VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

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VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

IT IS DONE :D

got the strut top plates back and put them all together this morning and chucked everything in the car, as much as i would love to go for i drive, i have work to do :/

Coilovers, brakes... everything set up waiting for strut tops
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Strut tops
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Into the car they go :D
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Lowered the car down and heard a *CLUNK*, looked at the car, oh yeah thats low, looked at the jack, yeah the jack is still holding the car up :wut:
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But wait..... Coilovers :D All fixed
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more to come soon
Cheers
VGJONO :thumpsup:
geezer101
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by geezer101 »

Nice work VG, betcha can't wait to take it around the block (H)
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by Scorpma82 »

betcha he's looking forward to QR more :P
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VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

Bit of column A and a bit of column B :P currently stuck at work unable to get home due to a storm raging outside and my car keys in the shop Ute in the middle of it all lol
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VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

short story on todays events, Slept 3 hours, worked 5am-9am, went home fitted front end gear, reset height, went to the family shop, worked 2 hours, came home, died, awoke fixed car, threw stuff in anger because of tiny gutless batteries, started car, drove car :)

I feel as if i can be a bit more confident turning now, however i dont think i will have decent handling until i reign in the dodgy ass end suspension. brakes worked, need to be bled but work ok. and yeah, fun times :)

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Cheers
VGJONO :thumpsup:
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75wagon
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by 75wagon »

Do you have any idea what poundage (spring rate) the front springs are, and how has it affected the ride in the front end?

Dave...
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VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

Assuming it is the same spring that was sold with the HSD coilover sleeve kit it should be 6kg/mm (link to kit, size may be different, http://www.otomoto.com.au/p/4116535/hsd ... -kit-.html )

I Havent driven the car enough to be able to give an accurate judgement on it, so far driving around the block and the short 2klm drive to work it seems pretty good, its comfortable while still giving you decent feedback, and doesnt have as much roll as it had with the flogged out suspension that i just pulled out of it. im happy with it for now, might adjust the ride height a little more and eventually try a slightly higher spring rate.

Cheers
VGJONO :thumpsup:
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VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

Soon.......
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VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

Well today she got a good Flogging, We had a Breakfast and Happy laps session due to start at 6:30, Gates opening at 5:30am. We had some insane fog around, bareyly could see 10m ahead of myself on the way there, and due to this fog not lifting our session had to be pushed back till 12:30. Dispite that though it was and awesome day .... until i had some complications (see below)

Pictures from throughout the morning.
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Once we got on track we were all sweet, i was still having ignition troubles but after about 15-20 minutes they had seemed to lessen and the old girl was really getting up and going which was nice
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After an hour on track my leg cramped up :lol: so i pulled off to have a quick break before going back on for another 25 minutes, kinda glad i lifted the bonnet for a quick check
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Turns out the slight oil leak i had from a dodgy seal on my fuel pump turned out to be pretty bad after subjected to an hour long of 40kph-120kph pulls, so when i seen that i called it, topped up the oil and drove her home no problems :)

but not before my Mate set up a quick little photo op by parking infront of me :P
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All in all
Fog sucks
car went fast
brakes worked really well
front coilovers helped alot although dragged down by the rear suspension
oil errywhere
went home

Cheers
VGJONO :thumpsup:
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VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

People started freaking out a little when i lined the car up to go on track and then started ripping it apart :P
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bruggz351
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by bruggz351 »

FUN.
Bummer on the oil leak man. That is one very photogenic Galant, man. :thumpsup:

cheers
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VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

Cheers Bruggz, the oil leak is an easy fix :) just shortened my track time, and yeah very photogenic, looks like a bucket of aids to the naked eye :lol:
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

more pictures rolling in, quite a few photographers out doing their thing since Jap Nats time attack was also on, think i know what i eventually want to have a crack at in the GD now too strangely enough :lol:

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VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

Aaaand some more haha

being hunted down :P
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bruggz351
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by bruggz351 »

Sweet pics man.....
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Scorpma82
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by Scorpma82 »

damn that Galant comes up crisp and clear......i noticed alot of Evo's there....was there an Evo car club day or something?
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VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

Last event there was an evo vs skyline track session or something, few of them seen our event and have kept coming back it seems, also the japnats time attack was on so few were spectating that and jumped at the chance for an hour and a half of track time for 50 bucks.
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VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

Sooo, only just got the gaskets to stop my oil leak, but since i had to wait a bit i thought i would try fix it using some other methods.... Mainly denial :lol:
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also got another few that seemed fitting.
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Also recently i had my 21st Birthday so my parents decided to get me some personalised plates for the galant
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And my mother got a Co-worker of hers to do a cartoon drawing of me in the Galant with my new plates :lol:
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i think its pretty accurate lol

