[njsteve]

And here is crazy 1970's gas crisis modification #1.

I bet this was some trick that my Grandfather probably got out of the J.C. Whitney catalog back in 1972 or so. He was the ultimate tinkerer and backyard mechanic wanna-be. I know he is smiling right now and slapping his knee, while winking to my Grandmother and saying: "Well, the kid found THAT one...lets see what he finds next..."

:-)

I couldn't figure out why the heck I could not get the transmission kick down lever to adjust and operate the transmission lever. I would pull the throttle all the way back and it would never contact the lever. Then it occurred to me to check full throttle to see if it was fully opening all four barrels of the carb. When I disconnected the cable I could get about an inch more travel in the throttle arm than when the cable was attached. I then I looked closer. The cable has a built in return spring in the form of a tightly wound coil spring on the cable itself. When you pulled all the way back it would stop.....up against what looked like two octagonal spacers.

Only they weren't spacers, they were 1/2" threaded nuts that someone had cut a notch out of and then slipped them over the cable behind the spring and clamped them closed with a vice grip. Thereby preventing the throttle from opening the last inch and/or engaging the four barrels, and/or activating the kickdown/internal pressure adjustment in the transmission. So that probably didn't help the lifespan of the transmission either.

Anyway, I used a cutoff disc on my Dremel tool and removed the offending spacers and lo and behold I now have full throttle capability and a working kickdown lever. Whodathought?

So, in conclusion, I imagine that not only will the rebuilt engine be a bit peppier than it was originally, it should be a helluva lot peppier than I ever experienced in this car either driving it in my adult years, or as a passenger, in my early childhood, now that it has a functioning four barrel.