Blake Noble

'89s were the same way. As long as they have the same diameter, will fit into the stock openings, and the tach uses two studs mounted to the back and is wired in a similar fashion, I'll be in good shape. I tracked down a Monte parts car in Mount Vernon for the interior trim and center cluster (gas, volts, etc.). I'm going to check that out tomorrow.

You know, I've always thought that Pontiac would've had a market outside of North America in Australia and this, in a way, proves that to me. Perhaps if the last round of Pontiacs could have been set apart from their Holden cousins, as far as design goes, GM could have sold Pontiac somewhere outside of North America and Mexico. I think Australia would have been very responsive to a "niche performance division." And it isn't like Australians haven't seen a Pontiac before now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roFmeudE6Sc...feature=related Shaker Run was basically Australia's Smokey and the Bandit. The star car was, of course, a RHD T/A and the overall plot of the movie was the same as Smokey.

It probably wouldn't have been cheaper to build, though. You'd have to modify the liftgate to fit. I think it looks better with the stock Nova wagon roofline anyway. It's a very convincing piece of work. Someone who might not know all that much about cars wouldn't know that this is a one-off job and might mistake it for a factory piece.

BigPontiac was right. The owner of the steel blue Monte posted a comment back and he said it came out of an '89 Trans Am GTA. He also said the tach and speedo locations were reversed. I can live without that particular mod, but I'm going to investigate it. Here's the good thing: I know where quite a few F-Bodies are at, 2/4ths of them '80s-era and not to be crushed for a little while now. I'm going to do a little more research into that particular cluster's commonality (i.e. if lesser Firebird's had them) and pick one up.

Browsing YouTube, I stumbled across a walkaround video of an '84 Monte SS with a 'Vette 355/6-speed manual setup. I noticed that this Monte's instrument cluster was not the stock Monte SS cluster. Here is a link to the video: This is the stock Monte SS instrument cluster: This is the modified cluster: Notice how the rev counter is mounted on the left side in the modified cluster and stock cluster has the rev counter mounted in the right side? Also, the needles on the modified cluster point due south. I've been searching '80s era GM cars and haven't been able to make a match. I hope, though, that this instrument cluster is more common and doesn't take a lot of modification to retrofit. If someone can help me out on what they think this instrument cluster came out of, I'd appreciate it a lot.

Hmmm ... yeah, Fathom Blue is a closer match.

Are you thinking of Astro Blue Metallic, by any chance?

Ouch, that smarts.

That is a seriously cool little wagon.

control

I have to wonder if Penske might have intentions of selling Saturn to Renault/Nissan in the future ...

Can ... can I buy it?

I've never killed another man in my life. The guy who owned that red Typhoon might just be the first.

If anyone chooses under, they are a communist.

That's a tactic of good journalism: draw attention to whatever has been written to attract readers. It seems that it worked well on you.

Happy birthday, Captain. I'll just leave this here ...

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Hmmm ... that looks exactly like the lever in the Firebird ...

Trust me, I've religiously studied G-Body interiors as much as I can. I could almost write a book. Thanks, though, Captain. You luckily have more commonality with your Intrepid than I do with my Monte. Some of the G-Body switchgear is interchangeable, such as the power window and door lock switches, but gauge clusters are mostly to entirely different. The Cutlass Supreme Salon is the only other G-Body coupe that I've seen that has full instrumentation similar to or the exact same as the Monte SS. I'm sure the 442 models had it as well, but like I said earlier, what are the chances of finding one in a junkyard? The only difference here is that the tach doesn't have the clock that my Monte does. (And yes, that is gmpartsgirl's Cutlass.) You can do a complete dash swap. The Mexican Monte Carlo SS models had the entire dashboard from the Pontiac Grand Prix from the factory. The G-Body car with the most readily available interior parts would be the Cutlass. However, I really don't want to stick a Cutlass dash in the Monte. I'd like to keep the interior as close to stock as I can.

Thanks for the encouraging words and all of the links, 98. I'm checking them out right now. Which company basically stole your gauges, though? I kind of want to steer clear of them.

It would to some extent, and I know that. But like I keep saying, G-Bodies aren't easy to come by around here anymore. It's a little different here. Mainly, G-Body interiors, especially the upper sections of the dashboards, actually had little commonality. As far as the dash vent plate and instrument cluster faceplate go, they have to come out of an El Camino, Malibu, or Monte Carlo (and, actually, the early models aren't completely interchangeable). The radio faceplate has to come out a Chevrolet G-Body, although I think that possibly the radio faceplates from the Cutlass and Regal are interchangeable, but they would have to come out of a car devoid of woodgrain trim (like a 442 or T-Type and what are the chances of finding one of those in a 'yard?). Gauges also have to come out one of the three Chevrolet G-Bodies (this is where a Monte SS is preferred because the instrumentation is much harder to come by in a Malibu or El Camino), but I'm also pretty sure the '87 - '88 Cutlass Supreme Salon also had the same full instrumentation offered on the Monte SS. There's also the Grand Am, Grand Prix, and LeMans, but I'm not sure about interchangeability here. I do know that the Pontiac G-Bodies had next to no interior commonality. The gauges might work, but I doubt it. Not only that, I haven't seen one of these in person, on the road or in a junkyard, for ages. I can pretty much count them out. Consider this, XP: A.) The circumstances here are not the same as any other project. The Monte Carlo is supposed to be my daily driver, my way to get from point a to point b and everywhere in between, my way to get to work. This isn't like my Cutlass, which is a weekend car and ongoing project where I am not worried about when it is completely finished. It is of the utmost importance to me that I have the Monte fixed ASAP. In it's current state, I wouldn't dare drive it out of my own neighborhood. I've worked out some of the smaller bugs, now I have to work on the bigger, uglier bugs. B.) Like I was saying earlier, G-Bodies are not as common to find in a junkyard as you think. In between searching the local yards and today's waste of time, I've made countless calls to other yards, and I've gotten either one of two responses. 1.) "Sorry, we don't have cars that old." 2.) "Sorry, we had [insert number here] but we sent them all to the crusher a few months ago." C.) Well, let's see ... don't ever suggest I buy a Hyundai again. That's a no, no. I'm going to shoot him a PM. If the circumstances were different, it would be fun.

