Flaring Afro

People just say this to provide reasons for selling besides it having problems and becoming less reliable with age or because saying they wanted something more powerful can make people question if they should get the car. People also say it was the wife's because it's generally thought that she would be less hard on the drivetrain. Sometimes either of those are true, but don't believe it when they say it.

I agree. People just hype up the teen crashes with sport cars in the news. The kind of kid that's going to push a vehicle beyond it's limits will do it with any car. Hondas are worse because for unknown reasons kids and their friends think they have a race car frame and suspension and wreck them on off ramps and backroads.

Kevin Lee 487

iTrader: (1)

I would imagine VTEC Hondas give insane butt dyno readings to the younger kids who buy them because they haven't driven anything fast. My ex GF had a POS Kia Spectra that felt like it was fast as hell despite me knowing full well how slow this thing was. She tried racing my car I had at the time ( neglected 88 Trans Am GTA L98 ) and LOL. I might as well have pulled over and took a nap.

When VTEC activates and their car suddenly gets faster, their ignorance leads them to believe the car is actually fast.

To further compound this issue is the reliability of most Hondas is usually better than anything their friends have. So when their friend gets an old worn out 3.8L Grand Prix or Grand Am GT, it loses to the tiny little Honda and the Honda kid is given further evidence to his car being fast.

Its no wonder they try to race everything under the sun and then get a serious case of butthurt when they get their *** demolished by a stock 20 year old Muscle Car.

njsteve

Today I drove the car down to my buddy's garage to try to get those pesky GM wheel locks off the rims. The seller couldn't find the key and deduced that Pep Boys didn't bother to put it back in the car when they sold her the most recent set of tires two years ago. So, luckily the Cornwall Tool truck showed up as we were trying the worn-out, lock remover socket that he had. They had a brand new one with sharp internal teeth that took the locks off rather easily. What a relief!

Later in the day the boy and I took the wheels off and cleaned the back sides of the rims to get the brake dust out. One thing I noticed was that the rear axle snubbers that are mounted to the frame had no snubber material left - it had just crumbled away when I touched the last bits of it. Were they made of some weird purplish looking urethane that didn't survive 13 years?

njsteve

I just did a little bit of searching here on the site and learned that this is a really common problem. I guess you learn something new every day! GM must have made the axle snubbers out of the same high quality plastic they made the door panels out of.

95Z28sixspeed

Very nice car!

demonspeed

iTrader: (7)

The bump stops turn to junk over the years. Mine are somehow still in pretty good shape, but I will be replacing them with Prothane 11301 (add "BL" to the end if you'd prefer black) when the time comes:

Paul Bell

iTrader: (9)

When I was growing up, a neighbor had a 71 or something Formula-in Blue. I've always had a thing for early second gens.

njsteve

The white car is a neat one. I have a thing for one-owner, unmessed with original stuff. That is a 19,000 1973 Super Duty 455 Firebird Formula. One of 43 produced. Original paint. Nothing touched on the car since new, down to the original oil filter (I did drain the old oil and put in new stuff as it was black as coal). I drive it on modern radials but I even have the full set of recalled Firestone 500 radials stored away - the ones that killed dozens of people back in the 1970s and started the first of many Firestone recalls.

Here is a link to the thread on that car in case anyone is interested:

http://forums.performanceyears.com/f...d.php?t=736345

njsteve

It was a nice day so I had the boy do an oil change on the car. I instructed him on the safe way to jack up the car and where to place the jackstands. Hysterical to watch an 80-pound kid try to turn a wrench on the drain plug. All he succeeded in doing was to rotate himself around the underside of the car. I then told him to brace himself against something and then try again. That worked a little better after I loosened it.

I was able to locate the engine VIN and take a photo of the spot, That only took about 25 attempts to get the light in one spot, the mirror in another spot and the camera in a position to capture it all.

The machine-etched VIN is on the back of the engine mounting area that mates with the transmission bellhousing. It is directly blocked from view by the driver's side catalytic converter. You can reach it with a mirror and then see it in reverse. I was thrilled to see it matched the car's VIN.

Here is the general location. The silver rod is the handle of the mirror.



And the actual VIN, stamped in a dot matrix format, as viewed on the mirror face.

01WS6/tamu

iTrader: (37)

Cars looking good. You found a diamond in the rough that needs a little spit and polish to be a real gem.
I have a garage full of pristine parts and a rolling shell at a body shop trade ya if you need a real project to tackle.
Car looks great keep updates coming.

njsteve

This evening me and the boy drove the car over to my buddy's garage and rebalanced the tires. The prior owner had religiously brought the car to Pepboys every couple months to get the car aligned and the wheels balanced. Besides losing the lug nut lock key, the Pepboys tire "experts" method of balancing the tires consisted of throwing the wheel on the machine and then adding another weight. They never bothered to remove the existing weights. The result was 4 rims with half a dozen weights on each rim.

So we pulled all the weights off and rebalanced each rim. Turns out each wheel only needed an ounce or less of weight.

The boy had a lot of fun using the impact wrench to remove the lugnuts. Had to train him to take his finger off the trigger....after half of the lug nuts skittered across the garage at hyperspeed.

We then headed home and made it into the garage ten seconds before a thunderstorm hit. Timing is everything!

No_Quarter

Man! I'm jealous!

Such a shame that dealer took advantage of her, makes people like me (dealership employee) look bad.

hardbones

great score and you have to love a owner that truly mechanically maintains a car!

njsteve

Thankfully, they did the actual work, so her monetary loss is the car's preservation gain. And mine, too. :-)

njsteve

BTW, does anyone have this plastic, seat panel that goes on the driver's side seat and houses the control switches? Mine is broken (this is a photo from a set of seats on ebay).

I outlined the part I need. (I will post in the parts wanted section, too)

Paul Bell

iTrader: (9)

Is that black or graphite (dark gray)?

njsteve

Ebony (black). Here is a shot of my actual seat and the broken section.

(I tried to place a wanted ad in the parts section but since I am a newbie I don't have access yet).

Nathan C

moderndaymuscle.com has the part for the seat. I think the WS6 store and Classic Industries have the front license plate cover. Great looking TA!

njsteve

I checked moderndaymuscle.com and they have the side panel for the earlier seats with the joystick and 2 toggle levers, not the later three switch panel. I appreciate the lead, though. The search continues!

OhTwo

iTrader: (13)

That part shows up on rare occasions on eBay but not very often. You've seen the issue already as several sites will have the other seat panel but not this specific one.