1973 Monte Carlo S

[hetman]

July 25, time for another cruise with the Lowrider Polska CC.







...the real Brokeback Mountain pickup showed up.



August 1, a family outing. First, a stop to let the wifey get her dose of coffee (notice how the kids are lulled to sleep by the hum of the 454:







...and on to watch the international bike race "Tour de Pologne" coming through Warsaw.





...somebody thinks it's appropriate to use the Monte's roof as a trash bin!



Matthew rather proud of "his" Monte.



August 22, Christian likes the Monte too!

[twomanymontes]

Nice to see the Monte out Mike!!! The boys are cute and trust me, it won't be long before they start asking for the keys!!

[twomanymontes]

And d**n!!! That Duelly is sweet!!!!! Almost like the one I used to drive..

[hetman]

Nov 19, 2010 22:04:24 GMT -5 twomanymontes said:

And d**n!!! That Duelly is sweet!!!!! Almost like the one I used to drive..

Oh, so the Brokeback Mountain pickup is "sweet" is it?! LOL... j/k. ;D Actually, the owner had it only a couple weeks before someone popped some BB caps into the windshield. So much for the advantage of having a famous movie car.

[twomanymontes]

Mike, I have a thing for duallies. I used to have one as a company vehicle years ago and have always wanted to buy one since, but all I can afford is the die cast versions, LOL! And that is the real truck from that movie? I never saw the movie, so I wouldn't know. How did it end up there? Shame some A-Hole had to shoto the windshield, Either way, I like the truck!

[hetman]

I agree, that is one bad-a$$ truck and I have nothing against it even if it was used in a 5-minute scene in a movie. I haven't seen the movie either but the owner likes American vehicles and sort of uses it as an advertising prop for his American restaurant. He found it on ebay and he has a picture taped to the right rear side window showing its role in the film. It is too bad somebody shot up the windshield because the truck is in perfect shape!

[x]

Hey Mike,

GREAT pics ... and good to "see" you again. Hope all is well.



Cort | 37.m.IL.pigValve.pacemaker | 5 Monte Carlos + 1 Caprice Classic |* 06/2011.RT=us66+NW USA*
MCs.CC + CHD.models.HO.legos.RadioShows + RoadTrips.us66 = www.chevyasylum.com/cort
"Never settle for the path of least resistance" ... Lee Ann Womack ... 'I Hope You Dance'

[hetman]

Thanks, Cort. We are grateful to the Lord for what He has given us. We are healthy and have food and shelter. Even shelter for the Montes!

[x]

You are welcome.

Health, food, shelter (and shelter for the MCs) ... simply awesome.



Cort | 37.m.IL.pigValve.pacemaker | 5 Monte Carlos + 1 Caprice Classic |* Chicagoland Meets, 2011?
*** 3rd GEN MC (1978,1979,1980) FORUM RE-LAUNCH > thirdgenmontes.proboards.com/index.cgi ***
"May your days be merry and bright" ... Irving Berlin/Bing Crosby ... 'White Christmas'

[hetman]

Well, I don't seem to have much time to post pics here of late, but here's one from this weekend's cruise with our local club the Lowriders. It was a night cruise and I'm rarely able to participate in them because of the family, kids, etc. But it was really exciting to drive the old gal around the city again!! We had a turnout of about 12 old classics and we had a lot of fun. On the way home there were some challengers, as usual, but no winners except the Monte. I found out that my Monte will absolutely trounce a Subaru WRX STI. Repeatedly....LOL. I guess the little Sube's weight advantage is not enough to counter my torque advantage...LOL. And that's with a stock 2.73 posi rear.

[85t5mcss]

That pic almost looks like hydros on it. Please tell me that is just the torque making it squat in the rear. If it is, I'm jealous.

[hetman]

Rest assured, as long as I own this car it will never sport hydraulics or even airbags. There are only 4 true lowrider cars in the country as far as I can tell, and 3 of them are in this club. I like this crew because they are cool and love American cars; it's more of a group of friends than a dedicated Lowrider gang. In any case, the Monte is squatting due to pedal to the metal acceleration. I've never seen my own car while accelerating, of course, because I'm always driving it, and neither can I get a feeling for how it squats from the driver's seat. But the picture is impressive!! Notice how the headlight is shining through the burnt rubber of the car in front of me, which was a peg-leg boattail Riv. I solidly stomped that car at the first stop light of the cruise, just because he thought having a 455 meant he was the $hizzat. But he wasn't...LOL. He never tried again, but at many stoplights he did the one-legged foot-on-brake burnout to improve the air quality for the onlookers. My car does look like it is hopping...LOL. The cruise was fun and we had a good number of slick muscle cars and cruisers. It's just so fun to cruise around in these old cars; I feel like we're in some kind of parade with long-forgotten vehicles, even UFOs because over here people have rarely if ever had a chance to see such cars.

