Originally Posted by njsteve (Post 4298314)

You're right, I can't just sit around. :-)

It's our family heirloom. I dont know if I told you guys of this episode:

When Gramma Rose had the car she always had the strangest way of shifting the car into gear. She would be sitting behind the wheel and would take her left hand and reach all the way across her body to push the gear selector knob down on the console shifter and then use her left hand to pull the selector into drive. Her right hand stayed on the steering wheel the whole time. It was the weirdest, most unnatural action you could think of. (Any of you with an automatic in your Firebird, try it. It's just about impossible to do).

Anyway, when it was time to teach my daughter how to drive, (mind you she is named after my grandmother, her great-grandmother), she sat behind the wheel, started the car and the reached over wth her left hand and duplicated exactly, the same bizarre method of shifting that Gramma Rose used. She had never seen her great-grandmother drive the car and would not have known of this procedure.

The hair on the back of neck stood up and I swore I could hear the Twilight Zone theme playing somewhere.

I know Gramma Rose was smiling up there, too.

Originally Posted by x-bird2 (Post 4298342)

You might be in luck. For some reason I think these are A-body logs. I've got a driver's side 499624A, date code k124 and a passenger side 496002A, date code L034. The heat valve is in very good working order both have flanges, the one still has the head pipe attached, it was cut off at the down pipe, the crossover is still good.

Originally Posted by njsteve

And of course the typical monkey wrench in the ointment...cracked exhaust manifold.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...8/S7006283.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...8/S7006285.jpg

If I can't find a replacement I might upgrade to the repro ram air manifolds.

Originally Posted by njsteve (Post 4298286)

Please check, that would save a bunch of time and effort if you have something.

And yes, we are just cleaning, replacing rings, bearings and swapping in a Melling SPC-7 068 cam and reassembling. I ordered the correct 1975 blue paint yesterday from Bill Hirsch, here in Jersey yesterday. Too bad it comes only in quarts and isnt available in a spray can.

(of course, I did break off a stud on the pass manifold. Got that side, too?)

Originally Posted by superdutybob (Post 4298265)

a beautiful symphony of synchronicity.