I just got the heads-up from Steve Shauger, that Hot Rod has a nice article on the Vintage Certification at MCACN and it features some coverage of Enrico's Formula. Even has their 50th wedding anniversary photo taken at the show. Nice!

http://www.hotrod.com/articles/amazi...tte-nationals/

Very cool! Enrico, "There's a typo in the VIN"-then him getting a judging t-shirt, too :cool2:

It's always something! I have been ignoring the SD lately, with all the mechanical attention I have been paying to the Gramma Car.

I took the SD out for its first drive of the year and the rear brakes locked and wouldn't release. I had to crack both bleeder screws to release the pressure and get the car rolling again. I spent the afternoon removing the proportioning valve to send it to Whitepost for rebuilding. Shipped it off this morning. Luckily I had another valve from a 1972 to install in its place to keep everything from leaking out completely.

Whitepost had previously sleeved the original master cylinder and rear wheel cylinders a couple years ago. Hopefully this is the final component that needs attention, and not the master cylinder (again), unless anyone has any other ideas on the matter???

Maybe the flexible line that goes to the rearend is worn out and acting as a one way valve?

Jason

Correct. My mechanic buddy suggested the same thing. I have an NOS hose coming today. Whitepost called and it's $150 plus shipping to rebuild the valve. I also alerted them that it's a survivor car and not to refinish the valve,just leave the exterior as is.

I asked them to examine it when it got there and they confirmed that it was activated and locked. So when the rear hose collapsed internally, and froze the rear brakes, the pressure differential then activated the combination valve (which is what they call the proportioning valve in the 2nd gen cars).

Whitepost does fast work! Even though they said it would take three days, I had it back in my hands on Friday, after they got it Tuesday. So I guess they mean including shipping time as well!

Once I got it back I plugged the openings and let it sit out in the hot sun and soak, in a bowl of Evaporust, so the surface rust would wash away. This is how it looked after an hour or so. I then removed the plugs and used brake clean to make sure all the internal passages were free of any residue. It's interesting how you can see the "3 170" date code stamped on both sides.

As for the original rear hose, I removed it and attempted to blow air through the hose - nothing came out. It is completely swollen shut inside. So let that be a lesson on survivor cars with original brake hoses!

And the combination valve reinstalled and brakes bled. I took her for a test drive and the brakes work great again.

Very good work steve, keepin that car alive like it was 1975

More tinkering. The heat buildup in the rear drums caused by the swelled up hose, ruined the original set of brake return springs. I replaced the entire set with some NOS ones I had as it seemed like the shoes were dragging and not returning to their original positions. After a test drive the rear drums were around 300 degrees. When I pulled the springs off, including the small ones that hold the shoes to the backing plate, all of them were permanently stuck in their stretched position, except the little ones that hold the shoes to the backing plates - they were permanently compressed. The brakes seem to be working properly now.

So now I have a little collection of original parts removed from the car - all nicely labeled in separate ziploc bags.

Another lesson learned: old brake components are not good to have on a survivor - if you want to survive driving it.

I was getting the old girl ready for a photo shoot today and took it for a half mile drive when suddenly the car starts wobbling. Yup you guessed it. Another one of the NOS 1973 Firestone 500 tires exploded. This was one I got off craigslist a few years ago. I had an NOS spare tire and rim from a 1974 T/A in the garage so I bolted that on the car and we were good to go. Those Firestone 500s are real widow-makers. I was only going 15 MPH at the time. I can't imagine what people went through with these things when they were new, back in the 1970's and Firestone denied that there was any problem whatsoever.

Here's what it looked like while still inflated. It continued snapping the steel cords and shredding as I was taking the photo.

And after I deflated it. BTW, those are steel cords sticking out of there, not polyester.

The photographer got some good shots on a nice day.

Still some good miles left in that tire.
Looks like your going to have to cage the rest of the tires when you show it with them on.
OHSA hazard

Yeah, that was one of two NOS 1973 tires I found. Most of what you run across are 1974 to 1977 which don't have the white "F" shield logo on the sidewall. The three original tires on the car and the original spare are still holding up fine.

I changed the oil the other day since it has been four years and 674 miles since I got the car on Labor Day 2013. I sent a sample off to Blackstone and got the results back. Though they like to have at least 1,000 miles on a sample so it compares with their 1000-mile analysis baseline figures, they can work with anything. The oil was 5W30 Castrol GTX plus a can of STP Oil Treatment.

Looks like everything is good inside the 44 year old engine. As he mentions, the fact that the car is running on 100 octane Low Lead AVGas, it gives a false positive for lead. Here's what the lab guy said when I pressed him for further info:

"Any way, you're curious about the Avgas adding to lead, and it certainly
would. Avgas is labeled as 100 LL, but it's just considered low amounts of
lead compared to old leaded fuels. There's actually a fair amount of lead
in that fuel, which will make lead read high in our analysis, which is
generally harmless. The only problem with lead reading high is that it
masks lead from the bearings. Everything else looks great for your engine
though, so we aren't concerned with bearing wear now. If you have any other
questions or concerns don't hesitate to get in contact with us."

One of the out-takes from the photo shoot the other day. :-)

That out-take is a killer shot.

Thanks. He took a lot of cool photos at the local airport. Hopefully it will show up in print in the future. I sent a bunch of the outtakes to Enrico and Lenora and they loved them. The are getting them printed and framed.

It's an absolute mystery as to why only 43 of these cars were built when anyone could have ordered one of these. What an awesome looking car compared to anything else of the era. And it had A/C!

