Gunslinger

Contact Jon Myer at Myer’s Studebaker. He has a number of Avanti parts cars.

I had a manual for the 2002 Avanti I owned. It was nothing more than the GM manual with an Avanti Motors cover on it.

Can you trace the wires and see where they’re connected?

I've seen that more than once...having to undo what past owners have done before doing it correctly.

John Hull was a principle in Avanti Motors for maybe two years early on...not the entire run until the doors closed. The records he has would be incomplete at best since he left and would have little if any further access to such records.

Did the problem begin at the same time with the two motors? If so there might be some kind of cross-connection in the wiring creating an overheating issue requiring the circuit breakers or fuse to trip/blow. I would check all the ground connections as well as connections to the fuse box. After so many years the connections could be corroded making for overheating of the wires. The motors themselves might need overhauled...maybe the wiring harness itself has become suspect and required replacing.

Contact Dan Booth at Nostalgic. The man believes in service after the sale.

Look for numbers and letters on the lens…there may be a DOT number. Do a web search on that number and the application may come up. Your photo didn’t come through I can’t tell whether there’s any numbers on the lens. If there’s no numbers on the lens there may be one on the back of the assembly.

You might try and get hold of John Hull…he was an officer in Avanti Motors early on. He may have copies of the drawings for such parts…or have an idea where they may be found.

It's probably something Avanti designed and made for the car. Can the arm that attached it to the car be removed and taken to a fabricator out of metal?

Great read. Thanks for posting it.

Put a full dual exhaust system on the car and remove the catalytic converter (if state laws allow by exempting cars over a certain age)...make the pipes 2.5" diameter and let that puppy breathe! I know you said "on a budget"...but performance costs and there's no way around it...especially with a smogger engine. We can really get into the weeds with recommendations but you have to start with a plan...what do you want out of the car regarding performance? A smooth boulevard cruiser...an all-around fun car or an all-out road burner? Each will require it's own set of plans and specifications to achieve the desired end result. You can go crazy with a carburetor...intake manifold change...headers...camshaft...pretty much everything mechanical. Before getting into the engine's internals (assuming it performing as designed with no issues)...look at installing a 200R4 or 700R4 transmission. The 700R4 will smoke the tire in first gear as it's designed for a much heavier vehicle. The 200R4 can be very stoutly built and has a better spread of gears for the average driver. The 4-speed automatic should give a nice improvement in performance by itself. If you want to go crazy with improvements...doesn't sound like that's your desire...get EFI and ditch the carburetor. One thing can easily lead to another and suddenly you're financially very deep. That's why you need a plan.

Back in the early '60s when Pontiac was a force on the drag strips...the days of their "Swiss cheese frames" to lighten the car...they also had aluminum headers. Supposedly one could always tell when one of these cars made a run due to the molten aluminum drops on the track.

From what I've always understood Lionel Stone's repops showed a lot of flashing and required some work to get them to fit properly.

My conclusion was that two of the four 500s on my Avanti had slightly different offsets and came from different construction lots. Avanti Motors would simply order 15"x6" Magnum 500s which were duly shipped to them and could have come from various production lots. Since they fit the stock Bendix brakes there was no issues to be concerned about or even know about. If I remember correctly...the tech who installed the Turner kit on my car said it was about a 3/8" difference in offset...enough to cause the scraping between the caliper and the rim. I had two solutions...they could grind the high spot on the calipers or...what I did do...keep the offending rims on the rear of the car and two that didn't scrape on the front. At the time it was about forty years past any warranty concern. More modern sport rims are likely far more able to fit without issue as they would have been designed with clearances for more modern calipers. But one never knows until a test fit is done.

Quick ratio steering.

I would think that with the stock dual belt setup...unless you have belts with perfectly matched lengths...that the shorter one would end up taking most of the load even if the difference was minor...and lead to earlier failure of that belt. That doesn't even address the the longer belt would be more prone to slippage.

I think the go-to guy for that would be Dan Booth at Nostalgic Motors.

Summit Racing sells a new manufacture Quadrajet that should drop on with little adapting. Q-jet Edelbrock carbs are excellent as well but I would suggest pairing one with one of their Performer RPM intake manifolds. These are specifically designed for their square-bore carbs and will enhance torque and hp over using an adapter and save overall height.

The number I’ve seen most often is 117…though other numbers has been bandied about.

Merry Christmas…Happy Hannukah…Happy Festivus or whatever you follow! While some are cold I’m enjoying Hawaii where it’s beautiful out!

It’s a ‘63 that appears to have been converted to square headlights…unless it’s a transition car before the official change at R4892. It’s also got R2 emblems on the front side panels…maybe the blower was removed and a/c added? It would be interesting to see the production sheet for it.

The best I can remember it was from a Chevrolet but it’s twenty years so I’m fuzzy on that.

Jon Myer at Myer’s Studebaker may have some good used trim. Dan Booth at Nostalgic Motors is another potential source.

I think the Custom Auto Sound is much more compact than the original radio. If so you should have room for a bigger front speaker. You could also eliminate the front speaker and mount round speakers in the doors…that’s what I did on the ‘70 I owned.