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57 Pontiac "Zero Fox"

I think the bell's are the same Dave. When I had the head off the 261 the bores all looked good. No ridge at the top, no scoring, nothing that made me think it was a disaster waiting to happen.

Everyone talks about how you can sleep in your Blazer, but you can slide a full sized camper onto a long box pick-up and sleep much more comfortably if that is the goal. I haven't looked at overlanding at all though.
 
Right? That is the base interior for a Chevy 150, and the base Canadian Pontiac Pathfinder.
 
That OD transmission sounds so much like the semi-automatic trans in my 52 dodge. Before you go and buy radials, drive it on bias ply and see how you like it. I don't really mind them on my car. I have 7.10-15 on mine. Cornering sucks but that's to be expected with a car like this
 
76zimmer said:
Rene' any thoughts of doing some overlanding type wheeling? The Blazer would still be a great rig for that!
I love the 6.2 truck too. It was fun riding around in it (although if I recall a bit illegal) as I hadn't ridden in a 6.2 truck in years. After I left you guys in Alberta, I rode in Erics 6.2 Blazer!
my .02: I think if you can get that 6cyl running good in the Pontiac that should stay and go with that OD unit. If the 6 turns out to be a helpless case throw that 283 in it. probably wouldn't be much difference in performance, but might be cheaper and easier than a rebuild of the 6cyl. Does the bellhousing bolt pattern match up?
Click to expand...


Apparently not--the 235 and 261's up to 1962 used a different bell housing bolt pattern,according to some info I read on Google--only all 1955 and newer V8's ,both small and big block share the same bell housings,and the 1963 - up straight sixes (194,230,250,292) also use the same bolt pattern..but the 235 and 261 have their own unique bolt pattern..
Also the manual transmission bolt pattern where it bolts to the bell housing is different on 1954 and earlier chevy's than the 1955 and up ones...

So I guess if you wanted the 283 in it, you'd need a later '55 and up bell housing or an automatic to go with it...maybe there is an adapter that would allow the 283 to fit the existing 261 bell housing..?..
 
I need to get rid of the dead weight.
Too many projects and not enough time so I never get to work on a project long enough to finish anything.
I need to clear my garage and start on my 67
 
The rest is super good. Solid floors, interior is decent.

I look at it this way, if it hadn't been wrecked like that it would have been driven a few more years and probably been recycled. The fact it got wrecked directly resulted in it spending 50 years stored indoors.

I have all the front sheet metal, bumper(X2), grill (X2). I want to try and make the car look like it did 5 minutes before the accident.
 
Actual update time. A couple of years ago I got this engine un-seized, only to find it would not rotate all the way around. That led to removing the head where I found a small pile of seeds on top of one piston. That little pile of seeds came up with the piston and hit the underside of the head when I was trying to bar it over and stopped it cold. Some little industrious mouse had crawled through the entire exhaust system, up through the manifold, into the head, through an open valve and found himself a very protected and private home where he stashed some food. I chuckled as I cleaned it up, it gave me an excuse to confirm engine condition more thoroughly. No ridge, still some cross-hatching and not too gunky. i was happy, tidied things up and re-assembled it.

Next I went through the distributor and replaced all the points, condensor, rotor, cap, wires. etc. I threw some new plugs in it and turned my attention to the carb. In the accident the core support slammed back into the oil bath air cleaner, which broke the base of the carb. The body and top were OK, but it took me a little while to find another Rochester so I could put together one good carb. I got a rebuild kit and put the carb on the engine. The fuel pump seemed to suck (in the way it's supposed to), so I cleaned up the glass bowl and stone fuel filter and rigged up a temporary fuel tank. This turned out to be the overflow tank from my Blazer zip-tied to the firewall.

Now the frustration began. I dug up a starter and got it to turn over. With a splash of gas it finally fired a little. Mostly coughed, but if I held the gas pedal down about halfway it ran for longer...but ran terrible. It also was loud for a car with full exhaust


I dicked with it but was frustrated. After this vid I pulled the carb fully apart again, did compression checks etc etc. It never ran better than this vid.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, and I had one of those "Aha!" moments as I was between awake and asleep one morning. It finally dawned on me that the little mouse probably filled the muffler with seeds before going even further and getting them into the engine. Tonight I sawzalled the muffler off...

