I picked this car up about a week ago. I have never owned a GS myself before, but always dreamt of having one after driving a collector's restored Saturn Yellow GSX Convertible 4 speed (clone I suppose?) back around 1998 or so. My Lime Mist Convertible 1971 Skylark is still being restored, so this GS was a hard sell to my wife to pick up, but am glad I did. This car is solid. Probably the nicest and most unmolested one I have come across in 25 years actually. When I went to look at it, I really wasn't sure if it was an original 4 speed GS, but it turned out it was. It has no rust except under the battery tray which has been repaired. This car was well taken care of, and supposedly is a 1 owner car, which I am still trying to verify cause the guy I bought it from was only flipping it. I will say, it does need a little interior love, tuning, and a paint job. But seems to actually be a solid driving car. It has 4 wheel drums, PS, and power brakes, and then the rally gauges and tach. That's it for options per the Sloan documents. Someone added a front and rear spoiler at some point, and 14" rally wheels. It has what is supposed to be a dealer installed Mallory ignition on it. Still rocks the points distributor though, which I honestly don't mind at all. It also has some engine bits chromed. The GS air cleaner, alternator bracket, valve covers, water pump pulley, crank pulley, and fuel hard line all have older chrome on them. Also has some old SW gauges for temp and oil. I'm going to have to get the rally gauges back to working using T's and new sender's or something. Another thing I noticed is that it looks like it has a 8.5" 10 bolt in it cause it has the ears on the bottom of the pumpkin. I still have to verify the gearing and what's up back there. Other than that, it has most of its original pieces. The headlights are original T3 sealed beams, but only one works LOL, so new ones need to get ordered. The engine is kinda hurting performance-wise, but seems smooth and running well. Trans could use a new synchro on second gear.
So, after owning it a few days, I started tinkering to get it running better. This thing is supposed to be numbers matching so I'm still searching for the dang numbers on the block. Anyways, the carb was hurting with vacuum lines leaking and choke pull off not working. Installed some new silicone vacuum lines taking care of that and tuned the carb, and verified timing. Timing was spot on already. Don't have a dwell meter though, so prob need to pick one up. Carb is now sucking much better and idling properly now. Very smooth idle and 17" of vacuum at about 700 rpm. Swapped in a new cleanable air cleaner element too.
Took it for a highway drive, oil pressure starts high then goes crappy after its all warmed up. Needs an oil change and prob a oil pump kit and booster plate. Who knows if the 33,000 miles is 133k. Also spotted an oil leak seeping from the fuel pump, prob order a new one here soon. Bought and installed a bunch of LEDs. Should help give that old electrical system a break for once. Looks tons better than it did but need to get a couple different bulbs for the front parking lights. Used tons of dielectric grease to keep those sockets from rusting up. The more I dig, the happier I am with the cleanliness and originality of this car. Nothing hidden, everything in great shape really.
Ok, new NGK spark plugs installed in place of old Bosch platinums. No shocks or arcing from the spark plug wires so that's good. Picked up and installed a booster plate kit and oil pump kit. While it was apart I ported out the oil pump housing and deburred all the passage ways. Also changed the oil so its running Mobil 1 0W-40 European blend synthetic now. It's supposed to have a half way decent amount of zinc in it compared to their other ones. We'll see how it does. So far with car fully warmed up its now at 25 psi at idle. Haven't taken it for a highway drive yet. Previously I was getting right at 30 psi at 3000 rpm which was too low for my liking. Hopefully she'll be a little better off now. Next I need to take care of more maintenance things. New rear end fluid, trans fluid, pcv hose, e brake handle, shift Boot, instrument lights, seat cover and foam, carpet, kick panels, and woodgrain decals are all on the list. Front end is in pretty good shape, no slop in steering at all, but front shocks and control arm bushings are shot. So I definitely don't want to go crazy modifying such a rare and original car. It has an exhaust leak on one manifold, should I just swap it to headers or keep stock manifolds on it I wonder? Don't think headers would hurt the value. I'm more worried about breaking manifold bolts in the heads than anything. And suspension, I'm thinking just new bushings and keeping it fairly stock as well. I have my Skylark to build with crazy stuff. The other thing is brakes. Should I leave it with original drums that actually work good, or will it hurt the value to change to disc? Hmm Kinda wish it wasn't Christmas time so I could buy more goodies for it! I do think a cam upgrade is going to be on the horizon. Likely a TA212 and new lifters and pushrods, so long as the engine proves itself to be fairly sound. Don't want to rag it out, but a little bit more oomph and a chance to look inside the engine and see what the condition is would be great. Would also throw in a new timing set at the same time and dial in the cam properly. I think this engine is bone stock internally, and if those cam bearings are hurting, it wouldn't make any sense to do more without a rebuild. The old spark plugs all looked great though, and peeking into the valve cover it looks pretty clean in there. This poor thing just needs more power, my Sport Wagon would eat it for lunch.
Awesome find man. I think it looks perfect just the way it is. I think A survivor look is more appealing than a car that is so nice I would be scared to drive it, due to the morons on the roads these days. Congrats on the new to you wheels.
Yes, very glad I did. It is probably the rarest car I will ever own. I would be keeping the car in its factory appearance, but just refreshing the paint and body. The guys who painted it did a really poor job and its faded with lots of orange peel when you get a closer look. The 'upgrades' would be mostly bolt ons to make it safer and run like a GS should. I just wouldn't want to do anything that detracts from the value.
Great car Andy. If and when you restore or paint it, lose the spoilers and make that car correct. It is a rare car and deserves to be correct, until then have fun.
andy if your Muncie has a drain plug{ 69 or 70 }started using one to change trans fluid ....be sure and use gl-4 not the over counter gl-5 I use amsoil GL-4 it wont wear the synchronizers out
Another I like it. Love the color, originality and the fact that it's a bench seat with 4 speed. Nice ride.
Will it ever be done though?! Pretty sure I will be pulling the engine for a rebuild. Even after the oil pump and booster plate, the pressure isn't doing the right thing still after a test drive today. At idle its fine, and it rises initially with rpms, but when you get going 55-60 mph/3000 rpm the pressure drops rather than climbing or staying steady, and it sounded like I heard some new ticking too...hard to tell what/where cause it has a exhast manifold leak ticking as well. Not gonna chance a numbers matching engine. I've got a warmed up 76 455 from my Skylark build I can swap in for a little while while the original gets rebuilt.
Very nice car. Not many bench seat, 4 speed cars around. My 70 W-31 is Sherwood Green with black interior. The color combo works well on GM A body cars. I too would address the engine woes & drive it as is. Rich suggests removing the added spoiler & wing & he is correct that a stock appearing car should not have those for a correctly restored car, but I respectfully will disagree & suggest leaving them in place on a driver. They look good to these eyes. There is room in the hobby for cars with Day 2 add ons.
Yeah, the holes are already drilled into the metal and whoever did it at least used good quality spoilers and proper baffles in front, so will keep them in place. Only mods to undo it would be unscrew the front and paint a second trunk lid to keep on hand. I love the spoilers personally, but if it never had them I wouldn't have added them to such a rare car.
FINALLY found the numbers on the engine. Had to scrape and degrease a little. Proud to report it is in fact a numbers matching engine!! The stamping was between the 1 and 3 spark plugs! Between the 5 and 7 plugs was the numbers 54 which I assume is the date code. Wow, so far everything the guy I bought it from has turned out to be true! So, definitely going to not run this engine anymore until it can get checked out and likely rebuilt and running properly. Don't want to damage it at all!
