Cascade Crew

[305 302eater]

OK so I think its funny to see what previous owners have/haven't done to the cars we buy that they either should have done but didn't. Like yesterday I was changing my wires on my new Iroc and I came to the #8 spark plug wire and started to pull it off and noticed that i can turn the spark plug by hand. Now up until this point I had thought i had a little exhaust leak on that side of the car. I pulled the plug out and its a different one then the rest of them. I re gap it and put it in put the last wire on start it up. No more leak. Just thought I would post on how the stuff that you can find that previous owners do is just insane.

[aaron_sK]

Hehe... where to start?

When I was 12 I had an old Dodge with a 318 (dizzy on the back like an SBC). While pulling the dizzy I dropped a 1/2 wrench down behind the engine. While digging it out I found another 1/2" wrench some dingus had dropped down behind there and had left.

When I bought that Ford Thunderbird I went through it and found that the plug wires were stamped "1990". In 160K miles, and fifteen years, no one had changed plug wires.

The Camaro is the worst of them by far though.
Instead of hooking the amp power lead to the battery, they just took the 10g wire, twisted a 14g wire into it, and ran the smaller wire into the ACC fuse at the fusebox.
Instead of removing the AC box, or deleting it when the installed the headers, they just smashed a hole in the side of the box so they could fit the header past it. The same header was also pressing directly on the starter.
When they installed the Eibach springs, they had a little problem with clearance on the right front tire (you can see the rub marks). So instead of bending or removing the wheelwell, they just put a cut stock spring on the right side, and left the other three springs alone.

That's the worst of them, but there are quite a few more, like a water pump pulley bolt snapped off, and left in the water pump, an exhaust gasket that was burned on two cylinders and left in the car, exhaust installed so it rested directly on the panhard bar, and apparently all wiring connections to the alarm, stereo, and pretty much everything else were made by twisting two wires together, and folding tape over them.

That kind of turned into a rant for me, but I hate fixing stuff other morons screw up.

[alloy]

[83Z28BlackBetty]

how about a previous owner who replaced a fuel injected 305 with a carbed 350 without changing the wiring harness, leaving injector wires just hanging around, cutting a hole in the back so he didn't have to pull the tank to pull the fuel pump, and then replacing it with a total crap electric one (ON A CARBED MOTOR!).

Yeah i've sworn more than once that if i saw him again i'd punch him

~JAKE

PS I think the problem we have comes from the fact that we are talking about 3rd gen f-bodies. I mean look at 90% of the people that drive them.
1) highschool hotshots who thrash and trash them
2) mullet sporting white trash who jerry rig everything just to get it to "work"

[blue89]

Lol, I just got an 87 Z28 for free because it had a weird problem with the "alternator" and it would never hold a charge. Turned out someone installed an autometer oil pressure gauge. They then hooked up the guage light to a constant source from the fuse panel. DOH! Took me about 15 minutes to track down the rogue current draw.

[305 302eater]

Ya there is more to the car's problems. When i had to pick it up i had to replace the rr rotor on it. Some how he had been driving it like that for so long that the flat part with the fins had completely broke free from the base of the rotor so you could play frisby with the flat smooth part of the rotor. I had to take it to a muffler shop and have the exhaust welded back up cause he was holding the cat back up with a tow rope jammed in each door. I can go on. I guess i got lucky with my rs being owned by all older guys. I got it completely untouched.

[alloy]

[305 302eater]

[Xophertony]

i have found a few odd ones in my past 4 years of thirdgen ownership. one of the GTAs prior owners was a fan of hacking out any unused wires, and leaving the bare ends sticking out...

when i bought the six it had wood (YES WOOD) holding in the radio. with woodscrews through the side of the radiopod. the cable controls for the driver mirror had broken, so plastic shoping bags were shoved back there until the mirror stood still. (after spending about 25$ on junkyard mirror harware i gave up and glued it in place)

found a few tools in odd places. and about 7$ change so far.

we found a condom (in the package) from 1991 in chris' 85 zed.

[83Z28BlackBetty]

[Xophertony]

thats a little odd....

makes sense for what he wanted the car to do though...

the spoiler was broken, he used what he could find. buying 15" wheels ant tires was cheaper then replacing the 16" tires.. i can understand why somone would do it.

as for the seats and badges... hmmm.



you want weird though... check this out.
you strip a car down to original factory metal, not even primer, BARE metal to do an awsome repaint, thne you slap a few coats of 1 stage white on it, without priming first....

you go through a 2.8L v6 and compleatly rebuild it, new cam and a chip.... and you keep the factory catback, and intake.

you get lowering springs, replace all the sway bars wit bigger ones (f41 bitches) only to slap 14" wheels and crappy tires on it... and keep the original shocks in the back, and not replace any bushings... this was the prior owner of my white 2.8 car.