[85t5mcss]

Impressive. You definitely have my vote. And thanks for sharing the pics. I recall that Riv in the earlier pics, too. Nice.

So, gotta ask, how much is fuel/petrol for u guys now? We had soared to about $4.30/US Gallon and sitting at about $3.70/US Gallon right now.

[twomanymontes]

That is an awesome Picture Mike!! And I'm shocked you can't get a feel for it, It looks like it's about to pull the front wheels off the ground. Glad to see you have had it out cruising, Mine has left the garage 3 times this year. Hopefully in 2 weeks, we'll be going to Super Chevy at Maplegrove PA.

Gas is at $3.70 here for regular.

[hetman]

Well, I do get a feel for how the car slams me back in the seat every time I hit the gas! I just have no way to know how high the front lifts. Gas is running right around $8/gal for high test here. Here's a short clip with my Monte featuring prominently. A nicely restored old Mercedes diesel cruised with us that night.

tvpw.pl/videos/403/Swietojanski_Night_Cruzing

[drix76]

Jun 27, 2011 5:49:40 GMT -5 hetman said:

Well, I don't seem to have much time to post pics here of late, but here's one from this weekend's cruise with our local club the Lowriders. It was a night cruise and I'm rarely able to participate in them because of the family, kids, etc. But it was really exciting to drive the old gal around the city again!! We had a turnout of about 12 old classics and we had a lot of fun. On the way home there were some challengers, as usual, but no winners except the Monte. I found out that my Monte will absolutely trounce a Subaru WRX STI. Repeatedly....LOL. I guess the little Sube's weight advantage is not enough to counter my torque advantage...LOL. And that's with a stock 2.73 posi rear.

I love that picture!!

But I have to ask, who doesnt know how to drive the STi? Or did you do something new to your Monte? Those little turbo buggers are quick..

[twomanymontes]

Welcome back Drix, Been a wihile!

[hetman]

Hey Drix!! Nice to see you, stranger! About that little Sube... I beat him fair and square, and I have no way of knowing if he was a good driver or not, but on the other hand why shouldn't a warmed-over big block hand his ass to him? I've beaten every single car (and motorcycle) that's challenged me so far, so I've never considered that a puny STI would be able to beat me. I just step on the gas and go! Actually, the closest any car has ever come to challenging me was one the way home from that same Lowrider cruise, and it was some kind of sleeper, dirty and raggedy looking 30-year old Opel Monza en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel_Senator which were the fastest Opels produced 30 years ago, available with 3.0 liter engines and 5-speed transmissions. But this one was almost certainly souped up and I believe from the way he accelerated, had a turbo as well. I still beat him, but he managed to stay remarkably close to me until about 110-120 mph, when the Monte still had plenty of gearing to run away from him. So, to answer your question, I haven't done anything extra to my car but it is pretty d**n fast.


Here's a post from a couple days ago on Wicked Montes:

"OK, it's summer time, it's hot and I have a problem with overheating. This problem reared its ugly head last summer when I repaired a slow leak in the intake manifold to water nozzle gasket but at the same time I bypassed the heater core (by routing the water line right back to the engine instead of going back behind the firewall into the heater core and back) because it had also started leaking into the interior of the car. There are no leaks anymore but now the car overheats and pretty badly in slow traffic in the summer heat. It's OK as long as I'm driving along in the heat but as soon as I slow down or drive in the city (usually lots of traffic) it gets up to 210 pretty easily and then starts to head toward 220 or slightly more if I don't start moving. By my estimates (and I believe the guage is reading correctly), I've never seen it above 230 but that's way too hot in my opinion. Especially considering before I made the repairs, it never once touched 210, even with heavy traffic and high outside temps. In other words, when I bypassed the heater core, something happened. I don't know what, but I'd definitely love to fix this problem because I don't want to ruin the nice 454 in this car. So what could be the source of this problem? I've read that sometimes air pockets can get inside the cooling system. So how does one rid the system of these air pockets, if this is the problem? My thermostat is 195 degrees, by the way, and perhaps I should go to a 180 (I believe that would be the proper temperature, but the car had a 160 in it, I believe, so I replaced it). I think I have a 180 somewhere so I'll change it, but surely that alone wouldn't make the car overheat so badly! And I have a very large, nearly new 4-core aluminum radiator, so that shouldn't be the problem either. As I said, before I messed with the car last year, it never ever touched 210."

