I picked her up in the spring of 2001, she had been sitting in a driveway with a cheap tarp over her for the past 5 or 6 years.  She looked bad to the owner, but to me she looked beautiful.  I knew the owner and asked if  she could be convinced into selling it, and she said she would love to get it out of her driveway.

Not knowing much about cars I started into reading as much as I could, and joined a few Torino forums to immerse myself in Torinoism. After asking the same questions over and over, and questions which I had no reason to ask as finances weren't there for any of the mods I was thinking, I started actually doing stuff on the car.

First to be bought was a B&M starshifter from a local shop in town, which I also purcahsed a edelbrock performer manifold from as well. This was the first mistake, as buying speed parts for a car that isn't yet on the road doesn't get it closer to driving, but we are all young and stupid once, and that's what I am good at doing. After a year of the parts sitting in my room being not installed I got around to installing most of the shifter, and had it operational enough that I could move the car if I needed. The car sat outside in my backyard for another year before I questioned about the intake manifold which had yet to be installed, and was able to get the shop I bought it from to take it back and let me upgrade to the RPM air gap. However his quote changed from the day I ordered it, to the day I picked it up, and was charged another $200, for a total of around $600CDN so that was the last time I dealt with that particular buisness. Started buying parts from Summit in the states, and driving to the border to save brokerage fees, works out about 40% cheaper not including gas to get there. Picked up a carb, and installed both it and the intake, and everything went failry smoothly for my first manifold change.

Tinkered with the car, but never drove it at all, as it was still pending a safety inspection of which i was going to fix a few things before I tried getting that done. The car needed some rust holes fixed in the body, and floor, as well as new tires, a power steering pump seal and a few other tidbits like windshield wipers ect. Anything you'd replace on a car that hasn't been used in a while. The girlfriend found me a chiltons auto repair manual that covers all american vehicles from 68 to 75 so I tackled rebuilding the power steering pump which after almost loosing a few of the springs, went all back together wonderful. Sometime in this year I purchased a set of race seats as I felt the bench seat didn't fit the sportyness I wanted the car to portray, should have got buckets from another car and re-covered them, but hindsight is allways 20/20. The car was stored for another winter, this time it was towed to my grandma's house 45 min away

I was hoping to get her on the road by 2003 but that didn't happen. It's now 2004 and I've decided I am going to do the minimum amount of work needed to get the car saftied, insured and driving. Then I will be able to enjoy the car, and when I add more parts I will be able to know what difference they made if any.

Well that plan didn't really work, ended up spending the summer doing bodywork on the car, and not what I would call minimal anything. It's November of 2004, the car is all primered, interior almost all back together and the car is going to be stored again for the winter. Thankfully the weather co-operated enough to get all the priming done, but either the job was too big for one man, or i didn't put in long enough days.

I tried finding the source of a ticking noise in the engine, it appears to be valvetrain related, and not sure what the problem is. Removed the rockers and found the pushrod balls on a few of the pushrods to be worn pretty bad, so figured that the extra play may have been the cause of the noise. Replaced the rockers with higher lift ones from Comp Cams, and some new pushrods, and bought some washers and lock nuts to make the rockers adjustable on the positive stop studs. Noise didn't go away.

I got to drive the car on a transfer permit to it's storage place 45 miles away, and boy was that a white knucle ride. The old 75 series rubber was pretty soft and not much for the stability department, and all the soft rubber suspension makes for a handful. Apparently cars in this era that didn't have todays radial tires were set up for less caster than that of todays cars, and as the tires flexed going down the highway it added caster and they then handled better. However this car had been fitted with radials, and driving a car with negative caster is something new to me, feather light steering, and completely lacking feedback. Also found I have some engine problems with premature powerloss, stalling, a very loud ticking in the motor, and backfires ect, so have some tuning issues still. Had a tire blow out on the highway as well, fun stuff. But I did get to drive it :)

Well i figured out a bit of the problem, apparently when you remove the egr system from a vehicle you need to re-tune the vaccuum canister on the distributor, as it creates more/less vaccuum than it did before. When checking the timing the car ran alot better so i left the line plugged this time. I still have valvetrain noise after re-setting the rockers, and found a shiny ring around the bottom of the press in studs which leads me to belive that the studs might be pulling out. Hoping the noise is just a lifter related problem, gonna replace the lifters and see if the noise goes away.

