Hi guys,
I attended a very nice cruise-in event yesterday evening in the small town of DeSoto, Missouri, about 45-miles south of St. Louis, and 20-miles south of where I live. The cruise-in was sponsored by the local DQ, and they regularly hold their cruise-in on the 1st Friday of every month, spring thru fall, but this was their 1st in over a year because of Covid restrictions last year. The weather was perfect, and there was a large turnout of a wide variety of cars, and a ton of spectators. By all indications, a great time was had by all. Other than my own '67 4-4-2 and a beautiful '68 4-4-2, my favorite car was a gorgeous orange Torino GT with a 429 Cobra Jet with true forced air induction. Hope you enjoy the pics!



















My '67

 

Nice thanks for the thread. Plenty of cars to comment on. I have always dug early Falcons. Same for Firebirds. Nice Torino. Car shows and red paint huh? Cool *****'s truck. I like the 47 *****'s/Jeep next to your car. Beautiful 67. That 68 looks great too.

 

Thanks for the compliment on my car. The '47 ****** Jeep was gorgeous and the owner was a super nice guy, we talked a bunch during the event. The couple with the '68 4-4-2 were also really nice folks, they purposely parked as close to me as they could because they saw my car when they drove in.

 

See that's what it's all about. Cheers 🍻

 

Good stuff. Go figure, 2 71 Monte Carlos. That's rare. If I had to pick another classic to own, a 67 427 Convertible Corvette would be a good one. Stick, red and black and black. FM radio and manual everything.

I thought of something. I was looking at your car, and I was thinking, is that thing a stick shift, looking at your standard trans air cleaner. Then I found your thread on the transmission bezel and I had this thought. It may be hard to find a factory th400 bezel as they came from turnpike cruisers and 442s, BUT, it's a simple re-printing job, and you could get a nice 2 speed one, disassemble it, solvent off the letters, then have a print shop put you the right ones in the right place, then swap that out some weekend.

Good paint on yours, the sun is good on it.

Another good accessory to find for your car is the vastly superior late automatic air cleaner (see the one in my avatar) over the skinnier one with a snorkel of the earlier 442's of lesser men.

Also, that 68 reminds me of Chili's 68, but he's out of Decatur, IL.

 

Thanks Koda! You're right about the Monte Carlos, rarely do you see one, let alone two at the same cruise. For the size of the cruise there was a surprising diversity of cars there which was a nice surprise.

Thanks for the suggestions on my car. I actually found a nice TH400 transmission indicator bezel from someone on this site and he sold it to me for a very reasonable price. I like the air cleaner on your car. My car has what is believed to be the original 400 E block and C heads, but the intake is an Edlebrock 2151 Performer and I have a Holley 750 Street Demon carb on it. I am not much of a mechanic, so excuse me if this is a silly question, but can an air cleaner like your's be easily adapted to fit the Holley carb, and if so, how am I going to be on hood clearance??? Side note, I did get the original intake, 2 Quadrajets (period correct), and original exhaust manifolds (headers now) with the sale. I'd bet the guys that did the resto on my car went the easy route and used a cheap open air repro air cleaner unit with the 442 high compression pie plate rather than spending the money to find a nice correct one like yours. They did alot of things right when they restored my car, but OEM correct it is not. The thing I like the most about it is it starts dependably and runs really strong.

 

Oh good, so you're ahead on that lens.

I think you'll be ok on hood clearance. There's nothing wrong with what you have, now, but, if you get the opportunity, it's a good thing to acquire. So, in 65 they made the 400 B block and they made a spiffy chromed version of a closed air cleaner with snorkel for the 442 automatics, sticks got an open element (I think that went that far back.) Move forward a couple years and they are going to redo everything in 68, so, and I don't know why, they made a late running change to the automatic 442s. I think March of 67 or so. The closed air cleaner with snorkel was out, and this big guy I have was in. Standards still had open element.

