Gunslinger
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Posts posted by Gunslinger
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For some reason, a number of Avanti's have the "B" added to the VIN. There's been speculation why, but I don't know if anyone has uncovered the real reason.
Your car is definitely a '63. The tail light lenses reflect the year they met federal regs that pertain to them. In fact, my '70 Avanti has tail light lenses that have '62 molded into them. As long as there's no redesign of the lens or federal regs change, a manufacturer can use the same lens indefinitely. Actually, I've never seen an Avanti with the original design lenses that weren't 1962 marked. Studebaker must have made a ton of such parts as Avanti Motors used them for many years. Outside of the engine and few other items, my '70 was probably 95% left over Studebaker parts when it was made.
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The VIN plate on a Stude Avanti is on the top of the frame rail on the passenger side of the car. Look under the hood, under the area where the blower fan is and you should see it. It may well be covered in oil and grease that needs wiping off. The plate should say "Studebaker Corporation" and underneath that line, either "63R-XXXX" or simply "R-XXXX", depending on when the car was assembled.
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I spent some “quality” time in the car, in the garage with the lights off (yes, my wife thinks I'm nuts), seeing what the various switches are (and aren’t) doing.
#1 Turns headlights on.
CORRECT
#2 Driving (or parking?) lights come on ( the front turn indicators). The panel reads "Pk" & "DR". What do they mean? Parking lights and driving (literally normal driving with headlights or auxillary driving/fog lights?).
THIS SWITCHES BETWEEN YOUR HEADLIGHTS AND RUNNING LIGHTS. "DR" IS FOR HEADLIGHTS..."PK" IS FOR PARKING (OR RUNNING) LIGHTS. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH AUXILIARY DRIVING/FOG LIGHTS.
#3 Turns on overhead panel light
NO...IT TURNS ON YOUR INSTRUMENT LIGHTS AND RADIO DIAL INDICATOR LIGHT.
#4 Turn on instrument lights…but only if switches #1 & 3 are on …High only, not low & high as marked on switch & owners manual.
THIS SHOULD EITHER DIM OR BRIGHTEN YOUR DASH LIGHTS...TWO SETTINGS ONLY. ONLY IF #1 AND #3 ARE ON AS YOU SAID.
#5 blower power only...no noise.
YES...IT TURNS THE BLOWER FAN ON AND OFF.
#6 Blower high…no low
IT SHOULD BE HIGH AND LOW.
How does that sound?
Is that stuff normal or has some previous owner messed it up?
Would new switches fix the problems?
Help!!! I wish someone would publish "Avantis for Dummies".
It sounds like you may have connection or ground problems WITH #6. These switches don't often go bad, but they are nearly fifty years old so anything is possible. From what I've seen, they discolor from age long before they go bad. I would take the switches out and check the connections. Use a test light to see if power is coming out of the low blower terminal. Since you said you have high blower the switch is getting power. If nothing is coming out of the low setting, replace the switch. If you have power from that side, you need to look elsewhere for the problem.
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Studebaker International sells a reprint of an early '70s owners manual. It's good for '71 through maybe mid- to late-'70s cars. I've never seen or heard of a manual for Avanti II's earlier than that.
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This is the second time this Avanti has been listed on Ebay. Last week the bidding ended at about $28k and didn't hit the reserve, whatever that's set at. Maybe the seller lowered the reserve, maybe not.
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Follow the wires from the electric choke and the dash light and see where they meet. That should be the relay. Since most things with Avanti's don't come easy, I'd expect to find the relay somewhere under or behind the dash where only a six year old has hands small enough to work with it.
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If your '84 has chrome bumpers...you can get the front quarter panels and nose sections from Studebaker International and probably Nostalgic Motors. No one I'm aware of has new hoods...you'll have to find a donor car or someone with a car being parted out.
If your car has rubber bumpers...I'm not sure where to get those pieces...some may be the same as the earlier parts, but I don't know that. Nostalgic Motors may be your best bet for those.
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Is that an internal or external voltage regulator? GM had gone to all internal regulators by about '69 (for GM built cars). If it's an internal one, it should be standard GM or equivalent aftermarket like NAPA Echlin. Get the numbers off your alternator to make sure.
If your car has an external regulator, the same goes...get the numbers off the alternator and you should be able to get the appropriate regulator. It's probably a Delco-Remy.
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I agree wholeheartedly. A crate engine is far more cost effective than rebuilding your 305 or installing a Caddy engine. The engineering headaches alone would likely drive the cost of such a conversion into the stratosphere.
With a crate engine you have many, many options regarding power levels. From GM Performance alone you can go from a 350 260hp version up to a 383 stroker, with several versions in between. That doesn't even include all the other crate engine builders out there.
