Winter 442 update: I didn't mention that the height of center of the front wheel trim before
the spring change was 27 13/16". I measured the car today and it's sitting at 27 1/4". It's amazing
what a difference that drop makes for the look of the car ( at least in my head! ) I have rebuilt
the distributor with the Pertronix III package. It's basically like having an MSD without the box on
the wall. It does offer no more points, the stock look I'm after, AND a built in rev limiter. That project
was supposed to have been done before winter hit, but the directions said that the hot wire to the
coil needed to be changed from stock. (It took the project from "just slam the new distributor in" to
"I have to figure this out" and I ran out of good weather.) The wire to the coil is a resistance wire that
keeps the points from getting burned up. It needs to be replaced to the back of the fuse box. I did find
a GTO guy who stripped the wire back enough to find the "resistance'' section and removed it, keeping
him from going all of the way to the fuse box. We'll find out what the plan is in the spring. The car is a
real bear to start when it has been sitting for some time and when it's really cold. I don't want to change
the distributor without it being warm and having been started on the same day the distributor is swapped
to make the timing process easier. A warm engine with fuel in the carbs will help a bunch! It can wait until
it's warmer out. It's supposed to be in the single digits this week, and with a barn that has no insulation,
I'm not up to the uphill battle for no real gain.
I purchased a dash piece to replace the current dash (this is the plastic piece that stretches from
far left to just to the right of the radio). A professionally refurbed version of this piece is about $1300.
I paid $200 for the one I got. It's solid and the silver painted portion of it is pretty nice. The chrome
portion of it isn't perfect, but I rate the whole piece as an 8 out of 10. The goal this year is to replace
that piece, get the aftermarket gauges below the dash and get the aftermarket radio out and a stock
radio back in place. My current dash is cut and the aftermarket gauges are where the speaker should
be and the dash was hacked to put the radio in. Putting a stock radio in is not an option without changing
the dash. I've purchased two AM radios so far. I got one in Carlisle for $30 that had knobs and all mounting
hardware. I think I cooked it during a bench test. I purchased another on Ebay for $33 that works, but
needed knobs and nuts and a bracket. Two radios have been mated and are now morphed into one
good functional unit. The dash came with a 10 Ohm speaker to go in the dash. I'm planning on removing
the rear speakers and the ones in the front to go to the old school one speaker system. I bought a device
called Redi-rad which will allow me to aux cord in my Ipod or phone. This will give me other music and
FM radio. I cleaned up the new radio today and bench tested it. Once it gets to an average temp of 45
or so, I'll start working on the dash. I'm ready now with my parts. Below is a pic of the radio and its donor
unit. (The parts unit has 67 Cutlass written on it.)
GM