W-30 in "special new" Rally Red

That's it exactly Des. It was all about Orange and Black.

Satisfied with the ownership history from1971 to 1975, I wanted to concentrate on 1975 to 1987,when I first heard about the car.
My previous attempts gave me a name of Boyd Fowlow in Stephenville as the second owner. Over a two year period I made several attempts to contact the only B Fowlow in the phone directory.
I had heard that Boyd Fowlow now lived in Edmonton AB and felt I was on the right track, I was never able to reach him over a two year period.

With the new information from Jan 2018 of Loretta Burrell as the original owner,I learned that the second owner was Barry Fowlow,Boyd's brother.

I found a new listing for B Fowlow in Stephenville and phoned. Robert Fowlow, Barry's nephew answered the phone.

I told him the reason for my call and he confirmed Barry was in fact the second owner of "the Orange 442 convertible".
Within a minute I had Barry's cell phone number and a promise from Robert that I would get a call from Barry within 30 minutes.
About 45 minutes later I was connected with Barry, who referred to the 442 as a ghost from the past.

He proceeded to recount his ownership in detail. More in next posting.

You are on fire!!!

Ryan

PS: Silly question... the Ontario Used Vehicle Information Package.... only recounts Ontario ownership back to 1973... any other provinces?

1971 W30, the Barry Fowlow years.
 

As confirmed Barry bought the 442 the day it was traded in at the Stephenville branch of Corner Brook Garage Ltd.
Barry owned the car for two years and drag raced it a lot at the Decomissioned Earnest Harmon AirForce base in Stephenville.
Barry did extensive engine modifications to the engine for more power. Crane cam and Valve springs, bigger oil pan, headers, Holly carb, trans shift kit. He retained the factory 3.73 gears and ran on 60 series tires. He claimed the car ran in the mis 12's but was not the fastest car among his racing buddies. Barry had the car painted Corvette Red in 1976 and painted over the black stripes. The paint job cost $350.00

Barry took a job with Sobey's, the Nova Scotia based Grocery Store chain in 1977 and moved to Stellerton NS with the 442. Not long after he settled in the 442 was stolen one night and the engine was seized.
With little money to do a rebuild he traded the car for a 56 Ford that has been set up a street rod and was running.

The new owner of the 442 was Tim Short. According to Barry ,Short put in a Pontiac 455 (that explains the Pontiac engine in the car when I got it).
Short drove the car around Stellarton for a while and then it disappeared. Barry said Tim Short went blind by the time he was 30 and it may have been his Brother Randy who took it to Alberta. All members of the Short family are now deceased with no way to verify the ownership or story.

So from all this I was able to solve some of the unknown details outlined in my first posting

Majority of body damage done by first owner in Newfounland.
Motor seized in 1977 and replaced in Stellarton NS in 1977 or 1978
There is no record of registration for the car in NS, Barry Fowlow did not do a registration change when he moved there.
Car went to Alberta between 1979 and 1985.
Found Alberta Lic plates circa 1979-80 under drivers side front carpet covering up rust holes and Alberta Yellow Pages (several books) under rear seat as sound dead net.
Merlin Cumming contacted me in May 1987 and described the car as a 1970. He said the car had been purchased out of an Alberta wrecking yard in 1985 by a fellow in Salmon Arm ,BC to use the 455 in a boat. Clearly the motor was no good and Merlin Bought the entire car.
I encouraged Merlin to do a Vintage Vehicle Search through GM Canada in 1999 and that is when I learned it was a 1971 model with the Corner Brook Garage Ltd connection.
When I bought the car in 2013, the Pontiac engine had been partially disassembled and had been seized for years.
The only parts missing from the car from its Alberta Wrecking yard days were the power door locks.
The Dual Gate Shifter was stolen sometime in the 1990's (according to Merlin)
The car was never resistered in Alberta.

It's time to resume posting more restoration work now that the ownership history has been solved and how the car was moved 5000 miles from its original selling location.

Alberta, yes. I ran Paul's VIN there - never registered.

What a sweet find!!! These are awesome cars, you’re doing a great job, and can’t wait to see the end result!! Good work!

Cheers
Dave

With the body work in the hands of Mark, I do all the mechanical restoration and assembly. going forward I will post progress on the component restoration. Since I bough this car I have been on the hunt for as many NOS parts that I can locate anf as of this writing I have 677 parts and NOS assemblies ready for this car.
First up is the engine,having given up on the prospect of finding the original engine I bought an NOS 455 short block assembly from a buddy in Chicago who used to work for GM parts warehousing and bought several of these when they were going NLA back in 1980. Had the block shipped to me in its original packaging.

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Dropped the NOS assembly off at my machine shop for an evaluation. One school of thought was to bolt on all the parts I had and fire it up. Having heard horror stories of Crate engines not being assembled properly, i went the route of having the shop disassemble and see if it truly lived up to Blueprinted at the factory so you don't have to". NOT
It was cool to see all the parts identified with the lettering and paint daubs.

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What was not cool to see was scoring on # 1 and 2 main caps:

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Dave, the machinist said he was, and was not surprised. Additionally he reported while all the tolerances were good they we not what he would refer to as "blueprinted".

So the new plan was to go with new rings and bearings, balance all components and fit to specific tolerances. I opted not to boil the block as I wanted to preserve the factory markings.
For the built we went with a Cloyes double roller timing chain and gear set as I could not trust a 47 year old Nylon timing gear.

I asked Dave what could have happened if I had fired up the engine from its as is out of the crate condition. His exact quote was "it would have seized during break in".

Love the NOS Service Short Block:-)

Wow!!

Ryan

PS: Didn’t you have another NOS block? 350?

With the short block assembly back from the shop it was time to un box the hord of NOS parts:

Pictured below:
NOS rocker arms and saddles
NOS push rods
NOS lifters
NOS oil baffle
NOS baffle studs
NOS harmonic balance
NOS balancer retaining ring
NOS front timing Cover
NOS oil pump
NOS oil seal.



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