JerseyHarold

That's my concern as well. The right front door is smashed (but everything still works) so it won't hurt to experiment.

I Googled Motomaster Lock Deicer and it looks like it's only sold in Canada. Will PB Blaster followed by BrakeKleen, as suggested by Greg, harm any plastic linkage clips on the lock rods? I guess I can experiment on the passenger's side door since it's smashed anyway.

Our '98 Lumina has always had an issue of the front door lock cylinders freezing under about 30 degrees. I've tried soaking the innards with WD-40, but it doesn't help. The key goes in halfway and stops, or goes in all the way and the cylinder won't turn. We resorted to holding the key with pliers and heating it with a Bic lighter, or leaving the car unlocked sometimes. Our son recently got his license and takes the car to High School several days a week, and we don't want him getting locked out. What other things can I do to stop the locks from freezing?

I didn't check my MPG's on other '52's I had, but my father's '52 Cambridge got 16-17 city and 22-23 highway in the late fifties and early sixties.

This seems to be a standard tactic among Police Departments. My friend's Pontiac Fiero was stolen and a few days later I saw it being towed by the impound-company tow truck. I called my friend immediately and he and his father went down to the towing company the next morning.The car was completely stripped, so they handed over the title and walked away. Two weeks later, they got a letter from the police saying the car had been found and they owed 2 weeks of storage on it. What a scam!

As a former resident of Noo Yawk City I've had my share of car thefts. Our family car was a 1965 Dodge Coronet 440 sedan that got stolen on Valentine's Day 1969 and re-vinned and repainted into a gypsy cab (sort of a semi-legal taxi). My father found it on Good Friday morning parked at the curb a few blocks from our home. We had a hard time getting it back from the NYPD because it was a juicy morsel for their Police Auction (proceeds to the Police Pension Fund...). The car was painted back to original by the insurance company. It was stolen and recovered twice afterwards, but both times by joyriders with no real damage. My '70 LeMans (one of the top 3 POS's of my automotive ownership career) was stolen from in front of our house in Staten Island one night. Three days later, the police in Brooklyn called to say they found it. It was parked at a fire hydrant most of that time. When we picked it up, the lady who lived near the hydrant said she had called many times about the car but the police ignored her. Only damage was the yanked-out ignition lock. When our son was born in 1993, our '91 Crown Vic ex-trooper car was stolen from in front of the hospital and never recovered. The car was a bargain, and the insurance company paid us full retail, so we were ahead of the game on that one. Still miss it. Lastly, my aunt had a '55 Buick that was stolen and recovered several times. The ignition switch had an 'off but unlocked ' position that made theft really easy. Harold

Apparently this cap fits some GM products as well. See this ad from the same seller: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/GM-1-1-4-Master-Cylinder-Cap-1939-1960-NOS-Wagner-/260690108813

Another thing about the factory primers and paints on older cars is that they were lead-based and more durable in certain ways than the later lead-free coatings. Also something to consider when sanding an old finish...you're creating lead dust which is not good to breathe.

If the car is a second-series '49, I think it has a circuit breaker instead of a fuse for the headlights. Either way, I agree with Greg that the car probably had foglights at some point.

Terrific work! You should make a poster with before and after pictures of the car to display at shows.

Believe it or not, the 1991 Steele Rubber Products catalog had a very thorough list of body style numbers for most American cars, which explains why I've kept my copy all these years. The style code for your Pontiac is a 4-digit number on the body ID plate. If you know what that is, I can look it up for you. Harold

The manuals published by Robert Bentley are also very well written.

Jasper Green is Red Green's long lost cousin! Actually, it's the dark metallic green they used from 1997-2001. It was very popular but I can't find a car that color with a good RF door. When I was there, the weekend special was even better: $14.99 for any door, fender, bumper, hood, or trunk! They had several Jasper Green Monte's and we'd see the nose sticking out and get all excited, only to get close and see it was a 2-door.

We stopped at the u-pull near Binghamton a couple of weeks ago in our eternal search for a Lumina door in Jasper Green (some kid hit our car a while ago). They always have a few picked-over oldies there, this time featuring a Metropolitan, Hudson, '49 Ford and '68 Pontiac LeMans. The new-age pick-n-pulls aren't as much fun as the old style yards, but I still enjoy walking through one occasionally.

I wish my '51 biz coupe looked 1/10 as good as that one!

Thanks Frankie and Ed. I'll add a note to the AACA thread. Harold

Nice '66 Sport Fury hardtop. I've got a convertible one of those gathering dust in the garage (my dust-gatherers don't all have flathead sixes!).

Ed, Do you recall the name of the museum? It was near Rapid City, SD. The reason I'm asking is that there is a Tucker thread I'm following on the AACA website and one of the guys is a major Tucker historian, so he might be interested in the car. He even told me what became of a Tucker i saw at a small museum in NY in the 1960's! Harold

There was a museum in South Dakota that built a double-ended '51 Plymouth in the sixties. I saw this car in person, and the owner of the museum told me the Highway Patrol ruled it off the road because it was confusing to other drivers.

I stopped at Pep Boys today for their $12.99 DIY oil and filter special, five quarts of Quaker State oil and a Pro-Line (Pep Boys brand) oil filter. When I worked there in the late nineties, Pro-Line oil filters were made by Purolator and the same as the regular Purolator line, with only the prefix on the part number being different. It seems that things have changed. The numbering system is still the same, but when I compared the Pro-Line filter to the regular Purolator, it was physically smaller. To me, this translates to less effective filtration. I compared the filters for my Caravan, Taurus, and Villager and only the Villager filter was the same in both brands. In a way, I'm not surprised about the change, but this discovery means I'll have to be more careful in the future about buying products based on the way they used to be.

If the belt is not broken yet, you can remove it and take it to the store with you. Most good auto parts places have a belt-measuring guage that will show what size you need. I used to work at Pep Boys and I know for sure we had them.

You have to give the carrier drivers credit for what they do. I drove a car off the top level of a carrier once...the narrow ramps made for a nervous ride.

I saw the crankshaft nut with ears referred to as a 'starting jaw' in one of my Mopar parts books.

Thank you. It took a while but I made it.

I'm surprised that they shipped new cars with the hubcaps installed. I remember seeing new cars on carriers as far back as the early 1960's without them.