Hi, my names Al and i have a crap hobby. I like older cars with big engines that dont look fast, but are...
So here she is. Ive been driving past this magnificent beast for about a year, with a 3k price tag and 224k body miles it was nothing more than mere "what if". I had looked at her up close a few times and she ran great despite the age. The sound of an lt1 flowing through dual exhaust is a wonderful noise. No rust, engine had been replaced or extensively rebuilt at one point years ago and an aftermarket dual exhaust. However I was happy enough with my current sleeper, the green 95 SHO, until something happened.
I notice one day driving past the little used lot it was on that she was now in the back with $700 now scrawled across the windshield. It turns out that someone, for some reason unknown to me, decided to pull into the used car lot at high speed and T-bone a parked SUV. Which was rammed into the wagon... "What if" turned into a strong "maybe".
Then another twist of fate, the cam sensor in the SHO decided to give up. Being a job id have to pull the engine for (damn my muscular arms!) and not enough time to do anything that in depth, the wagon was in my sites. After a thorough self inspection and a bit of haggling I drove away with it for 400 bucks, transfer cost and tax included. But now here's the ugly.
She was obviously someones abandoned project, i can only assume abandoned because something better came along for that person? I really didnt see a reason why else someone would give up this car, maybe they needed the money. Who knows? Like i said she ran great, drove straight too. Nothing was too wrong with the vehicle but nothing too right either. Some cheap and mainly aesthetic mods were done to it de-wooded, paint, smoked tail lights, non working speaker horn and most notable was the chrome universal dipstick (not in pic) Ill get to its note in a minute... 20 minutes later and on a steep decline to my house she goes from running great to chugging like an overloaded tugboat. After the struggle to keep her running for the last couple miles to my house i managed to just get her into the garage before the engine cut out.
Some more of those aesthetic mods i was talking about
This isnt my first time dealing with an LT1 so of course my first thought was to go after the opti. Damn if i wasnt right. I pulled the front apart and pulled the opti off only to find out that the damn thing was full of oil. Not just bad seal full of oil but completely filled to the brim with oil, i now know an opti will hold a half quart. My mind immediately went to the thought that i never checked the oil level knowing the dealer takes care of it on the cars he puts on his lot, and he did. The used car dealer, as with all his vehicles has the oil changed and a few other small things (filters,tops off brake and trans, pine tree air freshener) done before they go on the lot. That being said he filled the car up to full on the dipstick...The cheapo universal chrome dipstick was short, so short that I drained an estimated 8-9 quarts out of the engine! The hilly ride to my house tilted the engine far enough to dump the overfilled oil into the opti completely drowning it. Only by the sheer determination of this cars will to live did it get me the rest of the way home and because of that i decided to start the resuscitation instead of cutting my loses and selling the engine.
Some more "mods" i guess?
Time limited me to what i could do to it for the moment so a new opti, plugs, wires, check valves (one cracked?), fuel filter and a new pine tree air freshener later shes back to running like a raped ape. Ive got plenty of plans for this lead sled but for now my biggest concern is tires since the ones on it grip like banana peels. A top end rebuild is in store for the near future, headers and of course to fix the accident damage. But for now I look forward to asking/answering questions on what looks to be a pretty happening forum. Ill see you guys in tires!
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Sat Aug 02, 2014 5:44 pm
