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https://www.decware.com/cgi-bin/yabb22/YaBB.pl AUDIO FORUMS >> General Discussion and Support >> Steve's 72 Monte https://www.decware.com/cgi-bin/yabb22/YaBB.pl?num=1586748616 Message started by Steve Deckert on 04/13/20 at 04:30:16 |
Title: Steve's 72 Monte Post by Steve Deckert on 04/13/20 at 04:30:16 ![]() What better time than to work on the 43 year old love/hate relationship... my '72 Monte Carlo. The car I talked my parents into buying when I was 14 years old, in hope that when I was 16 years old I could inherit it... which I did. I could write a novel about the things that have happened in this car. Right now it is beyond what even GM thought was possible... except it won't start. Yes, that's right... when you hook the tach and the Battery connections on an HEI distributor up in reverse bad things happen... You see, when I was 16, a finger nail file and a match book cover was all you need to do a complete road side repair of your distributor. Today we have HEI, and for an old tube guy like me, it can be a little unforgiving. This is the car of novels, the car you can rebuild the engine on the side of the road in the rain while standing up with plenty of standing room. In fact you can either set on the radiator or for more serious internal surgery, you set on the front sway bar and set your drink on the right frame rail and your ash tray on the left frame rail, and literally pull the engine apart. Sadly I've done it several times. My childhood included many (at last a dozen) times when the car was stranded in the middle of nowhere. Only the grace of a nearby farmer could save the day. There were 17 hand tools needed to completely disassemble and re-assemble a Chevy Small Block engine and I had all of them in my trunk at all times. Once steel-belted radial tires replaced bias-ply tires, I took the spare out of my trunk and replaced it with a spare starter, a spare carburetor, and a spare alternator, along with belts, oil, antifreeze, and if things were going good, a spare water pump and most importantly a flashlight with spare batteries, because any repair would be done in the ditch on some God forsaken country road far away from home. No fix it, no arrive at destination, no get laid. Quite a motivator. And then there's today... throw away the lawn mower when it won't start and buy a new one. Complain about not having any money. I remember more than one hot summer moonlit night at the side of the road replacing a stretched timing chain or universal joint listening to the radio blasting classic 70's rock and always somehow getting the damn thing fixed and make it home before curfew. Keep in mind I grew up in a strict Leave it to Beaver bubble where getting home late would mean months of never leaving the house. Anyway this was and still is my chariot which it seems only I can work on because regardless of money spent on having others do it, they are not from my generation and do not have the same standards. It's so dissappointing to have to do so many things yourself. On the flip side, you occasionally get lucky and hire someone or a company that just smokes it, so much so that you realize that you actually don't know shit. I have had the good fortune of hiring some of those as well, and boy it is satisfying but in fairness this has never been the case with my car. Even the exotic and expensive engine I just put in it, (#4) was plagued with half-assed bullshit that no engineer would tolerate... I can only hope that the rotating assembly was not assembled by the same flunky that installed the intake. Almost more important than high fidelity music that came with the 50's through the 70's era, the true muscle car era is equally in danger of dyeing. The two are eerily linked together... When purchased the the car had a 350 CI SB making about 300 HP. Today it is a 383 c.i. that makes 480 HP on a bad day and 500 FP of torque with a standard holly 780 four barrel carburetor but like Decware amps, it does this with a throttle response that is never seen in fuel injected cars with computers, which spend 3 seconds thinking about the request and by the they decide to deliver a result it is well too late. In this car when you stab the throttle to about 1/2, your neck pops from the instantaneous increase in G force. That's what does it for me... that is what defines a muscle car in experience. So when I recover from the bending and crawling around in this thing, I will replace the distributer module, pickup coil or ignition coil that I blew up hooking it up backwards... and then the daily stress reliever drives can begin! Steve Steve |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by spyder1 on 04/13/20 at 05:16:55 Steve, I grew up in a "Chevrolet" family. My first car in high school was a 1956 Bel-Air with a {Corvette Option Engine, 265ci 4 barrel