What say you? These are the shocks that are on my friend Eric's 70 Saturn Yellow X. Car has 63k miles and its still wearing its original paint. When he bought it, it still had its original GM mufflers attached. He's got the car in his garage doing a few repairs. He took the tank down and got the original sender restored. Naturally he found a pristine POBF neatly taped to the top of the tank But as far as the shocks, he asked me if I thought they were original or early replacements. I originally suspected they were Delco replacements but that lower mount is definitely original. I thought they were supposed to be gray? Anyway, I have him looking for a date code on the bottom. What do you guys think? Originals?
Delco Pleasurizers........they are replacements. There are dates on originals, probably on those, too. The early 2000 series of HD were that color, 1000 series were tannish gold. http://www.ebay.com/itm/AC-Delco-Pleasurizers-HDFront-Shocks-P-2134-Mercury-Torino-Fairlaine-AMX-Javelin-/161819785177?hash=item25ad35f7d9:m:mF6aF08fPrdwHa5fYj2y8Ag&vxp=mtr http://www.ebay.com/itm/1958-64-Imp...ash=item4d48d5a03d:g:nqIAAOSw9NdXqkDR&vxp=mtr
Thanks for the reply Frank. I figured they were. I'll try and get a picture of it. Its difficult because it doesn't see daylight too often. This is basically the first time its been out of storage since the GSX reunion in 2009.
Vehicles with the F-41 suspension started out with Spiral shocks until a 1970 model year mid-production change. At that time they wee replaced with the "state of the art" Pliacell shocks. The earliest I have seen Pliacells on a car was with a body build date of "3A" (on the id plate on the firewall). (Courtesy of Dennis Lyons) The last "Spiral" info I have is 1/29/70, so there is a gap of a little more then a month between when the spirals ended and the Pliacells started. With the data I have this would mean 2 things, 1. The very early 70 GSX's could have come with spirals and 2. By "03A" all F-41 equipped cars had Pliacells. So the type of shock used on these cars depended on when the car was built. Duane PS If your bud paints them gray they will look like the originals. PSS. If they are shot and he is looking to replace them I would like to get/purchase them. I have a way of re-using the bottom mounting studs to work on new shocks. That way they still look original. PSSS. If anyone has a pair of "shot" rear shocks with the correct mounting studs I would like to purchase them. Thanks.
Duane- thanks for the clarification on that. He's going to take your advice and repaint them on the correct shock grey. I was able to snap a few pictures of Eric's X for you guys. The car was stuffed in his one car garage so the pics aren't the best. Notice the poor job they did painting the stripes around the door handle. Theres a big drip too. You can see a "fill" on the door where the hole for the chrome mirror was. Eric had a couple questions that I couldn't answer or wasn't sure about- The carb return spring on his car is blue. looks like a replacement. Every one I've ever seen had no paint on it and was rusty. And why is the jack base and lug wrench grey? Isnt it supposed to be black? And isn't the dipstick supposed to be red? For your viewing enjoyment... [/ATTACH]
Jason, good to see you yesterday and thanks for the pix! Yeah...early car...they are kind of weird. Most of us know many things were different, but it seems like this stuff goes on + on. Duane seems to have a way better handle on it than others do, like the shock thing with the spirals vs pliacells. I knew that, but the early/late thing, I didn't know. Maybe he will chime in. Dipsticks (including trans) were natural (or grey phosphate) as far as I know. Springs were green or yellow...I don't know why. The jack parts? I've seen similar things on 442's of that period. Some parts were grey + some were black. There were like 3 different companies that made the jacks, so 3 different styles and maybe different paint colors? My biggest prob with these Buicks is...they are very odd the way they did some things. That's why I like to look at unmolested cars like that 70 GS 455 'vert yesterday. That car was pretty unmolested, but it had weird things about it, too. Like the stud on the pass exhaust manifold...a weird oval shaped metal tag on the oil pump...white headlight door nuts on one side, black on the other (maybe early collision damage). You can't really look at Chevy's or whatever and assume that's how a Skylark should be!