Found a machine shop that will do the head work I might need, not cheap however. Still hoping that i won't need any machining but the shiny rings make me wonder, hopefully I will have time to get out to the car and snap a few pictures to confirm my suspisions.

I have been told now that if the lifters are sticking or defective you can dissasemble and clean them, so since it is cheaper than buying new ones, that is now the plan. Went and pulled the intake and got the lifters out, went pretty smoothly, put them all in an egg carton labeled so I knew where each one would go back in. Went to lift the egg carton and the bottom gave out under the weight, so now i need to buy at least 6 new ones, as I don't know where they go. The cleaning is seeming to go smoothly, and I will mark them with a felt tipped pen now to make sure there arn't any further mix ups. Also when I was out at the car I looked long and hard at the studs, and I really don't think they are pulling out, the ring I thought I saw on the bottoms was slightly discolored but not shiny, so that hopefully meens that won't be needing to get done

Found two lifters with concave faces, not noticealbe other than when held up against another lifters body, now it has been brought to my attention that that would meen that possibly the cam is worn and needing replacement. So now I have another delema, replace the cam and lifters with an aftermarket set that has little to no increase in performance over the stock peice, or go with something beefier and risk the studs pulling out, or throw in the old lifters and the few replacements (8) I need and hope that the cam is ok, and won't eat a lifter, or the new lifter won't eat the cam. I'm thinking the best option would be to pull the heads, get the machinework done, and get the bigger camshaft and have it all done. But with the good luck I've had so far, the heads will need more than the minimal work which I don't have funds for at the moment.

Went and tried checking the cam with a dial gauge, mounted it in the lifter valley, and had a hard time getting in line with the lifters, so moved it to the head, and used a pushrod to actuate the dial, strangely I couldn't get that to work either as everything of the dial gauge/mag base seemed loose. Upon closer inspection I noticed that 3 of the 4 screws in the back of the dial gauge had come completely out on the tools first use. Found one stuck to the magnetic base, but the other two are who knows where, not visible in the lifter valley. Went and complained to the store I got the tool from and they had me go get a quote on how much it would be to go looking for the screws. I've been told as long as the mesh on my oil pickup for the pump is fine everything should be ok, but if it isn't it could seize the oil pump. Fun thing is that the engine needs to be jacked up out of the vehicle to get the oil pan off too.

A week after turning in my quote for the work, I got a call. They said with a quote like that they figured they should cover everything, and on Monday I am to go pick up a check to cover the whole cost. Quite pleased with thier buisness practice as I was was doubtful they would pay any more than half if any at all. The buisness is Princess Auto, and I am pleased they are so easy to deal with, and therefore figured they could stand the free publicity for anyone that checks my site.

Went and picked up the hood and started on the bodywork to make the hood look somewhat like the cowl was on there originally. Hopefully I can find someone with a digicam to take some progress pictures. So far the hood is coming along horribly, figure it's going to look pretty bad, so I might make a mold of it and replicate it intirely in fiberglass once I'm done.

Ordered up the lifters and intake gasket today. The lifters are melling, and cost $1 more each than the no-name brand, and the intake gasket is another felpro, but i'm not sure which #.

Went out and installed the lifters and intake gasket, I had to remove the intake again after I torqued it as the cork endseals had squished out at the back, so applied just rtv as before, so hopefully the insurance rtv around the water passages was still tacky enough to do it's job sealing. Put some of the comp break in lube that came with the rockers on the mating face of the lifters, but doubt it would still be there after turning it over to set the rockers. Also turned it over a couple times to measure cam lift, and with the lifers installed, the questionable lobe (the one that had the concave lifter) had .254" of lift compared to .257" of another, could be the difference in lifters, or the angle the gauge was mounted at. My book says that the 351's are supposed to have .260" so i think it's in good shape, although the base circle of the cam could be worn as much as the rest still giving the same difference in lift but that seems unlikely.

So now the plan is to get to take it to a shop and have them pull the oil pan to make sure the mesh on the pickup is still in good condition (which the cost has been covered), and I'll get them to prime the oil system and break in the lifters at the same time so I can drive the car home.