You can get a Vortech supercharger kit made for the small block Chevy if you like that idea, or, as I did with my '70, go with electronic fuel injection mated to a GM Performance 350HO 330hp crate engine...or simply go with a carburetor, of which you have options of Edelbrock, Holley or Demon that will all give excellent performance based on your needs. Barry Grant even makes a "Six-Shooter" system...an intake with three 2-barrel carbs mounted and all the linkages. That would give some real "WOW" factor to any car.
Crate is definitely the way to go.
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I believe the original design was a reinforced threaded area that the seat mounting bolts simply threaded into. If there's any nuts holding the back side of the bolts, then someone added them due to the fiberglass breaking away...a not too uncommon way these were fixed over the years rather than do a proper repair. The reinforcing part could have simply torn away from the fiberglass and is simply spinning with the bolt.
Since your going to use the repair kit from Classic, I'd just use an air chisel and knock the bolt heads off. After that you could simply drill out the remains of the bolts. A hand chisel will do the same thing but take longer.
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I believe it's one of two things...it's either your high beam indicator or it's telling you the electric choke is on. Avanti's of that vintage seem to have several dash lights that are unmarked. After the first or second owner the handbooks seem to get lost and the information within along with it.
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GM calls that part the transducer. It may be the same part used on Corvettes (I replaced one on a '78 Vette). Look at Corvette Central, Eckler's, Corvette America websites for C3 and C4 generation Corvettes and see if the part looks the same. I believe they came in 2- and 3-wire applications. I don't know if it is, but it may work equally well since you have a GM engine and transmission. A transducer runs about $100 depending on where you get it from.
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I have a tire information sticker for an '87-'90 Avanti, but it doesn't differentiate between a coupe, convertible or 4-door. It does state the tire size is P205/65R15 all the way around with a cold inflation of 28 psi. The temp spare is listed as a T155/80D16.
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I'm not sure, but I believe the front studs have to be pressed into the rotor hub by a machine shop equipped to do so. See what the shop manual says.
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Looking at the sales literature put out by Avanti Motors, there's a purple coupe and a blue (maybe Corvette Electron Blue) convertible that show supercharged emblems. Outside of that, I have no idea if any other cars had superchargers. It was a $10k option...I would think not too many out of the 53 GM based cars had it.
My '02 without a supercharger has a few modifications and is probably pushing a good bit more than the 345hp it's rated at. That's plenty powerful and fast enough for me.
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P195/75R15 is pretty much a direct cross reference for the original 670-15 tire. P205 will work but would throw your speedometer/odometer off slightly, but they weren't known for accuracy anyway according to period auto magazine write-ups. The limiting factor on original rims is their comparatively narrow width. Also...go too big or wide with a car with sagging front coil springs and you'll have clearance problems...don't ask how I know that!
As far as narrow white stripe tire availability, you'll have to do some searching. There are manufacturers of that, but the selection seems to be limited in white stripe. Try TireRack.com and you can enter the size and it will show all brands available that they carry. Take your pick and see where you can get the best price.
I like Cooper tires...have had very good experiences with them but they're not the only quality tire out there. I checked and Cooper doesn't make a P195/75R15 but they do make a P205/75R15 in white stripe.
There's always Diamondback Tires and Coker Tires for specialty tires like what you want, but they'll generally run about half-again to twice the cost of Coopers, Goodyears, Michelin, BFG or Firestone or others. They're good tires, but you want whitewalls, not gold plated.
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Places like Pep Boys, Auto Zone, NAPA and Advance Auto often stock a selection of gas struts. Either take measurements of yours, fully extended and closed, or take the strut itself in and match it up. There might be some internal valving differences, but these would probably be of little consequence.
Try Napaonline.com and they have a search feature where you enter a non-NAPA number and it will do an automatic cross-reference and see if there's an direct application to take out the guesswork. If it does, you can determine what car they were adapted from and let everyone else with an Avanti from that era what to use down the road when necessary.
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I'm pretty sure the yellow is Corvette Millennium Yellow...that can determined easily enough with color chips. A good paint shop can match it easily if necessary or if you simply want a bottle of touch up paint.
There were a few custom color paint jobs done...they're shown in some of the literature. Some may well have been one car only.
If you can get the car for that price range and it's in the shape you say, you should jump on it. I doubt if that many were built with the supercharger option. When I bought my car, the dealer had several other new Avanti's...a white coupe, a blue convertible and a yellow '04 with the blower, besides my red convertible. The red car simply talked to me, and I'm not normally one to drive an "arrest me red" car. I wonder if the car you're considering might be the yellow one on their lot?
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I don't know what limits there might have been for color selection on those years. I've never seen a color chart for "standard" colors available. My car is painted Corvette Torch Red, which is an easy color for touch up if necessary. Some cars apparently were painted some custom colors, but whether that was done by factory choice or for a specific customer order I have no idea. Not a whole lot of information has come out regarding color or interior options on these cars.