Cheers
VGJONO :thumpsup:
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

Well yesterday was a good day, i decided to head out to The Premier All Japanese day, they held their classic day earlier in the year which my car didnt make because of a blown head gasket, Started off the morning at 6am, jumped in the old girl, hit up the Macca's drive through then met with a few friends at a Park and ride at Mt Gravatt.
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It was then i noticed that i had scrubbed the guard and popped the stainless trim off and it was hanging off of the guard
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After that we headed off and i cruised in with a few friends, as usual there would have been alot of confused people with a line up consisting of A Cube, a 180sx, a Turbo Mira, a Ford Focus, a Tiida, a Subaru and Me :P
All in all we got there and it was a nice relaxed morning with alot of nice cars, old, middle aged and new.
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Sadly on the way home my Misfiring issue worsened to an annoying new level and rendered the car almost un-drivable at some points, So once i got home it was time to do some fixing
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And maybe a quick photo op for some giggles :P
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So as she sits, i have fixed my oil leak and swapped the dizzy out for the bosch one i rebuilt, she started and ran alright lastnight for a few minutes, well as good as it could without setting the timing, but shortly after it stalled out and refused to run more than a few short seconds after i tried to start it again multiple times. my thoughts are something to do with the vacuum advance, thinking i have the lines hooked up incorrectly, but i wouldnt know until i try swapping them.

Cheers
VGJONO :thumpsup:
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VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

So the other day i went down and investigated what was wrong, turns out a fuel line i had shortened by about 2cm had kinked at the bend, so had to run the fuel line a funny way but sure enough the car roared to life and stayed running, sweet as, set the timing and went for a drive and the difference was amazing, little gutless before 3000rpm because i havent set the timing too far advanced, about 7 degrees, but once the Vacuum advance does its thing it runs great, and best of all NO MISFIRES :thumpsup:
Pictures somewhat related... kinda :P
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So yesterday a few friends had planned to go for a bit of a drive up into the hills near the NSW/QLD Border, leave sunnybank by 9pm for a latenight drive. I decided i had put off going to one of these cruises for too long and i had no excuse to say i couldnt go since the misfiring problem had been solved, so i spent the afternoon getting the old girl ready, I had to do a last minute alternator swap because mine had let go :( and also had some headlight issues so swapped out some lights and got everything working again :) also checked over my front suspension and brakes as well as wound the l/h side up a bit to match the right.There is oil everywhere under here from my oil leak but everything seems to look good :)
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Although my sway bar rubbers are pretty trashed.
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This is the max extension of the from suspension, i have the wheels off of the ground here.
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Anyways, everything aligned and i went on the cruise into the mountains, all went well, the car performed as it should, went around corners better than ever (although far from perfect) and fun was had, on the way home though i left the group and went another way through the mountains to get home rather than back to the Gold coast to head up the motorway. This is where things got a tad scary, along the way there was a dip with a bridge at the bottom of it, i didnt exactly see how harsh the dip was and hit the bottom hard, hitting bump stops all round and looked into my mirror to see a trail of sparks left behind from the resonator contacting the ground hard. I pulled up at the intersection up the road to change my pants/see if the car was alright, quick inspection and everything was fine :thumpsup:
Destination B is where i dun goofed http://goo.gl/maps/YGtyh

And after filling up at the service station on the highway before heading onto the mountains i done 150klm's and had only used 1/4 of a tank (H)
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Cheers
VGJONO :thumpsup:
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VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

So these past few weeks the old girl has been running so well, with only a minor issue with my points where the rubbing block is wearing down extremely fast meaning every few hundred k's i have to re-gap the points, other than that she has been running perfectly and has taken me to some awesome places and ive been on some epic cruises with friends
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It really has been impressive, this week it got an oil change and i had another attempt at fixing the oil leak which was a success. Then i got jinxed, someone commented on how well my car had been going. sure enough i came close to death that night when i suffered from extreme brake fade after having no choice but to ride my brakes down a mountain to avoid running into the toyota landcruiser infront of me that was riding their brakes :facepalm: i was in 2nd revving at 4000rpm and rising every time i let go of the pedal, going into first was not an option at this point, then just got to the last 1/4 of a steep section and i put my foot on the pedal and whoops, nothing there, so quickly ripped up the handbrake (of which doesn't lock) then diving onto a dirt patch at the bottom of the hill where i popped it into first and fishtailed to a stop. i sat for a good 10 minutes thinking how badly that would have ended if the brakes had gone any sooner. and just as a side note, my mate was in his Datsun 1200 drove the same section of road with us but didnt get caught up behind this Landcruiser as long as i did, But on Queensland raceway he has brake fade problems well before i ever do, and driving without someone ahead of him he had no brake problems what so ever.
This here is the route we drove, point B is where i come to a stop after losing the brakes. http://goo.gl/maps/JZ3dd