Higher insurance rates? Oil crisis? Country turning its back on performance cars and starting to look at BMW 2002s, 240Zs, etc.?

Can anyone send this guy a sample? If so what's the process?
Thx!

https://www.blackstone-labs.com/

This place has been open for some time and is very popular among hobbyist and amateur motorists.



I mean within the context that people were still buying (slower) Corvettes, Camaros, (and much uglier) Challengers, Cudas, chargers, mustangs, GTOs, etc.

Those were all cars that would also have higher ins rates, use lots of gas and had a performance image.....the only difference was that they were as slow as molasses in January(except maybe the Vette) and they all looked absolutely terrible(except Camaro and Corvette).

That is the gist at what I was getting at. Not literally why from a marketing point of view.

Just google Blackstone Lab or give them a call at the number on the bottom of the sheet above. They send you out all the free, postage prepaid sample kits you want. All you do is package the sample up per their instructions and throw in a check for $28. They get you the results within three days or so of arrival at the lab. I have had them test the oil in all my vehicles, and even my 30 year old John Deere lawnmower, too.

Thank you!

Just got back from the Hemmings Concours at Lake George NY. Great show. They had a Camaro and Firebird '67 to '81 display.

Some really nice cars were there. The SD wound up with a second place. Very surprising given the high caliber of the cars in the class and the fact that the SD is unrestored. I was up against several six-figure $$$ restorations. Mark Hassett got first with his green ZL1 and third went to a copper 70 L78 from Minnesota.

Phillip Borris did an exceptional job as the narrator and emcee of the class providing a car by car history of the F-body line given his expertise on the subject as the author of Echoes of Norwood. Here he is giving his spiel.

Congrats Steve

----Very cool, Steve! you did well......Bill S

Two of the greatest F-Bodies ever built, a ZL1 and a SD-455. Can't beat that with a stick. Any pictures of the ZL1?

Thanks for sharing, Steve.

here you go

Thank you very much, Steve. Very nice looking car.

was the ZL1 a Minnesota car as well? I know the copper L78 car, the restoration shop near me did the resto on it. Looks like Bob Marvins ZL1. Bob has a vast collection of ultra rare muscle in Warroad Mn
http://www.theshedwarroad.com/

The website says that car has 36,000 miles. The one at the show had 9,000 miles.

I did notice that Bob Marvin owns my old 1970 Hemi R/T-SE Charger, though. He bought it from me at the Mecum 2013 Indy auction. Very nice guy.
I can't get the page to load but if you scroll across the bottom timeline you can get to it.

Was that Scott Keine's 70 L78 Camaro?

I believe so. I know his first name was Scott.

Just a reminder:
If you use Google Chrome, there is an add on that fixes the problem and displays the photos.

https://www.yenko.net/forum/showthrea...ghlight=Google

Looks like the old white car showed up in HotRod.com today. I am so happy for Enrico and Lenora, the original owners. There's over 50 photos online, including their original owner and wedding anniversary shots. Now that's a proper Mother's day gift!

Scott Lachenauer photographed the car wrote up the article from Enrico's stories and gave him the credit he truly deserved!

http://www.hotrod.com/articles/1973-...uper-duty-455/

It should be out in Musclecar Review this week.

I was googling and found this: http://www.hotrod.com/articles/hppp-...-duty-formula/

So now Hotrod.com has a feature on all the SD455 Formulas sold by Suburban Pontiac in 1973. (All two of them) :-)

Sad news to report.

On Saturday September 7th, 2019, Enrico "Rick" Stein, the original owner of my 73 SD455 passed away. He was in his late 80's and had suffered a fall and broke his shoulder earlier this year. Complications set in recently.

He lived one helluva interesting life - owning most of the rarest musclecars back in the day when they were brand new. He even bought a brand new 1967 green and tan L88 Corvette roadster which he owned for a total of two days before returning it to the dealership because he was too tall (6'8") to drive it without leaving the door open to clear his left knee.

But he is best remembered for this 73 SD455 Formula and his amazing level of attention to the entire process from inspiration to ordering, to reordering, to threatening to throw the Pontiac zone rep from his five story office window if he didn't authorize the order of this car. He had a photographic memory for all things automotive and was a master mechanic back in the day, owning a string of high performance tune up shops.

His wife Lenora reached out to me yesterday to thank me for reuniting them with their old car at the 2016 MCACN where they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary next to their old Firebird.

Having no kids of their own, Rick and Lenora had "adopted" our family over the past six years and we had a continuous email string of car gossip, family vacation stories, high school wrasslin' tips for my son (Rick was a former unlimited weight class wrestler in college) and just random thoughts and remembrances about his old car. They were an amazing couple. I will surely miss Rick and his opinions on everything that in his opinion, needed opinions expressed upon.

In celebration I just took out Samarkand for a joyride. Samarkand was the name he and Lenora gave the Firebird back when it was new - it is a mystical city in the mountains of Uzbekistan. It was the name they had on all their record breaking powerboats over the years.

Of course, the town just decided to seal and gravel the road outside our house this afternoon.

Rick would have appreciated the irony. And yelled at me for taking his car out on those crappy New Jersey roads.

God speed Rick.

Great story, thanks for sharig

Sorry to hear about the OO.

He left his mark!

Ryan W31

----Also sorry to hear this, Steve! Seems he really enjoyed his life. What type of boat racing did Rick partake in if I can ask?......Bill S