Guys:
Thank y'all very much for all the great info - it helped greatly when Survivor '69 and I went to look at it. Let me start this out by saying that I've been into muscle cars for over 25 years; however, I am far from an expert and don't know all of the lingo that I'm sure y'all use. As a result, please don't flame me for saying something that sounds idiotic below. I'm simply asking for y'all's help so that I can find a GTO. Let me apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I figure it's better to give too much info than not enough.
The guy that has it knows absolutely nothing about it and basically handed us the keys and told us to look at it for as long as we wanted to and to take it for a spin if we wanted (duh...no brainer there). Survivor'69 and I spent our sweet time going over it from head to toe. Well...it's a real numbers matching 1969 GTO. I could go on and on about it, but in short, it's a very original almost survivor car with a decent paint job. I checked both the VIN and the Date Plate and they both checked out as it being a 242 GTO made in Pontiac, MI in the 2nd week of April in '69. It's an auto 350hp car with 104K miles in Liberty blue (code 51) with black interior (code 258). It has hideaway headlights, a hood tach, factory AM/FM radio (not hooked up - aftermarket in glove box) and a dealer installed AC. It looks fairly nice from the top-side; however, it needs A LOT of TLC in the engine compartment as well as the entire underside of the car. It looks like a 41 year old car that's been serviced well over the years, but just never thoroughly detailed. It looks like one of the previous owners knew what he had and used the right replacement parts (i.e. AC Delco replacement parts, Packard plug wires). Both the hood tach and the hideaway headlights work. The headlight covers go up and down independently. I have to admit that I don't know enough about those to know exactly how they are supposed to work and/or whether this is common. The interior is in great shape. The front seats have been recovered, but it appeared to me that they were done with the correct covers as they were the correct Y design.
We don't think it had been started when we got there because it was early in the morning and the engine was cool to the touch (or as cool as it can feel when it's 90+ degrees outside). It started on the 3rd attempt, warmed up and went right back down to an idle at about 900 RPM per the hood tach. We continued to inspect the car while it idled and it continued to idle just fine (albeit a little high). We drove it for well over 30 minutes and it drove very nice. It's straight as an arrow and has nice power (some pinging at high RPM's) and the tranny feels pretty solid. The one thing that concerned us a little was that it was difficult to shift into L, but we got it in with a little movement of the shifter handle. It will hit a solid 2nd gear scratch. Our guess is that it has a 195 thermostat as it was running at about 200 after we'd been driving it for a little while with 1 or 2 10MPH, 20MPH, 30MPH & 40MPH punches. I thought that was pretty good considering it was 90+ degrees outside. We couldn't get the heater to work. It came on, but the air wasn't hot. The belt to the AC was in bad shape when we first showed up to look at the car, so we took it off just to be safe. As a result, I have no idea whether or not the AC works. The owner said it blows cold.
Some of the codes were difficult to impossible to read because of the amount of caked-up grease, dirt & grime, but we did our best. Here are the ones we found. Some may be partial because of the grease & grime issue.
VIN# - 242379P297167
VIN# on block - 29P297167
Casting # on block - 0676027 YS
Heads - G with M below it and L_DN
Intake manifold - 97942?4
Carb - 29268WF_0699
Water pump - 979835
Harrison radiator
Hood # - B108
Front L fender - 4A11 G
Front L fender well - 5A18
Front R fender 4 B1 unsure about this one
We didn't pull of all of the beauty rings, but here's what we found:
Front driver's side wheel - 6[valve stem]15HN
Rear driver's side wheel - 1[valve stem]11HN
Spare wheel - 3[valve stem]19HF
Brake booster - ?60
Here are some of the pics I took:
[img]
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...O/IMG_2606.jpg[/img]
[img]
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...ont-under3.jpg[/img]
[img]
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...ont-under2.jpg[/img]
[img]
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...der-driver.jpg[/img]
[img]
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...under-pass.jpg[/img]
[img]
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...O/IMG_2578.jpg[/img]
[img]
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...O/IMG_2579.jpg[/img]
[img]
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...O/IMG_2580.jpg[/img]
[img]
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...O/IMG_2584.jpg[/img]
[img]
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...O/IMG_2618.jpg[/img]
[img]
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...O/IMG_2636.jpg[/img]
[img]
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...O/IMG_2631.jpg[/img]
[img]
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...O/IMG_2619.jpg[/img]
[img]
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...O/IMG_2626.jpg[/img]
[img]
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...O/IMG_2640.jpg[/img]
[img]
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...O/IMG_2651.jpg[/img]
[img]
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...O/IMG_2641.jpg[/img]
I've got more pics, but I think these are probably enough for y'all to give me your opinions of the car. Please feel free to let me know if you see anything good and/or bad about the car. I haven't bought it yet, so you're not going to hurt my feelings if you say it's a dump. Any info or opinions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.