Here comes the Judge, my 69 GTO

quietsailor

Mrs_XB is such a brilliant helper it'll definitely be worth having her seal of approval on the car

Daved_XB

Despite it being over 30 deg yesterday I decided to put up with the extreme heat in the garage & rip the interior out of the car

I figured that the 54 year old sound deadening fitted by Pontiac back in the day was probably a bit shite... I was right, it's so brittle it just crumbled as I touched it

In went my shiny new dynamat flooring, hopefully this will help with come of the floor vibration & help keep Mrs_XB on side 

Daved_XB

I was out driving the other day & a mate was following me & he told me that my rear lights where not working correctly at all, so I've replaced the rear loom now & also fitted new earth straps as lets face it nearly all electrical/light issues on old cars are an earth issue. Added all new bulbs for reasons.

Daved_XB

I'm not happy with the braking performance of the car, considering the upgraded disks & callipers I expected more. Now it's not dangerous, the brakes work fine but they take a lot of effort to use & as I said don't pull the car up as fast as I want.

As it feels like I need to use more leg power than I should & it feels like the assistance drops off after the first few mm of pedal travel. I figured that the cam profile is obviously limiting the amount of vacuum being produced, I hooked up a vac gauge & yes, the can produces 3/5's of 5/8's of F-All vacuum at idle... so this is my issue, I'm effectively running manual brakes as there is no vac assist coming from the engine due to the intake/exhaust overlap from the cam grind profile.

 I've had this before in cars & the normal go to fix is to simple plumb in a vac tank that will store vacuum from the engine for the brake booster to draw from... I've done this before & I don't want to just do that again.

I actually have somewhere in the shed an electric vacuum pump from a hybrid car to supply the constant vacuum as they clearly have an issue with ICE supplied vacuum from time to time, I tossed around the idea of installing that in the engine bay.

But I've always wanted to play with a hydroboost setup so I figured this was the time to do that, in a nut shell a hydroboost setup is a hydraulic system that is plumbed into your power steering setup & it uses the hydraulic pressure from that system to provide the brake boost when needed.

It'll be interesting to see just how "bolt in" the 1969 GTO Bolt In kit ends up being....

Daved_XB

I've just been driving this car & loving it, but it's time to do some more small jobs to her.... after all a project is never finished. I've had some fun chasing a good tune on the carb so I've decided that I need to know how it's running from an AFR point of view. To that end I'm going to fit an senser to the exhaust so I can see exactly how lean or rich she's running. 

Now that I have the gauge out of the box, I'm not happy with the style of the face of it... I don't think I can install it next to the other gauges, I don't think it would look good here.

​​​​​​​Maybe I can install it further under the dash so it can't really be seen unless you're actually looking for it?

​​​​​​​Or I guess I could install it in the glove box so that it's hidden unless I want to open the glove box & look at it when tuning, I mean in theory once tuned I shouldn't need to be looking at the gauge constantly like I would with say the oil pressure gauge 

The other option I guess... is I can get another gauge, this time get the same brand & style as to the other gauges I have already

Krombopulos Michael

if the cost isnt too much, i'd get the replacement gauge in the same style as you would be much happier with that. Otherwise, further under the dash would be my option. I'd avoid the glovebox as do you really want to be cutting into it for a gauge?.

Daved_XB

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121071688#Comment_121071688

The inner plastic liner of the glovebox is already cracked & chipped so it's not big a deal I don't think to put a hole in it for the wiring.

Daved_XB

Ok, so a while back I bought a restored His n' Her Hurst shifter that would have been an option for this car... it came with a cheap black shift knob 

I finally got around to getting myself a genuine Hurst shift knob.... don't ask what that cost, it doesn't matter as I didn't want to eat this week anyway 

It's so worth it... the white really pops in the cabin... sometimes it's the little details