I checked them out and they're asking almost four-hundred bucks for a speedometer. It was worth a try, though. Thanks, Camino. I've tried that any it always returns a "no items found" message. I'm going to send him a PM soon. In theory, I could. Actually I know I could. However, the 'yards around here won't just sell you the multifunction lever, they have to sell you the whole damned steering column. If you try to buy only, say, the steering column trim or the lever, they'll act as if you've just spit on their mother. That's a thought. I knew that the S10 shared suspension components with the G-Body (they also have the same lug patterns). I'll study a few early S10s and see if something can come out of that. Right now, I need the air intake, an O2 sensor, and I might need a new carb because the choke has suddenly made the decision to go retarded. (A new carb runs about five-hundred bucks.)

This only serves to further distance myself from Wal-Mart. K-Mart does deserve praise for such a move, although it isn't on a nationwide scale.

Chevrolet sold quite a few Monte Carlos too, especially the SS. From 1985 until GM pulled the plug on the G-Body cars, quite a few Montes rolled off of the assembly line with the SS moniker. Here's a complete shakedown: http://www.montecarloss.com/SS_FAQ_2.html#2 Also, the Monte has some commonality with the other G-Body cars of course. However, it is true that GM sold far more '70 - '72 Cutlasses than they did '81 - '88 Monte Carlos. It is also true that both cars are becoming equally as scarce. Yeah, junkyards are great if you own something built after 1990. If you drive something older than that, you are $h! out of luck. Yep. It isn't any better than OPGI or my local junkyard scene. No worries, Dodgefan. I probably couldn't afford the shipping charges right now anyway.

I'm having a serious and quite horrible case of buyer's remorse. Today, I got up at eight a.m. and drove through Clay, Jackson, Laurel and Rockcastle Counties with the single hope that I would finally find a junkyard with some decent '80s GM iron. The Monte is in desperate need of new gauges (the speedometer and voltmeter are dead, the tach is going out, and the temp gauge now has a broken needle), new interior trim, a new multifunction lever, and a few miscellaneous engine parts, all of which negatively affect my car. The local junkyards pretty much have nothing. The solitary Monte I found at A&A Auto Parts, the junkyard located just 2 miles away from me, had an air intake, but the owner wanted forty bucks for it. I had to pass on it because it was in a completely pathetic condition for that kind of money. So when I left home this morning before I made my long and fruitless trip through four different counties (I'm obviously not counting Madison County), I had a theory: if I traveled further southeast, the chances of finding more '80s GM cars would increase. After all, it seems that just a few short years ago, whenever I had previously traveled to this particular region of the state, 80s GM cars were in abundance. I was wrong. Dead wrong. Now they're nowhere to be found. I've even searched the bowels of Hell itself (read: the backwoods of Jackson county) and I'm still empty handed. I suppose I am being slightly melodramatic because I did find two Monte Carlo Super Sports today. One was in Clay County, sitting in front of a body shop and wearing a considerable amount of age and deterioration. It was obvious this car was not on the repair list. The verdict? The guy who had it didn't want to sell the car or any parts off of it. He said that he planned to restore it in a few years. I'll bet my ass it'll still be sitting there in the same spot five years from now untouched. The other car was in Laurel County, hidden away behind a small row of clunkers and $h!boxes in front of a dilapidated used car lot. This Monte was in even worse shape than the last; all four tires were flat, the exterior was coated in ratty, old flat gray primer, and the nosecone was disturbingly distorted around the passenger side headlamp assembly. The verdict? It was for sale, but in a complete and intact condition only, for a thousand dollars (it did run). It's also a thousand bucks that I don't have. And why in the hell would I need a complete car for the parts I'm needing? I already have the Firebird making itself useless in my driveway. I don't need to add to the clutter. On second thought, I'm not being melodramatic. These cars have all been condemned to -- what else? -- the crusher, back when steel was still worth a decent bit of coin, and when these cars were deemed as utter garbage, their reputation spoiled by the other 80s junk, such as Cutlass Cieras, Celebrities, and so on. And the people who do have them, who aren't working on them, aren't interested in selling them or their parts (which means that they're probably holding out for the day when they can finally ask fifteen grand for a complete rustbucket MC/SS). I'm sure you're thinking, "Just buy a damn parts catalog." That's usually good thinking, but it's something I already acted upon. OPGI's catalog arrived today in the mail and it wound up only dumping more salt in my Monte-inflicted wounds. New gauges, not including a factory speedometer (which is no where to be found in OPGI's catalog), cost over one-hundred fifty dollars. OPGI only carries three-quarters of the interior trim I need, which arrives at a grand total of somewhere around two-hundred and fifty bucks. I don't understand why similar parts for the Cutlass were so much cheaper. I'm seriously regretting not buying the '86 SS I found in Whitley City. However, it was $1500 bucks too much (regarding the asking price and my budget) and the lot that had it wasn't very negotiable on the price. And I've since found such a great appreciation for the Monte Carlo SS that I really want one in my fleet. But I've bet my money on the wrong Monte. I've been getting offers of $3500, which gives me some profit over what I paid for it. Sadly, I think I'm going to have to let it go and find something else. I just don't have the extra money I need to fix it right.