DSC_0121.JPG DSC_0120.JPG


The muffler was packed with seeds and debris. There is more in there yet...but the can of coke for reference there is enough ti fill a one gallon bucket I think. My temp fuel tank is empty now, but I had a small splash of freshish fuel in a jug. I splashed a little in the carb, gave it a spin and she fired up easily and came up smooth on the fast idle for a second or three before it ran out of gas again. Such a weight off my mind now.

Next up is finish emptying the muffler and weld it back in there (it's at least 52 years old lol) then work on getting the cooling system installed and functional. I hope the rad I got doesn't leak. Then I can run it longer and continue to progress things.

This will be for sale this spring. Clearly worth more in running and complete condition.
 
Now when I look at that vid the reversion of exhaust forcing it's way past the donut is more obvious, as is everything else. it reminds me of a friends car with a plugged cat convertor from many years ago. Ran about the same until I chopped that thing out and welded in a piece of straight pipe.

I'll have vid up this weekend of it running better. A little redemption!
 
Oh, carbide toothed Sawzall blade FTMFW. Holy shit does that cut nice!
 
tRustyK5 said:
Oh, carbide toothed Sawzall blade FTMFW. Holy shit does that cut nice!
Click to expand...
Yeah baby. I’ve had to use those to cut the main shaft on the industrial mixers when crap hits the fan. That’s a good blade!
 
Wow,that mouse must have been expecting the armageddon ,he had enough seed to feed a family of 5 in there for awhile!..:eek:..

We had mice get in several engines at the junkyard..one straight six in an old Ford Maverick that had a good engine when it arrived,we were going to sell to a customer,but when we went to start it,it stopped dead after one revolution,and we could only turn the crank backwards another turn before it hit something and stopped again..

We pulled the head off and found a mouse that evidently was alive when we hit the starter--the cylinder he was in was bloody,and the mouse was compressed almost completely flat,like it had been run over!..was a bunch of seed shells in the cylinder too,and some in others that had open valves..car had only sat about 6 months too!..

We had a old Lincoln at the junkyard we got running after it had sat several years,to see if its 460 was still good,car ran nice when it arrived..

We got it to start fairly easily ,put gas down the carb and cranked it awhile,it finally started ,but sounded much like your Pontiac--backfiring thru the carb,didn't run well,but we managed to drive it to the garage,it started to rain and we wanted to get it inside-- and when my co-worker got it inside the building,he tried revving the engine up..

It sounded like the exhaust was blocked--he got it up to about 3000 rpms and we heard a loud "POOF" out of the tail pipe--we went to the back of the car and there was about 50 tiny garter snakes about a foot long as big around as a pencil EVERYWHERE!..evidently they were born in the muffler or living in it!..some were dead,but many weren't,and several of them slithered away before we could catch or get them--we had snakes in the building all that year until the first frost..
 
diesel4me said:
Wow,that mouse must have been expecting the armageddon ,he had enough seed to feed a family of 5 in there for awhile!..:eek:..

We had mice get in several engines at the junkyard..one straight six in an old Ford Maverick that had a good engine when it arrived,we were going to sell to a customer,but when we went to start it,it stopped dead after one revolution,and we could only turn the crank backwards another turn before it hit something and stopped again..

We pulled the head off and found a mouse that evidently was alive when we hit the starter--the cylinder he was in was bloody,and the mouse was compressed almost completely flat,like it had been run over!..was a bunch of seed shells in the cylinder too,and some in others that had open valves..car had only sat about 6 months too!..

We had a old Lincoln at the junkyard we got running after it had sat several years,to see if its 460 was still good,car ran nice when it arrived..

We got it to start fairly easily ,put gas down the carb and cranked it awhile,it finally started ,but sounded much like your Pontiac--backfiring thru the carb,didn't run well,but we managed to drive it to the garage,it started to rain and we wanted to get it inside-- and when my co-worker got it inside the building,he tried revving the engine up..

It sounded like the exhaust was blocked--he got it up to about 3000 rpms and we heard a loud "POOF" out of the tail pipe--we went to the back of the car and there was about 50 tiny garter snakes about a foot long as big around as a pencil EVERYWHERE!..evidently they were born in the muffler or living in it!..some were dead,but many weren't,and several of them slithered away before we could catch or get them--we had snakes in the building all that year until the first frost..
Click to expand...

