I'm looking at a GTO tomorrow - NEED HELP - Page 2

**Survivor 69/Z28** · #11 05-30-2010, 04:41 PM

Gear Jammer and I went to look yesterday. It was an all day affair.
He has the pictures and all of the #'s. He will hopefully be posting them soon.

The engine is #'s matching and appears to have never been taken out of the car.
It is the base 350 horse 400, auto, non posi, hide away lights (works), hood tach, am/fm radio, ps, wood grain. I believe the color is called Liberty Blue. It is painted the correct color according to the data plate and has black interior. The paint looks nice. I also believe that all of the metal in the car is original. The trunk is amazing.
The car is all original other than a paint job and seat covers. It needs a lot of detail work under the hood and underneath. The chrome and wheels are also in really nice shape. Everything that car was born with appears to still be there. The car ran and drove great. So as far as pictures and price I will need to let Gear Jammer present those things. The price is a factor for basically a survivor type car with a repaint. The tiny dealer that is selling it knows absolutely nothing about classic cars. A matter of fact, they went and had the windows tinted. They said it of course needed that. LOL!!!!

Please let me know what you think a car like this is worth from my description. Of course you need pics for a better evaluation. But feel free to fire away.

Thanks,

Gear_Jammer · #12 05-30-2010, 08:50 PM

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:

**markinnaples** · #13 05-30-2010, 09:20 PM

That thing looks pretty sweet, and just the way I think most of us would like to find one. If the price is right, doesn't look like you could go wrong with that one. JMO.

**Dave Rifkin** · #14 05-30-2010, 10:01 PM

That car looks real nice to me; I don't think the engine compartment looks that bad. I think if someone spent a few weekends on that car it could be cleaned up real nice.

**firstgenaddict** · #15 05-31-2010, 01:44 AM

Great car in a GREAT COLOR! The engine compartment and chassis could be easily done using degreaser along with some soft brushes then safest rust remover followed up with BOESHIELD or cosmoline. I like the originality of the car.

Gear_Jammer · #16 05-31-2010, 02:19 AM

The one thing I neglected to mention above is that the dealer has it priced at $29,995.00. That seems a few thousand dollars high at the very least. Please let me know what you think about that price based on the above and/or what you think is a reasonable price. Thanks.

**mockingbird812** · #17 05-31-2010, 05:30 AM

GJ,

Decent looking Goat. Looks like Chevy's Dusk Blue hue to me (which I like). Pretty unusual color for a '69 Goat - at least I have not seen many. Not real up on the market for these - more of a casual observer at this point (somebody on this site - won't mention names Woj - has me (re)focused on the '68s!). Standard HP motor, auto tranny, non-posi rear, and add-on A/C don't help much. This car is a "tweener"....some originality, but with a repaint, so it most likely cannot be considered a survivor. Orig. engine (if not restamped), hood tach (if original), covered headlamps, and paint color are pluses. $30K IMO is fishing for a sucker. Market with these options in this condition is in $20K range, perhaps less. Lets let our resident GTO experts chime in.

Good luck!

StealthBird · #18 05-31-2010, 08:04 AM

Very nice looking GTO! Just some thoughts....

Are you sure it's non-posi? I realize the posi tag is easily obtained through a dozen different parts houses, but it's strange that someone would attach the tag when the car did not have posi.

Hood tach is a pretty rare option, you'll need PHS to verify. I did not see any pics of the gauges, would like to know if it has rally gauges verses idiot lights. Hood tachs have been reproduced for over 20 years now, and they're all junk. Cheap plastic housings, wrong size, cheap plastic faceplate, etc. Just in the past year, another unit was introduced that's a little better, but still cheaply made.

Hideaways should open simultaneously, not one at a time, and they of course should stay up when the car is shut off. They are vacuum operated, not electric, and these are notorious for having leaking vacuum canisters. The canisters are available repro, and I believe there are even rebuild kits.

The 1969 GTO and Firebird shifters were nicknamed "slapsticks", and are ratcheting style shifters that functioned the same way as the 1968 GTO Dual Gate. Starting from "L", you push forward, and to the right, and it will only go 1 gear up to "S", then again 1 gear up to "D". That's why the shifter slide cover around the shaft is oval shaped.

If you could, please check the heads again. There should be a two letter casting right on the center two exhaust ports, most likely a "6" and a "2". The "GM" cast and the L_DN are on all Pontiac heads those years. The L_DN was simply a code for DAY/Night shift when the heads were cast.

The Rally II wheels were 14x6 on the 1969 GTO (actually on all 1967-1970 GTO's). There was a wider 14x7 Rally II wheel on the 1969 Firebird and Grand Prix, and they are quite rare. Can't find an "HN" code in my book, maybe I'm missing it....but the 1969 rims should be 14x6.

The correct engine code for the car should be YS, and considering the VIN matches, this car does have the original block. The 0676027 number is simply an engine unit number, and has no relation to the VIN.

Only PHS will verify how this car was born, and whether it was ordered with hideaways, hood tach, Rally II wheels, etc.

Liberty Blue is a great color! This color was also used by Chevrolet (Dusk Blue), by Oldsmobile (Trophy Blue), and by Buick (Twilight Blue). It really looks great on the GTO with the Endura bumper, and especially with the hideaways.

As for the overall price, it sounds a bit high at $30K. If it's a car you love, it appears to be worth it, but avoid this if you're thinking of flipping it. Personally, I think the car is flat out cool, but a bit high priced. Perhaps in the $24K-26K range would be more appropriate.

Hope this helps, and good luck! [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/smile.gif[/img]

**Survivor 69/Z28** · #19 05-31-2010, 03:04 PM

SB,
I do not think we are 100% sure it was non posi. We could not help but to burn rubber a few times and it did not seem like posi. But it very well could have been. I am use to the chevy's where the posi gets you a little more sideways. LOL!!

He has some really nice pictures of underneath the hood tach. The wires going into it looked original but like you said it could have been added 20 yrs ago. But they certainly blended in with the rest of the original wires IMO.

I am pretty sure it has the rally gauges as we were watching the temp gauge the entire time while it was over 90 degrees outside.

Mockingbird,
You had mentioned "some originality".
I thought the car was "mostly original" with a repaint. I personally do no see original cars like this hardly ever. But if you see some things that we do not please let us know.
We are both far from experts [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/smile.gif[/img]

Mr.Nickey Nova · #20 05-31-2010, 04:28 PM

Very nice car indeed,great color blue also.The engine area doesn't look all that bad for car with that many miles on it.See if he will come down to around $25,000 range.Good luck,hope you buy it.

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