Got the car back from the shop, they pulled the oil pan but found no screw, they broke in the lifters but there still is a noise I think shouldn't be there, but they didn't mention anything about it. They checked over the rest of the car and only found a few things awry. One of the rear brake cylinders is sticking or locking up, the rear brake hose from the body to the axle is pretty rotten, when you run your hand along it it comes up black, so I'll replace that asap. They also said the upper control arm bushings in the rear are getting pretty soft but I havn't been able to find rubber uppers, so most likely will get the polyurithane bushings from Energy Suspension, as thier kit has uppers. It sure is nice to have the car home, and hopefully I can get these parts in and on the car in the next week so I can enjoy it for some of the summer.

Took the car in for an official saftey today after replacing the wheel cylinders and brake hose, and repairing an oil leak caused by the stock oil pressure sending unit, a new one fixed that up. The garage checked over the car more thouroughly (sp?) and found that I need a new master cylinder, and that the bearing in my water pump is making a not good noise, and a few indicator lamps in the car arn't working. The lamps are probalby burnt out bulbs or bad connections but the new master cylinder and water pump are kinda bigger deals. Anyway, ordered the master cylinder for tommorow and picked up a water pump today, so will probably start on that sometime, but it's not really that small of a job. So now it will be at least next week before I can get it back to the shop for them to write off that I have fixed everything and then will be able to insure it.

Got the water pump and master cylinder on and the few bulbs that were burnt out all replaced. Took the car to the shop and got saftey sheet, so no all I need to do is go and get the insurance to drive the car.

She is insured!! Went down and got insurance on Aug 7th, and attended the downtown cruize night that night, was a blast lots of people stopped and chatted about the car, and got alot of positive comments.

Found a bunch of "hiccups" with the motor, tried adjusting the float level and couldn't get the secondary bowl level set so tried taking out the clear sight plug only to have it break off. Found that the adjusting nut was stripped on the inside so while adjusting the nut it was not actually adjusting the level of the float, which is why I couldn't get it set correctly. Now that that is set right I seem to have a miss or something, so gonna try the regular tune up items, new plugs wires ect to see if I can get that gone. Might also be timing related as I have not re-curved the distributor or anything. So we will see how that goes

Headers arrived, and after a bunch of hassles with the border, finally got them. A great guy who goes by DutchD on the Torino boards sent them to me absolutely free of charge, he even paid shipping, and also sent a TON of 3" exhaust peices to fab up a full 3" exhaust. He had dealt with the same trouble of finding long tube headers for the 351W/c6 combo, and had got these shortie headman headers, but was upgrading to a custom made set (big $$$) and had finished making a 3" exhaust for his car, so had a bunch of spare pieces left over. With the pieces he sent i was able to make a 3" system back to a x pipe which i fabbed, and then into the flowmaster 3" to 2 1/2" cone reducers (also sent free) into some cheap mufflers i had laying around, then dumped right after the mufflers. The mufflers are 3 chamber stock type pieces so it's not REALLY loud, but it sounds muscley that's for sure. Thanks a bunch to Dutch for sending me all this stuff. Still havn't got a digital camera to take a decent set of pictures to show him how it turned out yet.

Well I've tried tinkering with the car a bit, recurved the distributor, and tried to find the stumble/hesitation/miss that I was experiencing, but had no luck. It started to get bad enough that under decel or after accel the motor would die or just about die, then when it came to a stop you needed to floor the gas to get it to start, and it would throw a ton of black smoke, just rich as heck. Tried fiddling with the carb, but it was all set right, tried chaning timing, but that didn't help either, removed the vac advance, but it didn't help either.

I had a mechanic friend come over, and had him drive the car to show him what the problems were, and it seemed to drive ok for him, then started the miss again, and then later while test driving ran out of fuel. Oops! Anyway, went and got a couple gal of fuel from the gas station and put it in the tank, tried starting, wouldnt go, poured some fuel down the carb, would sort of start, but the fuel bowls were still dry. So poured some gas down the vent tubes and it would start, run, then die, as the fuel bowls would go dry. After doing this a few times we noticed that the fuel was getting to the carb now, but the car would just not start. Tried and tried but had no luck in getting it to run, it would turn over fine, but just would not start. At first it was a sputtering start, but just wouldn't catch enough to run, and then turned into a not even sputtering start. Checked the spark and it was a orange/red, not a bright white or blue like it should be.

Towed the car home with my dad's truck, and tried fiddling with the timing, didn't change anything, tried swapping out the coil for another one, no change, tried chaning plug wires and plugs, no change. Finally took the ignition module into Napa to get them to check it, and they did and told me mine was busted. Though, oh goodness, finally I've figured my problem. Brought it home, intalled it, and I get a sputtering start again. Sprak intensity is again a bright blue, but it still won't start.

