Seriously? That thing is junk. I've driven the V6 and V8 models and they're varying degrees of dogshit. Too bad, cuz it looks tits. The new Mustang wipes the floor with it.
Am I the only one that thinks those new Camaros look like crap? This picture isn't my old Camaro, but it looks just like it (Except mine didn't have the bumble bee stripe around the nose, it was just all red.) Last I heard, my ex still has the car and I'm still kicking myself for letting her get it in the break up. 1968 RS/SS (Mine was a real factory RS, but only a clone RS/SS.)
Not a Camaro, but I spent the better part of my early 20's restoring this. I like the old ones better than the new Challenger's too. While I'm not a "Mopar Guy" by any stretch of the imagination, I have always loved the plum crazy 71's. It was actually the first mopar I ever built. Up until then it had been everything from Mazda RX-7's to Corvettes, to Jaguar XKE's and MGB's with my dad. Oh, and it wasn't quite finished in that picture. Still needed a few small trim pieces and other bits. It's also gotten a completely new drivetrain since then.
I've never really had to much loyalty to a certain brand, but I've always leaned towards Mopars. My first car was a '70 340 Duster that my grandfather and I rebuilt. Since then I've had a number of Chevy's, Ford's, 300ZX's, Toyota's, and a couple of RX7's (I really love those RX's, they're a kick in the ass to drive.) I still haven't owned the car I really want...a Sublime Green '70 340 Demon. Here's my last Mopar that I sold about 4 years ago: A '74 Duster with a 440 and a narrowed rear end. (No, I didn't build it, I just bought it.) That girl was a beast and barely streetable. I might of put 100 miles on it before I sold it. Like my old Impala it spent about a year sitting in the garage. It was fast as hell, but had all the comfort of a earthmover with cement tires. I'm too old for that shit. But it sure was a kick in the ass to shove my foot to the floor and feel that thing hook up. God, now I miss it.
A little insight, if you will; I have a 98 Grand Am and I took it to a friend of a friend for a few repairs. He said he had it idling this morning, and he looked over after 5 minutes and it was pissing fluid everywhere. He said it was the heater core(?) and that the book said it was a roughly 7 hour job and would cost upwards of $700. Just wondering if anyone can give me any insight into what it would cost for this kind of job.
That sounds about right. Heater cores are usually a bitch and a half to get to, and once it's replaced, you have to put the car back together.
The heater core resides somewhere behind your glove box. I'm not familiar with your car, but crawl under the passenger side dash and take a peek up there and gauge for yourself how difficult it might be. It's the big round canister. Usually when a heater core goes bad it ends up dumping coolant all over your passenger side floor. Have you been using radiator stop leak? That's one of the most common reasons I've seen for heater cores to go bad and dump fluid "Everywhere." It gums up the core and the coolant finds an escape route if it can't circulate freely...thus spilling everywhere instead of just on the floor.
7 hours seems like an estimate for a mechanic. I've assisted on two of these and on small passengers cars its a bitch. You need to take apart a bunch of shit just to be able to get your hands in there. Have a digital camera handy to document your progress so you can figure out how everything goes back together. Most connectors are designed so they only fit into a specific receptacle but where the wires run is just as important. You don't want to finish the job, turn over the motor and then smell burning plastic because something is melting against an exhaust manifold. Obviously grab a Haynes manual or something along those lines. Invest in a can of PB Blaster. Depending on where you live this might be absolutely necessary to finishing the job. All those bolts and screws have been sitting together for 12 years... they usually don't like coming apart easily, especially when you mix in water, salt, etc over the years. A quick spray, a 5 minute beer break, and you'll be able to loosen the fasteners much much easier. Living in the Northeast I buy this shit by the case.
As everyone else has said on here, 7 hours is a pretty good estimate. Heater cores replacement generally take a mechanic all day, which includes most the time of taking your dash off. On a 97-04 Ford F150 the book time is 8.5 hours, and roughly 150 screws to take out. But when heater cores go, as someone has already said on here, it generally doesn't start pissing everyone, just starts leaking on the interior of the car.
As far as Australian cars go , the Ford XY GTHO Falcon (Phase 3) is THE quintessential muscle car and a manly one at that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Falcon_GTHO_Phase_III
mahahaha , the words "dodge" "tranny" "reliable" should never be used in the same sentence. I only got 18 seconds in before i was laughing. I was listening for if it had a flux capacitor, but i most of missed it.
Re: The Motorcycle Thread I don't think I'll ever outgrow absolutely smoking someone off the line, through a bunch of double lane twisty turns, and then leaving them completely behind as the road drops down to one lane and stays straight as a runway for over a mile. Put my Saab Viggen Stg 2.5 back on the road this week and blew off some restlessness this afternoon. The victims this time were a couple of wiggers in a Cobalt SS. Not the most impressive kill, but it's still early in the season.
Just me again (1998 Grand Am) My driver side window sticks when doing down and coming back up. I literally have to pull it up in order to make sure no one can reach into my car. I was wondering what the part is called so I can look into it getting replaced. Thanks in advance.
Rip the door apart, clean the tracks and parts, re-grease it, and I'd bet it works pretty close to perfect, unless the motor is already burned out.
Yeah, what Nettdata said. The longer you keep using it the way it is (stressing out the motor), the sooner you will have to replace the motor. Obviously the motor is good, otherwise it wouldn't work at all. It is just getting too stressed out. I'm in the process of doing the same thing to my car.