Midsouthern Restorations

1966 Pontiac GTO Convertible

The owner of this 1966 GTO convertible lives in Oak Ridge Tennessee. The car has followed his work around to where ever he was sent to live. It has been in 3 or 4 different restoration shops. He said it is here to get completed after 10 years. The motor was rebuilt in Colorado and the car came from California and has been in New York state and else where. It is not really a basket case has much hard work has been done. Old parts came in boxes. The rear bumper has a sticker we had to photo graph before sending to chrome platter. The first order of business was to sort out the Tremic 5 speed. A new hydraulic throw out bearing was installed. The old cracked dirty bell housing would not dial in to the near perfect alignment that is needed for the transmission. A new one was installed and offset dowel pins put in the tight range. Once this was done a new drive line was ordered up.

The fire up of the ten year old motor was next and it ran but poorly. It was found when checking the three deuce set up that wrong gaskets were installed making for bad vacuum leaks. With this correct it ran much better. The nasty hole left from a previous shop for the shifter was repaired and a new floor shift bonnet was installed and now the console is correct. This car had to take a few steps back before it could of gone forward. The dash instrument cluster has now been reworked and the wiring sorted out. It will progress forward now.

This yellow GTO had many problems and they were sorted out one by one. We found many missing important trim pieces. Bent front suspension parts. The windshield was installed in the wrong place. The owner was reluctant and allowed us to repair correctly. He picked out the great color combo for a new top. The Tremic 5 speed conversion worked great and the owner took car home to ponder on what kind of upholstery to put in it. After a few steps backward to repair others shoddy work this car is all straight forward now.