I left Italy!!

 

Those who KNOW Alfas, should understand what I have been talking about!  Just think alfa spyder with four doors!😉😂  A PITA to keep in tune, but worth the effort!! At least I had the common sense not to use ITALIAN-MADE Webers, and lucked into some great German-made ones during that build! 

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14 minutes ago, NADman said:

I'm not exactly sure when the 265 engine was completely dropped by Chevy, but it was probably at or just after the introduction of the 283 which first showed up in Chevys in 1955...which was the parent of many different Chevy engines...and still is....the 327, 350, and a few others...for decades, now!

 

I beg to differ- I've never heard of a stock '55 Chevy with a 283. Not till '57, I think.

Yes and the first  Corvettes had a straight 6...Think your close or there with the timeline with the 265... another famed Chevy...

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