About the only options listed in factory literature were a choice of coupe or convertible, manual or automatic transmission and a supercharger option. Everything else was standard. The literature makes no mention of color choices.
Price on a 2004 Avanti with supercharger? I'm guessing as the market is so limited, but I'd say $35k-$40k, but that's using the SWAG method...Scientific Wild-A$$ed Guess. The original sticker price on that car was about $85k-$95k. I think those MSRP retails were inflated to provide dealers with plenty of profit margin to play with when making deals. My '02 had a sticker price of $83.5k and I bought it for far, far less than that and I'm the first and only owner.
As far as the possibility of needing exterior replacement parts down the road...unless Avanti Motors rises again, we're probably out of luck. Not being too smart-a$$ed, you should have a good fiberglass man in your rolodex. Some parts were sourced by adapting them from other cars. As you said, the door handles were from an Olds Aurora and the front side marker lights from a mid-90's Taurus, but for most part, it was all custom fabricated. I'm aware of no source for body and trim parts for this era Avanti.
You pays yer money and takes yer chances! As much as I love driving my '02, I've become very careful when and where I drive it.
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A Paxton costs about $700-$800 to rebuild, and that's if you provide the supercharger to be rebuilt. I'd say an NOS Paxton would be worth double that at least, but take into consideration it would likely have to be disassembled, cleaned and inspected before any kind of use. That could result in a virtual rebuild because of that. Regardless, it's definitely worth some coin.
The air cleaner assembly I really have no idea of its worth. Whatever the traffic will bear.
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The headlight switch is strictly on/off...either the power is flowing or not. You might check the headlight relay. With a test light turn the lights on and see if power is going in and if it's going out. If it takes time for power to come out to the headlights, then you know the relay is bad. The headlights are also on a circuit breaker...that could be bad. A bad circuit breaker can do funny things that defy logic. About the only other place the headlights are wired into is the dimmer switch, but it seems unlikely that could cause the problem.
My bet is either the headlight relay or the circuit breaker. The instrument and running lights are on a separate circuit and switch, so it has to be confined to the one circuit.
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I always thought post-Studebaker Avanti's all had flanged rear axles, but from what I've learned that wasn't the case. Apparently some did have tapered axles like R1 and R2 Studes did. It would seem logical that Avanti Motors used up that supply from buying all the parts from Studebaker in the initial deal, but who knows how long it took to use them up in new production? I would think use of tapered axles would have been primarily during the early years of Avanti II production but never say never about Avanti Motors. It could also have been a necessity due to parts availability from Dana as well.
I also was under the impression that Avanti's all came with finned rear brake drums, but again...never say never about anything. Your drums could also be replacements. Some years ago all the replacement brake drums available were smooth, not finned. That could have been a sourcing issue as well. At some point it was reported in the AOAI newsletter that the vendor stupidly, accidentally or otherwise broke the castings for making the brake drums. It's quite possible your car and others after that point were equipped with available smooth drums because of that. Finned drums are being reproduced now for Avanti's up through '85 if you need replacements.
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There's also the filter sock on the pickup in the gas tank. It's not uncommon for cars that old to have that sock deteriorate or get clogged.
You can check the tank fairly well by letting the gas level get low and look down the filler with a flashlight. You'll be able to see if any sediment is floating around before deciding to take the tank out...which still isn't a bad idea and have it cleaned and checked for leaks and areas that may be about to rust through.
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Look do any body know how many 2002 T-Top Sports Coupe's were made, on pontiac chasse's that year?
According to John Hull's recent book, there were 53 Avanti's made from 2001-2004 using the TransAm platform. I would guess the majority were convertibles. I had read somewhere (which escapes me) that nearly all sales were for convertibles and Avanti Motors wasn't even buying non-convertible platforms from GM after a certain point. My '02 convertible is #20 of those 53...its assembly date was 12/01 according to the manufacturer's plate on the door jamb.
finding my VIN
in 1963-64 Avanti
Posted
Being registered as a '64 was not uncommon. Since the VIN had no year designator dealers would title them as a '64 if they sat on the lot past the model year change. That way they didn't lose anything due to depreciation. That can't be done now as VIN's have been required to have model year designators since about 1981 or so, though most car makers were already doing that by then. It was about 1981 when the Feds required a standardized seventeen digit VIN code to manufacturers of autos, trucks, trailers, etc.
It has created some confusion as some true '63 cars have unknowingly or otherwise been represented as one of the few "transitional" model Avanti's...early production '64's with round headlights and some different interior appointments from '63 and later '64s. There are supposedly about eighty true "transitional" cars...at least the the figure I've seen regarding that.
I wouldn't worry about it. When it comes to getting necessary parts for your car you go by the VIN rather than the registered model year anyway. As I said...it's not an uncommon thing. It was done way back when the car was first sold and titled.