69 GS California in Superior WI

[Craig Gerlach]

Just traded off my 2001 Mercury Cougar ZN for this GS project.
Has a running 455 smogger form a 73 GS and correct GS455 ram air filter assembly.
Pretty optioned out, suspension package, disc brakes, AC, POSI, tilt, rear sway bar, cruise, remote mirror, lighted rear view, wide 15" factory mags.
Need quite a bit of body work, 1 rocker rusty, rear window leaked and rusted trunk, wheel wells, lower rear quarters. Floors still have paint underneath, frame is good, lots of potential. Hoping to find a donor car, the lip for seal at trunk edge is pretty crispy, could make one if I have to, rather cut from donor though... Needs wiring tweaked a bit, someone who knew little had their hands in there, ran power to the temp sender wire because car wouldn't start without, solenoid was issue, put high torque replacement in there to solve that issue, been offered $3500 the way she sits and person would pay me to work out everything mechanical and electrical on her, tempted, but if I toss a grand at it and do the work myself, have a 10k ride...
Anyhow, new to your forum, came in to say hi... Hi...

[bob k. mando]

69 Cali GS upgraded to 455 power? niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.

[Craig Gerlach]

So far installed new points, high torque starter, battery, and she fired right up.
Crawled underneath and started to install 2.25 exhaust front to back, ordered Thrush welded mufflers, then find out nearly everything in pipes comes in 2.5"...
Get the 2.5 attached to the 2" down pipes and mufflers hanging correct location, notice rear springs ready to fall out, they had air bad set up and wore them out, ordered springs for 70 Catalina with 400# more load capacity and 133# spring rate, reduced from stock, should still give soft ride with tools in trunk.
Then this weekend find deal locally on a set of Hooker Super Comps for $150, ordered up collectors, bolts, gaskets, and the only tail pipes I could find at the time, Flowmaster SS in 2.5", the mufflers have enough flow rate that I doubt this 4' section of 2.5 will make much difference but wish had gone 2.5" from the start.
I see charts all over saying 2.5" is way to go and recall my 69 GTO with 400 hp ran fine with the 2.125" and actual mufflers...
Anyhow going to look for deal on Edelbrock performer to keep air cleaner in correct orientation for snorkel, and upgrade cam when I do get intake to really make her breath, still smogger heads, but seen reports of them still putting out decent HP and allowing use of regular grade pump gas to keep cruise costs down.
She had a little flat spot tapping on throttle in garage so ordered rebuild kit for Q-jet, correct 800 cfm is still on her, also ordered foamies for snorkel and wheel cylinder to fix the brakes. Still have to hunt for some 225/70-15s then can at least take her for a beat and see if anything else is required... getting there...

Headers ended up being the TA 2" primary header units, could not find 2" primary listed in any other brand so think that is what they must be...

[Craig Gerlach]

Found a complete set of 1231786 heads for $150 shipped and a 71 intake for $70 shipped to get rid of smogger components.
If these are not big valve heads will I notice anything without swapping pistons? the CC of these 73 heads aren't too bad, they must have a dished piston if the compression ratio is so much lower.
Also the 69 page for production has no reference at all for the California GS, I didn't even see it in the printable option sheet, what gives there, they were more rare than a normal GS if only 3517 made...

[yachtsmanbill]

Just a for instance on those heads: the 1970 455 had a 68cc combustion chamber enlarged to a 69 or70cc for 71 & 72, the in 1973 went about a 75cc chamber. This numbers are only from memory so take it for what its worth; compression dropped accordingly. Know any Von Reidels in Superior? Looking for my long lost friend Franz?? Bill in windy Two Rivers in Wisc.

[Craig Gerlach]

Just a for instance on those heads: the 1970 455 had a 68cc combustion chamber enlarged to a 69 or70cc for 71 & 72, the in 1973 went about a 75cc chamber. This numbers are only from memory so take it for what its worth; compression dropped accordingly. Know any Von Reidels in Superior? Looking for my long lost friend Franz?? Bill in windy Two Rivers in Wisc.

Date of Birth	Address
04-1978	2126 Water St #206, Duluth, MN 55812-2154 Sound about correct age? Did a search for name you inquired about, name was familiar but did not know.

[Craig Gerlach]

I had a huge update here, wrote for 20 minutes on all the progress, it showed autosaved, then submitted, said wasn't logged in, logged in, took me to blank page, refreshed it had a reply with all the recent updates on entire forum... I did lots... lots.. thousand in parts... not typing it all again...

[bob k. mando]

yeah, it's best to use Control+A ( select all ) and then Control+C ( copy ) before hitting post. then you don't have to worry about posting errors.

if the post fails because "not enough characters", then simply hit Control+V ( paste ) and everything from the clipboard goes right back into the posting area.

[Craig Gerlach]

Took off smogger to install the B4B intake and found a rusty cam and lobes almost touching next lifter.
No clue on how cam could walk back so far, some say to check distributor gear, but ordered a Comp cam 268H kit and installing that, along with some additive for the oil for breakin. Had installed an Accel pointless kit into her and found bad vac advance and wire to coil was spliced and only few strands connecting, so likely reason for poor performance.
Also EGR on old smogger was partially open allowing gasses to mix into intake, would not smoke tires going 30 mph when tromped on with 3.90 rears so knew something was up. Low compression engine so about as big of cam as I thought should go, keeping stock valve train and rebuilding pump while apart, installing electric fans same time, 1 on all the time and 1 when tem reaches 200 and back off at 185...
Hope this post makes it, will copy and be ready for another goof up like last time here... was much more to update, try this first...

[Craig Gerlach]

Installed an all Moog front end with 5400 springs, and used poly bushings on upper and lower, sway bar pins and mount, sits up nice in front now, had issues in rear with the springs chosen and installed cargo coil instead, set of KYB mono-tubes all around and some UMI trailing arms in back and an alignment, handles much better,
Had to recheck torque on all pivot points, few were loose some too tight going by guessing, made big different using stock torque specs, no more funky feeling down bumpy roads or cornering, hard to explain, knew something was off, the recheck paid off.
2" primary TA headers installed with Thrush welded knockoffs and 2.5" stainless tailpipes and sounds pretty tough and nice and quiet inside even with carpet pulled out.
After the cam gets installed should have most of mechanical done, looking for donor lower air cleaner to insert an offset base for the B4B to align air cleaner to hood scoops, might have one off a truck, just cut and weld in base and bolt on front air intake, should match up pretty well as you can't see base while assembly is mounted up...
Som Poston aluminum valve covers topping off valve train and will have the classic 80s upgrade look to her...
Installed all new Timken bearings and used super-lube synth grease on them and rest of front end, glad did so as there maybe was a tablespoon of grease between both sides of bearings in her, poor job by whomever did it last, no more soap based grease for me...

Found some faster secondary metering rods, I had the fat crayon tipped ones and found a set of thinner pencil tipped ones, should give her a boost in fuel when secondaries kick in, think they were EK rods.