And my response today:

Sweet wifey sent me to pick up my oldest son today from day care (along with an additional request to wash her dirty Focus....not to mention taking the youngest son along with me!!) so I decided instead to drive to the garage and get the Monte and pick up my son and go to the in-laws and work on it instead. Besides, that gave me a chance to get the adrenaline pumping and cruise the old gal around the city a bit....LOL. So I cruised around a bit, picked up my son and drove both of them to the in-laws and tried to do some work on the Monte while looking after two curious little boys. At least they were trying to "help" daddy unbolt the lug nuts, among other things. One day they will be helpful and I appreciate their efforts but of course trying to baby sit a 2 and 4 year old while fighting off mosquitoes and working on cars doesn't lead to a very productive evening. Anyway, my father in law and I did manage to run new brake fluid through the lines and bleed the brakes. They work significantly better now; there was a trace of air in both front lines. I've always suspected they weren't 100% but they weren't bad. So the previous owner did a poor job years ago. I noticed a couple other things, like the front axle grease caps are missing! Funny I never saw that before, but the hub caps do a decent job of keeping them clean, since I almost never get the car dirty I guess it's not so detrimental to the longevity of the car. So that's something else I need to buy for the Monte. And while the front end was lifted, I decided to open up the cooling system and try to run the engine to get some possible air bubbles out. The coolant was slightly low in the radiator and I topped it off, ran the engine and sealed it back up. I don't know yet if there's any difference in how hot it runs but I'll find out next time I drive it, but I hope it made a difference. Eventually I'll put in a 180 thermostat but I don't think that was the real problem. In any case, it was good to be able to do some maintenance work on the old gal to make sure she's tip-top. On the way back home to the garage, some useless turd-head in a new Civic decided to shoot me a birdie, for who knows what reason. Uptight, jealous f*g**t.... LOL. Some people can't handle their inadequacies and psychological issues, I guess. For less than what he paid for that ricer, he could have bought a real car...

Dave, to answer your previous question about my younger brother, he graduated from West Point in 1992, went to flight school at Fort Rucker in Alabama, flew helicopters for the Army for a couple years and then transferred to the Air Force because he wanted to fly more and better helicopters. So until he got a desk job at the Pentagon a year ago, he's basically been flying Pave-Lows in Special Ops and then oversaw the Osprey program until they replaced the Pave-Lows a couple years ago.

[twomanymontes]

Mike, As for your overheating issue, the fan clutch. You said it cools down when you start to move, that tells me that there is no airflow through the radiator. It should spin with resistance when the engine is off, but then lock when it gets hot.

Get grease caps!!! the hubcaps may keep the dirt out, but moisture can still get in and attack the bearing surfaces.

And thanks for the info on your brother, It's been so long that I forgot I even asked about him, LOL! Glad to hear he has a career and PLEASE thank him for serving!

[hetman]

My little brother is as hard-core as a special ops officer can get, and a serious patriot as well. I'm proud of him and will pass on your wishes to him!

Thanks for the tips. I hadn't thought of the fan clutch because I've never experienced that problem before. I just thought it would be a strange coincidence for another part of the car to break down at the exact same time I worked on the cooling system. I checked it a couple days ago and it spins with some resistance when the engine is off. How do you tell if it's locking up properly at high temperatures? I guess the problem could be the thermostat I installed but since it was new, I didn't think it was bad. But as you said, the car runs cooler at speed and in lower temperature conditions, so it does seem that the radiator is not getting air flow at low speeds.

I need to find someone in the US to order me those grease caps because I can't imagine running a car without them. I simply hadn't noticed they were missing before.

[twomanymontes]

Mike, If you get the car hot, rev the engine and see if you feel any flow from the fan. If it's free wheeling, you won't feel any. You can always swap one from the other car and see if the issue goes away.