carburated V8}. My Chevy dreams ended when my father stopped my project of transplanting our 1971 Kingswood Wagon 400ci V8, into a 1969 Corvette chassis. The Corvette would have been a fun project. |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by Lon on 04/13/20 at 09:00:31 My favorite Chevy was a '66 Belair wagon with a straight six and three-on-the-three. Like Steve said you could stand in the engine compartment and work on it practically, and it hardly required work. I had it for about 15 years though I didn't drive it all that time, really only drove it steadily as my second vehicle (primary was a BMW motorcycle). Originally it was bought because I had become a drummer with some gigs who ended up packing the whole band in the thing. Then that ended and I got married and my wife wouldn't drive it so I had to get another car, but just wouldn't let this go for a long time. There's a certain magic in some cars--this and a '64 Alfa Romeo 1600 Spider Veloce were magical. I do love my current car though. So much easier in so many ways. |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by Showme on 04/13/20 at 15:15:52 If we're reminiscing, my first brand new Chevy cost less than a CSP325 but I'm old. |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by Ace-Tone on 04/13/20 at 15:46:16 Saved my allowance/baby sitting money/ironing money/lawn mowing money and in 1969 bought my 1st love. A 56' Chevy (283 V8 power-glide trans). I was a sophomore in HS so spent the summer in auto shop (do they even have auto shop anymore?). Anyway, spent summer rebuilding the engine, redoing door panel upholstery, and installing a Craig 8 trk player. Wow! that was a great car. You could stuff a lot of people in the trunk and sneak 'em into the drive-in movies! (yeah, no drive-ins either). The first most difficult thing with the Chevy was figuring out how to put gas in it. Oh! and I paid $100 for it. |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by Gregory on 04/13/20 at 22:23:28 ....love it ....brought back a lot of good memories... I had a 66 Chevelle SS 396 ... l bought this car with money I was making from working at a gas station ...can you believe it...they actually had places back then where someone took care of your petroleum needs while you sat and watched them...it was first time I ever had a payment, not to a bank, but to my dad...I learned a lot about a lot of things during those times...cars, girls , and responsibilities... thanks Steve for the post ...it was good reading |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by Steve Deckert on 04/15/20 at 02:33:12 Those Chevelles Rocked. |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by Steve Deckert on 04/15/20 at 03:05:33 I've been wrenching on (primarily) this car since before I was old enough to drive. The difference between where I started and now is precision. When I was 16 I bet my friend I could hand him the timing chain from my car in 15 minutes... and I did it. It was always about how fast you could do it, as if that somehow made it less work. These days I am looking for experts to do it for me, but that's a lot harder than it sounds when you do actually know what you want - perfection. So not that long ago I found an engine guru with a flawless reputation and long history of great motors... not one negative comment that I could find online, lots of rave reviews. I had him build me a stroker motor with as much cam in it as you can get to idle with a 3500 RPM stall converter. I was a real thrill to have something more perfect than I could have done myself, and I have really enjoyed it except for some nagging issues with intermittent pinging from what sounds like one cylinder only, and then finally the crushing moment came one sunny afternoon last summer. I was on my way to Menards and a Camaro spotted me and had to roar past me and cut in front of me at the offramp so he could impress us all with how flat he could stay in the curve at 60 plus mph. I decided now would be a fun time to warp his mind a bit, so I locked onto his tail and matched his speed until we exited onto the interstate at which point it was game on. I blew past him before things even got going, and flew up the long hill in the fast lane. When I had him by at least 10 car links, I looked in my mirror and was F'in HORRIFIED to see a giant white/blew smoke cloud coming from the right channel. It was so embarrassing I just wanted to die. So that is what I was doing under my hood on the first warm Spring day we've had... chasing it down to an intake manifold gasket failure... which brings me to this weeks observation. These people who did this motor were pros. It's a trick motor. The custom heads where the head meats the intake were polished when they shouldn't have been. The intake gasket was set with only RTV on the water ports, 6 of twelve intake