:haha: Gross! Flying snakes
 
tRustyK5 said:
Actual update time. A couple of years ago I got this engine un-seized, only to find it would not rotate all the way around. That led to removing the head where I found a small pile of seeds on top of one piston. That little pile of seeds came up with the piston and hit the underside of the head when I was trying to bar it over and stopped it cold. Some little industrious mouse had crawled through the entire exhaust system, up through the manifold, into the head, through an open valve and found himself a very protected and private home where he stashed some food. I chuckled as I cleaned it up, it gave me an excuse to confirm engine condition more thoroughly. No ridge, still some cross-hatching and not too gunky. i was happy, tidied things up and re-assembled it.

Next I went through the distributor and replaced all the points, condensor, rotor, cap, wires. etc. I threw some new plugs in it and turned my attention to the carb. In the accident the core support slammed back into the oil bath air cleaner, which broke the base of the carb. The body and top were OK, but it took me a little while to find another Rochester so I could put together one good carb. I got a rebuild kit and put the carb on the engine. The fuel pump seemed to suck (in the way it's supposed to), so I cleaned up the glass bowl and stone fuel filter and rigged up a temporary fuel tank. This turned out to be the overflow tank from my Blazer zip-tied to the firewall.

Now the frustration began. I dug up a starter and got it to turn over. With a splash of gas it finally fired a little. Mostly coughed, but if I held the gas pedal down about halfway it ran for longer...but ran terrible. It also was loud for a car with full exhaust


I dicked with it but was frustrated. After this vid I pulled the carb fully apart again, did compression checks etc etc. It never ran better than this vid.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, and I had one of those "Aha!" moments as I was between awake and asleep one morning. It finally dawned on me that the little mouse probably filled the muffler with seeds before going even further and getting them into the engine. Tonight I sawzalled the muffler off...

View attachment 299400 View attachment 299401


The muffler was packed with seeds and debris. There is more in there yet...but the can of coke for reference there is enough ti fill a one gallon bucket I think. My temp fuel tank is empty now, but I had a small splash of freshish fuel in a jug. I splashed a little in the carb, gave it a spin and she fired up easily and came up smooth on the fast idle for a second or three before it ran out of gas again. Such a weight off my mind now.

Next up is finish emptying the muffler and weld it back in there (it's at least 52 years old lol) then work on getting the cooling system installed and functional. I hope the rad I got doesn't leak. Then I can run it longer and continue to progress things.

This will be for sale this spring. Clearly worth more in running and complete condition.
Click to expand...

Looks like barely seed. That’s to bad you ran out of gas. Very cool it was a easy fix!
 
I had enough gas to prove my theory, and the pile of seed was a good confirmation too. Next up is get the cooling system hooked up and filled, then get fuel and let it run to temp. Probably going to put in a quart or so of ATF and then do another oil change after 10-15 minutes run time. That should clean things up decently. It's not gunky inside, but it is a little sticky. Lifters, rings, etc...

That's the current goal. Not going to plan much beyond that...

Dean, the car was from the rural Calgary area from what I was told. Has a parking pass sticker for the U of C. My best guess is the dude lived just enough outside of town for it to be rough range road and acreage, but close enough to commute to work or school. I kinda feel he worked there, not studied there. After he wrecked it in January '67 he had it towed home and pushed into his garage. He never got rid of it, and he never fixed it...it sat there until he died in 2013. I've had it 5 years now :doah:
 
Time flies huh ?..or as the old Steve Miller song goes--"Time keeps on slippin into the future"...

...my mom passed 5 years ago,it seems like only 2 though...(and I haven't cleaned or even moved a dam thing in any of the rooms yet that belonged to her & my dad,who passed in 2000 :doah:)..

I realized the other day I've owned my '81 G-10 van since 1990 !--hard to believe I've had it 29 years..:eek:..letting it sit since I got the 82 GMC K2500 in 2003 did it no justice,but its still the least rotted thing in the yard despite leaving it outside parked over dirt & leaves..

The '85 Burb I bought I've had since 2009,hard to believe its been TEN years already..(looking at the rotted rockers & the rest of it makes it easier to believe though )...
I sit here and wonder where the hell the past 20 years went...:thinking:
 
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