The interesting part is that that new air cleaner, only the supersize wide cleaner top was new; the bottom is a 4 speed base. The wide top doesn't touch anything other than the filter and the threaded rod, just like an open air cleaner top, this simply has an additional skirt around it. So, what you could do, if you find an air cleaner setup, is use your current base plate, keep the filter, then drop the wide top on it and see if it clears. Put the stock base plate aside for when you go back to stock. I think it would clear everything since it would be in the same spot as the current top and be much wider than the carb.

 

Koda - That's all great info! Thanks to you I learned something new about my car. I have several pieces of '67 4-4-2 literature including sales brochures, ads, signs, etc. All of these items depict the air cleaner as the open element type. I always assumed they were the same for both standard and auto tranny's because I had never seen or read anything to the contrary. I also agree that it looks nice "as is" and runs fine, but I do like the looks of your's better. It would be nice to have one that's correct for my auto tranny. I'm going to do a little searching and keep my eyes out. Thanks again!

 

1. W-30 and track pack air cleaner
2. Late automatic air cleaner.
3. Early automatic air cleaner.
4. Climactic Combustion Control air cleaner.
5. Standard transmission open air cleaner.

Upon reflection, I don't think the snorkleless one (#2) is narrower in diameter than the snorkled one (#3), it seems that just the bottom plate went from the larger diameter of the closed air cleaner to the diameter of the filter inside it (ie, the open cleaner base), and they deleted the snorkel.

 

Koda - Nice tutorial and pics. I'm definitely going to save this for future reference.

Attached a close-up of my engine bay. Note the vacuum collection canister on the driver side fender well. I can't remember the full specs off hand, but the Lunati cam installed when the motor was rebuilt has even more duration and lift than a '67 W-30 cam. I was glad to find out the block was in great shape and did not need to be re-bored during the rebuild, so if it ever needs another rebuild I will be in good shape. No more than I drive it, I doubt it will ever need it. Even with that much cam it idles fine after a short warm up, but it's pretty lopey with a great sound. I needed the vacuum collection system to have enough vacuum to operate the power front discs.

 

Wow! DeSoto sure has changed. Granted I haven't been there since '78 or so. I feel old. Used to run Flucom Rd. and try not to end up in the trees. Road had such a heavy crown, it was tough.

Looks like a great gathering of cars and people.

 

69oldsguy - Thanks for the comments. Flucom road is still like that. DeSoto is a nice little town. I live in Pevely if you know where that's at. A local doctor in DeSoto donated the majority of funds to restore the vintage Texaco Station on DeSoto Main Street, thought you might want to see a picture. Great place to take pics with your hotrod or bike! If you don't mind me asking, where are you located now?

 

Boise, ID area. Far far from home. Plan to retire in a year or two. Probably be heading home after that. I'm from Illinois, but my grandparents lived just outside of DeSoto. Stomped all over down there. Elephant Rocks, Current River, Flat River to that big a$$ off road park. I do miss the old days.

 

I've hunted and hiked over much of Colorado and Wyoming, but haven't made it to Idaho . . . yet. Good luck getting to retirement, and getting back to an area you still call home! I was able to retire in 2018, and I can tell you, you're gonna love it. If you get back this way you'll have to let me know and we could meet up at one of the cruises.

 

Lived in Colorado and Wyoming before moving to Boise. Are you following me? Lived just outside of Fort Collins and then moved to Cheyenne. Best elk hunting there is in Wyoming. In my opinion.
I'll definitely look you up when I get back to the midwest. Nothing better than cruising. Cheers.

 

We must be running in the same circles! Wife and I got engaged in Estes Park in 2008, and have been hiking in RMNP many times. We were in Estes in 2013 during the mega flood, we barely got out over Trail Ridge road just as they were shutting it down due to potential landslides. Direct southern routes to Denver to catch our flight home were already blocked. On one trip out there we also went white water rafting on a stretch of the Poudre there in Fort Collins. Small world!

 

My suspicion is that the more reliable argument is from people who can't or won't do their own work.


Yep

My 79 Cutlass 350 went 230K before it needed a rebuild. My '84 Ninety-Eight 307 130K still going, passing smog..

Most Olds gas V8s were pretty good

Fred