bolts were not anti-ceased or thread locked, and had lost all torque to the point where I could take 2 off with just my fingers. This caused a predictable chain of events. So once again in a situation where I have to just buck up and do it myself, I decided to watch some Youtube videos of other experts doing it despite having installed at least 30 intakes in my life and never once having a single problem... I'm at that age where I try to get past my ego now and see if there is anything I can learn from others. So to this end I got on Youtube and watched every video I could find on SB CHEVY intakes being put on and I shit you not, all 31 videos did it wrong. Watching 28 of these videos gob 4000% more silicon around the water ports and on the wrong side was just too much. Where the hell do they think that shit goes when it's compressed between the head and intake? Most don't even let it set before they are sliding it around with the manifold not thinking to look through the bolt holes to align the manifold. So, the short of the story is that per the manufactures instructions, you must use gasket sealer between the head and the gasket by painting a thin layer onto both, covering the entire surface. This seals the gasket in place and makes it oil proof. The RTV should be installed as a thin film, not a firkin 1/8 thick glob gooberd around the hole. Anyway, I did it correctly and perfectly and was so impressed with myself that while basking in brilliance and superiority I hooked the tach and batter terminals up backwards on the distributor and fried the module, and possibly one or both coils. We will find out this weekend. The most valuable tool would be a spray can of ego repellent. Hell, while we're at it, let's do some memory spray also. Steve |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by Dominick on 04/15/20 at 06:02:06 Steve… I might be on the young side but I’m no stranger to cars. I try to do most of my own work on my exotic unless it gets past my knowledge base. That’s when I pay the professional. I would consider installing a steel head gasket as opposed to the paper ones. And in terms of RTV… Yes both sides need to be coated in a nice thin layer in order for them to create a nice tack bond. One product I can recommend fo you application is this stuff called Hylomar Blue. Here is a link to the website... http://hylomar.com/hylomar-product-range/gasket-jointing-compounds/ They also make several other compounds for different applications… But I use the Blue Hylomar all the time and by far away superior than traditional RTV. Hope this helps... Dominick |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by JBzen on 04/15/20 at 12:01:33 Quote:
Amen brother... John |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by Gregory on 04/15/20 at 22:32:16 ....ha...that reminds me of my “brain fart” ....after I had my Chevelle for a year I decided to overhaul the engine ...put a little better crank and cam in her ...new rings and a set of headers...everything was going along great until I started putting headers on and I looked and didn’t understand why the tips of the head gaskets were sticking out...that’s right, I put the head gaskets on backwards...try explaining that to the car parts guy when you just bought a set from him the day before... by the way Steve , is that a Holley dual feed carburetor on the shelf behind you ?...l noticed that in your picture on first post ? |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by Steve Deckert on 04/17/20 at 04:27:14 Gregory it is, yes. It has 4 corner idle to support the cam and has been dialed in on the dyno. My first dyno dialed-in carb. I always hated the dozen trips down the road playing with jets and vacuum secondary opening rates. Takes all the fun out of it. I thought about putting my Edelbrock on this motor, feeling that with metering rods it's a better street carburetor, and it was dialed in nicely on a similar motor but having the this Holley dyno tuned on this motor I figured there was a good chance it will be better than the Edelbrock unless I wan't to re-tune or at least tweak it -- and I really don't. I just want to drive the damn car so it makes no sense to start playing around with it now. Hopefully this weekend it will warm up enough to fix the distributor and drive around a bit. |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by Dominick on 04/17/20 at 05:26:05 Steve....wow!! I can’t believe how that gasket delaminated from the head. Not familiar with the Edelbrock Gasgacinch, but the 3M ultra pro is good stuff. The thread sealer is also something I use a lot. I would give the Hylomar a try...I don’t think you will be disappointed. Here is the Technical sheet which lists all of the uses and applications of the Hylomar. http://hylomar.com/warrick/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Hylomar-Universal-Blue-Issue-8.pdf