Then the next Night, or Lastnight we decided to go to springbrook for a drive, while on the highway towards Nerang i was following everyone and keeping pace, noticed they started pulling away, put my foot down and Nothing, quick check of the gauges and didnt notice until i saw the tach that i had nothing, engine was gone. so blinker on and across 4 lanes of traffic to end up on the side of the pacific motorway at 9pm. jumped out and checked i had fuel, yep still fuel in the lines and nothing leaking, next up i started going through the ignition, eventually pulled the dizzy cap off to find that the prong that the points wire connects to broke clean off of the rubber grommit that houses the coil to condenser wire. After 2 and a half hours of trying different things i found a carton knife in the car and cut the rubber grommet down to where the last millimeter of the prong was left, then held it open with a screw driver and stuck a bit of wire in there resulting in this.
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new one for reference
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It worked well enough to get the car started but i figured if the vacuum advance does its thing enough it would eventually work the wire out of the rubber grommet so i got some hose clamps and made a make shift vacuum line blocker, with that all done i drove the old girl home doing my best not to got to close to 4000rpm.
The initial problem that caused this is the wire from the points that is meant to attach to the prong was very short and only just reaches, and slackened off whenever the vacuum advance advanced the timing, so what had happened is after actioning so many times it broke, and lucky on the highway, not on the mountain we were travelling to at the time.

Anyways, after and eventful two nights she is still alive and now running right ready for another night on the road
Cheers
VGJONO :thumpsup:
geezer101
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by geezer101 »

I had a similar wiring failure in my 1.6 Cordia. When it gave out the engine just died - you reckon I could find that one stupid broken wire? :banh:
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VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

Things have been pretty uneventful with the Sedan the last few weeks, well for the most part anyways....

First up my mother decided she wanted to have a go at driving it :P
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She loved it, reminded her of her first car.... strange because im pretty sure she had an old toyota corona or something like that :wut:

And i had some admirers :P
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They were pretty cool, just an RBT and license check, they said i was the only car they had come across in about half an hour or so otherwise they wouldnt have pulled me over, 2am on a saturday morning i guess that there are not many cars out to pull over except for silly buggers like me :lol:

Also this week it will be going through a bit of prep for some drag racing this coming sunday :) maybe a dyno run again to see how many shetlands it has compared to last year.

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Also was involved in a group photo :P
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Cheers
VGJONO :thumpsup:
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VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

Old girl copped a thrashing today out at Mopar Sunday on the 1/4 mile

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Ended up running Low 18's which is a major improvement upon my personal best from the year prior of an 19.86 @ 68.34MPH
This year my personal best was an 18.160 @ 75.55mph, the car is perfectly capable of high 17's, its just the chump behind the wheel that is the problem :lol:
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Also chucked her on the dyno to see what she would do with all the improvements.
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Sadly this year the printouts were unavailable due to a tech error :( But i still won the 4 Cylinder class of the Dyno comp with 81.8rwhp, a 10.1hp gain from last year :D
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Im very happy with how the car ran this year, and im very happy with the 14% power increase from last time it was on the dyno (if my maths is correct, most likely not :lol: ) might even try heading to a test and tune to take advantage of the cold night air, see if i can run a 17 and get into commodore scaring territory :lol:

Cheers
VGJONO :thumpsup:
llgc
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by llgc »

Nice Work Jono, kept the perfect record of Galant winning Mopar Sunday dyno comp every time that one has entered
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by Scorpma82 »

81hp at the wheels is quite impressive indeed.....and its even more impressive to see the smaller guys out there with the 'big' hemis too.....not cowaring into a lil corner. (which always upsets me a lil bit)


Keep up the good work mate.......looking forward to the update saying u've cracked the 17's :P
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VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

Cheers guys, hopefully next year it should have some boost, maybe shave another 2 or so seconds off and win the dyno again :lol:

Speaking of seeing the "smaller" guys out there with the big hemi's i found this pic :P
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Cheers
VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by Scorpma82 »

the boost should/would make the car fun, i personally would rather see the car run without it
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VGJONO
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by VGJONO »

Sedan has been going well, had a bit of wet weather of late, turns out the old girl is a bit of a wet weather warrior :P may or may not have been in second, axle tramping sideways down a road or two in celebration of this fact :hit:

:lol:

anyways.... random photo's
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Now this sunday just gone i had another happy laps session, this being the first since i got it running 100%, well it didnt stay running 100% for too long, mostly because of errors by me, rushing to get stuff done, had a few loose plug leads to start off with, then the rear R/H wheel was trying to escape (my fault) come up to the corner at the end of the back straight and got on the brakes and felt a shudder, thought it might be my rear brakes, by about half way around the corner i felt it wobbling like nothing else, so dived into a section of un-used track and waited for a clear section to limp the car into the pits, for the rest of the session it went pretty good except for a few more plug leads that were loose. and for the first time ever got to do some "Chopping" of some cars, all in all it was a blast. and to top it all off the GA had made it out too

photodump
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Cheers
VGJONO :thumpsup:
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bruggz351
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Re: VGJONO's 1976 GD Galant Daily

Post by bruggz351 »

Lovely.
Is that a roll of duct tape hangin off the tie down??
'82 GJ GSR Silver (family heirloom):)
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