Started to notice when you didn't put your foot on the gas while cranking that you would get fuel, and a bunch of it, coming up out of the vent tube of the primary side of the carb. Took the carb apart a few times trying to clean it out thinking that the needle and seat were dirty or something. Still no change. When you had the trottle part way or all the way open, you wouldn't get fuel out of the vent tube, but you would get air flow up through the carb. Thought that was awfully strange, so ripped the carb apart again, but when back together same thing.

Tried a compression test, since I figured i was getting air, fuel, and spark that compression was the only thing i could be missing, and i get a compression reading of about 40psi (too low for my gauge to have numbers) on the first cylinder I thought oh no, I've burnt up a valve running it lean when I ran out of gas. Put the gauge on #2 and got the same kind of reading. So now thinking with the puff of air, and low compression that I've had a timing chain slip a tooth.

Tossed the compression tester on cylinders 3 through 6 tonight (7 and 8 are hard to get to with the headers) and they all read low and about the same, so I'm pretty positive that the timing chain slipped.

After figuring that the timing chain was a problem, I was told I could check by only removing a valve cover. Smart idea really, is to check cylinder 6 to see when the exhaust valve closes and the intake opens, at the time they swap is when the balancer should read 0 degrees, as this should be TDC on the compression stroke of cylinder 1, as it fires 180 cam degrees out from cylinder 6. Checked and marked on the balancer when this happens, and it was about 90 degrees out from the 0 mark, BINGO.

Oh good, I get to pull off everything off the motor again, back down to where I was when I had to install the new water pump, if only I had been smart enough to check on the timing chain then I would have found the problem. Finally got the timing cover off after finding 4 bolts that my 2 manuals neglected to mention....and checked the timing chain deflection. It was incredibly loose, supposed to be replaced when there is 1/2" deflection when the other side is tight. With the other side loose still it had over 1 1/2" of deflection, and it would bind when flexed inwards as the chain can't flex inward that much. Stupidly loose, amazing the car ran AT ALL, let alone how decent it was.

Finally got it all back together, stabbed the distributor in, and first try it fired right up, sounded horrible, and I quickly found out why, as I had forgot to refill the rad, so after doing that, I re-fired it and adjusted the timing. Now it starts beautifully, idles nice and smooth, compression is back up to around 130, vaccuum is back up into the correct range, about 19"HG, instead of the low reading I had before. Of course the day I got it all back together and started it we got a huge snow storm, so I can't really drive it now, but on the drive to the storage place I had a few chances to open it up, and let me tell you, it is a night and day difference, so much low end that the car just couldn't muster up before, it just pulls and pulls. Still has some carb tuning issues, you can tell under load it runs a little rich, and loads up a bit under decel, or idling in gear for a long time. But it is a fun car to drive now, just what I was hoping for all along, really fun.

As in every winter, and especially those while attending university, I've been thinking alot about what to do next on the car. I decided that I would replace some suspension components that are fairly worn out like sway bar bushings and control arm bushings, to see if I can firm up the handling. I'd like to beef up the enigine some more, and was thinking I might upgrade to a cam that I can use with the press in studs still without worry of them pulling out. After asking for advice on the matter, my options are to go with a comp cams 268H cam and stay with the stock torque converter, or go with a 270H and swap to a higher stall converter.

I also found someone in town here with a set of edelbrock heads they are wanting to rid themselves of, but I'm not quite sure on some of the work that's been done on them. They were originally fitted with 2.02" valves, but are now fitted with 1.94" valves, but apparently they had a shop check them out and they are still seating as they should. For a couple hundred off the original price, I'm not sure it's worth getting heads that are third hand, although these look to still be in pristene condition. It's a couple hundred more for a brand new set, and new edelbrock heads come with a one year warrenty so I'm having a hard time deciding. Another thing is that I could buy a set of World Windsor Sr. complete in iron for around the same price the guy is asking for these edelbrock heads. What to do....I don't really NEED new heads at the moment, as I should be able to go with a decent sized cam even with the heads I have, granted they won't flow that well as they are stock wheezers, but I don't NEED new heads, it was only cause these edelbrocks were a deal I was thinking of buying some. And since I can get heads for the same price, granted they would be a differnt brand and probably different quality, I don't think I really need to blow this much on heads right now, maybe wait until the budget is big enough I can buy an even better set.