Working on my car is like therapy...even when i get thrown curve balls. Luckily I have a solid of network of other guys who are knowledgeable with Lotus cars, so if i run into a snag, I have backup available. Dominick |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by Rivieraranch on 04/17/20 at 12:50:31 Amazing that Steve's had this car for so long. The '71 & '72 Monte looked a lot like the Cadillac Eldorado of that vintage. Sometimes Chevy styling gets too close to Cadillac style, ex. '57 Chevy. |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by Steve Deckert on 04/19/20 at 06:43:47 After suffering through another week of snow (I know right?), the weekend has so far been similar to last weekend when I started this project, in the 60's and sunny... car working weather. My rule is simple, if I have to wear gloves for more than the first hour to hold tools because they're too cold, I just wait until another time. Around lunchtime I began the self-inflicted punishment of replacing the module in the distributor and testing the coils. After replacing the module I noticed the battery connection in the cap was not on the spade but instead it was jammed between the spade and the cap. Oh well so maybe the module wasn't bad... so I put it back together and try to fire it and "we interrupt the program to bring you following public safety alert:" the old backfire bullshit from childhood is now happening again! Somehow I flipped it 180 out of phase after taking unusually great precautions not to do just that. You have no idea how aggravated I felt to have somehow done the exact opposite of my intensions... So I pulled the plug and did the thumb trick and set the timing to 0 at TDC and put the distributor back in, and the same result. This is approximately when the pain and suffering began. I had to take an hour break to think about that one... After getting past the disappointment in failing at something I've done at least 50 times in my life, which btw was brutal, I pulled the valve cover to find TDC on the compression stroke for certain this time, and sure as shit it was still 180 out of phase. This is when I noticed two of the valve stem seals had lifted completely off their seat and no longer doing anything. So another project when I feel withdrawal from working on the car. Meanwhile, I reset the distributor and it fired off with a noticeable happiness compared to when I shut it off in the fall. The strange dichotomy with this car is that from the very beginning it has been a long process of continual suffering, especially in the early years. The suffering and constant effort to beat you down and defeat you is relentless. This is why when it works, and when it works well and when it works better than well, or even perfectly -- the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction is overwhelming. A feeling that can not be obtained without the suffering. I suppose it's not unlike a submarine. Destin to fail, but bad ass as hell when it's working and no mater what always able to be fixed. Over the weekend I have so far spent two entire afternoons under the hood of my car and only lost it once! I'm getting so much better with age. Drove it to the car wash and it definitely runs better. The rough idle has a better sense of security when fighting the converter at a stoplight and it just overall breaths better. I will definitely use it tomorrow to drive around out here in the country and really blow the cobs out of it... that's always fun. A stabbed it a little bit today during the test drive and it just spins out until you let off it. Can't hook in this cold with these hard tires. Steve |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by Gregory on 04/19/20 at 15:39:57 ....glad it’s back on the road...it’s always a good sense of accomplishment when it all comes together, especially when you do something yourself... hopefully if Decfest happens this year ( fingers crossed ) I can see it and admire all the work you have done to it Greg |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by Brian on 04/20/20 at 01:06:40 After listening to probably too many exorcism stories, I think your car is haunted. Too many troubles to be natural. It needs a Priest. Always trying to be helpful, Brian |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by Archie on 04/20/20 at 01:11:39 Maybe just bad carma? |
Title: Re: Steve's 72 Monte Post by Steve Deckert on 04/20/20 at 05:25:26 Quote:
Yes, clearly it was, in fact if you only knew. But after 42 years of having been kicked in the teeth and just kept coming back for more, I became a pain in the ass for the spirit and it finally just gave up and left. Now I am the spirit that possesses the car. When I'm driving it it feels like my body. We just melt into each other. Steve |
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