Observations from Orlando

[Mike M.]

Re: safety related items should be exempt

regarding the brake hose comment: if your replacement hoses are configured exactly like originals, they shouldn't have received a deduct. if they are not identical, the judges missed it and you escaped the deduct due to their overlooking the difference. Safety issues don't overcome originality on the judging field. mike

[Mike M.]

Re: safety related items should be exempt

regarding the brake hose comment: if your replacement hoses are configured exactly like originals, they shouldn't have received a deduct. if they are not identical, the judges missed it and you escaped the deduct due to their overlooking the difference. Safety issues don't overcome originality on the judging field. mike

[Charles P.]

Re: safety related items should be exempt

Did you happen to see the blown out Firestone steel belted 500 radial that was on the swap field. Pretty graphic reminder about the safety and performance of 35 year old parts. I couldn't agree more with regard to tires. On the car that would not start there was a break in the tower of the coil. It was replaced and the car started but too late. It was not a "points" problem. As far as GM part 1115270 ignition coils...have you tried to find one lately? There were no 270's at the show NOS, used or otherwise. You can't READILY find this coil, even as a repro and as time goes on it ain't gonna get any easier. If it IS out there as a GM repro it is from Mexico and isn't worthy of being on the car. The performance of these parts "new" and old becomes suspect at best as they often cannot sustain a high enough voltage needed for performance. Remember the job of a coil is to convert 12 volts to more than 25,000. At higher rpms there is a resulting voltage drop. The imports seem to be the worst. The cottage industries of people painting up old cases, removing Delco towers are just gaming the system. Sure they may start your car but....If you are coming off a light and your engine just isn't performing the chances are good it is the coil and even more so if it is old or foreign sourced.

[Charles P.]

Re: safety related items should be exempt

Did you happen to see the blown out Firestone steel belted 500 radial that was on the swap field. Pretty graphic reminder about the safety and performance of 35 year old parts. I couldn't agree more with regard to tires. On the car that would not start there was a break in the tower of the coil. It was replaced and the car started but too late. It was not a "points" problem. As far as GM part 1115270 ignition coils...have you tried to find one lately? There were no 270's at the show NOS, used or otherwise. You can't READILY find this coil, even as a repro and as time goes on it ain't gonna get any easier. If it IS out there as a GM repro it is from Mexico and isn't worthy of being on the car. The performance of these parts "new" and old becomes suspect at best as they often cannot sustain a high enough voltage needed for performance. Remember the job of a coil is to convert 12 volts to more than 25,000. At higher rpms there is a resulting voltage drop. The imports seem to be the worst. The cottage industries of people painting up old cases, removing Delco towers are just gaming the system. Sure they may start your car but....If you are coming off a light and your engine just isn't performing the chances are good it is the coil and even more so if it is old or foreign sourced.

[Patrick H.]

Re: safety related items should be exempt

Actually, Mike, the early shark years specifically note NOT to deduct for replacement brake hoses.

Part of the reason for not deducting for tires is that the judging event is "static" in time, but yet allows for the fact that the car might be driven the prior day or the following day. This is easily possible to do and yet swap "judging tires" onto a car when it arrives at a meet, yet one can't swap brake hoses quite so easily. So, we let brake hoses "slide by" our judging eyes but yet understand that original 32 year old tires (in my case) weren't actually used to drive to the meet.

Of course, most cars are trailered to our meets, which makes the tire argument useless. In addition, it doesn't take many driving points to offset the deduction for using modern radial tires on your 69 either. Driving points are based on miles driven to the meet as per the odometer, not the crow flying. So, for your next meet, take the long way and offset the tire deduct. When you walk up for your Top Flight ribbon, no one will know HOW you arived at your 94%, just that you DID.

Patrick

Hmmm. I'm starting to sound like Jack Humphrey now...

[Patrick H.]

Re: safety related items should be exempt

Actually, Mike, the early shark years specifically note NOT to deduct for replacement brake hoses.

Part of the reason for not deducting for tires is that the judging event is "static" in time, but yet allows for the fact that the car might be driven the prior day or the following day. This is easily possible to do and yet swap "judging tires" onto a car when it arrives at a meet, yet one can't swap brake hoses quite so easily. So, we let brake hoses "slide by" our judging eyes but yet understand that original 32 year old tires (in my case) weren't actually used to drive to the meet.

Of course, most cars are trailered to our meets, which makes the tire argument useless. In addition, it doesn't take many driving points to offset the deduction for using modern radial tires on your 69 either. Driving points are based on miles driven to the meet as per the odometer, not the crow flying. So, for your next meet, take the long way and offset the tire deduct. When you walk up for your Top Flight ribbon, no one will know HOW you arived at your 94%, just that you DID.

Patrick

Hmmm. I'm starting to sound like Jack Humphrey now...

[Robert C.]

Re: Charles, there are hundreds of items.........

That are judged that are not addressed directly in the judging "GUIDE"! You can't write down every characteristic of every part and every repro part that might be observed or the "GUIDE" would be 8,500 pages!
The stiching I observed on the 68, 69 tops were to long. Observe a "Bowtie" soft top and you'll know. The front header is was also 30% too large in diameter also as well as the spears on one car had no "hat-brim". There's also a speacial stretch material on the vertical next to the door handle that is mising on most if not all repro's.There's more, but I don't have anymore time.

[Robert C.]

Re: Charles, there are hundreds of items.........

That are judged that are not addressed directly in the judging "GUIDE"! You can't write down every characteristic of every part and every repro part that might be observed or the "GUIDE" would be 8,500 pages!
The stiching I observed on the 68, 69 tops were to long. Observe a "Bowtie" soft top and you'll know. The front header is was also 30% too large in diameter also as well as the spears on one car had no "hat-brim". There's also a speacial stretch material on the vertical next to the door handle that is mising on most if not all repro's.There's more, but I don't have anymore time.