MikeM

These cars all went through a "PV" inspection before they left the factory and all of them passed. What's the problem?

Railroadman

Thanks - I was hoping the term would be clarified before I had to be the one to ask!

And I share your sentiment re NCRS. I have a ton of respect for those who are patient and meticulous enough to go through the restoration and judging process. My hat is off for the beautiful results. But for me, that's just not who I am. Like someone said above, as long as we both wave to each other as we pass on the road, it's all good in my book.

pop23235

1snake

Here ya go - https://www.ncrs.org/njc/PV_Sheets/6...g%20sheets.pdf

Notice that a single failure terminates the test. Things like a Hurst shifter with a stock looking handle = FAIL, Quartz clock movement = FAIL, solid state voltage regulator = FAIL , radio conversion = FAIL and on and on. It's not for the weak of heart and don't expect to fool the judges with non-stock or non-working items.

65hihp

What's even worse, there is only one judge for the PV test. The National Team Leader for that particular year car. You know how hardass those guys can be when you read that the President of the club needed three tries to succeed with his 62. I know he towed that car half way across the country for each of those tries. If NCRS is not for everyone, the freakin PV test is really not for everyone!

Tonio

Damn, I was hoping that they verified performance of the car on a race track and skid pad. But the performance of a clock?.....now that's some heart stopping stuff! No weenies allowed!

pop23235

Dan Hampton

Would wheelie bars on my '54 be grounds for a deduct? Just askin'...

Vettrocious

The big deal in PV, I think, is little physical law called "entropy", which, in essence, is the tendency for things to fall into disorder. Sure you can build something new right the first time. It'll probably last a while. And you can try, with some luck and partial understanding of what they did in the factory, to re-build it with some similarity to what was done in the assembly plant. The problem is, really, did you put it together correctly, or just close enough that you can't distinguish the difference?

If you didn't do everything right, and if every restored component isn't just as designed by GM, then the chances of entropy taking over and affecting function increase dramatically. A partially snapped connection, an under-torqued bolt, a missing clip, and a thousand other things can cause unexpected functional failures.

In just one example, I had a push-on clip fall off of the vent pull handle wire, because I didn't push it on far enough. The AIM doesn't say how to do this, so I didn't push it too far on. It was the last item checked in PV, and it fell off when the handle was pulled, leaving me with 15 minutes to fix it or fail PV. I tore the car apart and fixed it in time, but I've heard lot of stories of wires that fell off after hundreds of miles of vibration in the trailer, light bulbs that burn out when turned on, leaks that just happen in dried-out hoses. On and on, these are not new cars, no matter how good a job we do, they are not the same as when they left St Louis... Mr. Murphy is alive and well, everything that can go wrong...does

It makes PV a challenge...

Mike

Critter1

Well written, and quite true.

vetsvette2002

They're 50 to 65 years old now and not new.
Hell. I could pass, and did it every day, a USMC fitness test when I was in. Fifty years later.....not a frigging chance,

1Cerberus4u

OK, as a newbie, help me out here. what is a TL, PV Top Flight, Duntov, bottom flight, in the middle flight and all these things?

Can someone give a hierarchy and a 1-2 sentence description for us newbies? For the record, I don't covet stock cars (although I do appreciate a well built, well restored or well preserved car) so I know I will never chase this type of award, but I am curious as to what this is all about...

Vettrocious

When you have your car NCRS judged you receive an award. Top Flight is the highest award in normal judging, 2nd flight is somewhat lower, etc. If you go beyond normal Flight judging, you can attempt to get a Duntov award, which requires a prior Top Flight of a certain quality score, a PV (performance verification) test and then another high level Top Flight. All of this is explained in detail on the NCRS web site, I think. I don't know what "TL" means. Brief enough?

1Cerberus4u

So If I understand you, You can get your car judged for a Normal Flight, 2nd flight, top flight and if you get all those, you can go for a Duntov award, but that is a 3 pack of also requiring you get a High Top Flight, combined with a PV and then get another High Top flight?

How many cars have a Duntov and if you get one, are you required to keep it up?

Vettrocious

Not quite. If You have your car judged at a Regional meet (I think its Regional) and achieve a certain Top Flight score (97 or above), then you may try for a PV at a later Regional. If you pass PV, you may go to the National meet and again be judged, this time for Duntov (its usually a bit more stringent). You must achieve a Top Flight score of 97 or above at the National in order to get the Duntov. Not that many (1073) Duntovs have been awarded, (you get to keep it, but it does not transfer to any new owner).

csherman

Yes you can and most do

Tonio

Bill Pilon

I was around in the 50's and 60's and the crap Detroit was putting out then was not that great, a car of that era, considering the quality control in effect then wouldn't even be considered a good daily driver today.

I hear about "the way it left the factory" if that is what everyone is shooting for the bar isn't very high.

Detroit didn't start building quality cars until the Japanese started kicking their asses with nothing to offer other than better products because of better quality control.

Restoring a car to the standard it left the factory isn't a very lofty goal, however restoring one to the standard that some folks perceive it should have left the factory is a different matter all together, especially considering the junk called restoration parts available today, I guess they are built to the quality standards of the 50's and 60's era.

Bill

Frankie the Fink

Great post Bill...

Unlike some paint-by-the-numbers restorers that specialize in Corvettes and agonize over how some hidden bolt is plated, I saw the full range of Detroit's offerings when in the used car biz in the 60s and 70s. Mopars, Fords, Chevys, Ramblers, DeSotos and Studebakers....the mantra was that buyers would be back in the market every few years so making a car to last decades wasn't the point. Cars weren't built by robots and lasers and even then the bean counters ruled...so cost-cutting was still the rule of the day.

Even into the 70s I had a side business repairing the horrible circuitry in radios and early electronic components...Cold solder joints, birdcaged wires, board traces cracked, you-name-it.

Was it Noland Adams that said 70% of the cars that left the factory wouldn't get a Top Flight today ? Or something like that ?

Remember when a car back then was "done" at 50,000-70,000 miles...nobody wanted them because they were considered worn out which started the practice of rolling odometers back.... ?

Some are too young to remember and others have an idealized memory of what the industry was like back then...
Muscle cars were the worst and many used car dealers avoided them....far too many had ragged out motors, blown suspensions and had been hit in all four corners - nobody babied them...

I remember back then when we traded in a Japanese tiny pick up truck (maybe a Datsun) with "4 on the tree". I dogged the snot out of that thing using it as a parts runner and it just wouldn't quit...

We laughed about it; little did we know...

Then the Datsun 240-Z appeared, literally out of nowhere....

Frankie the Fink

Me too Jeff....

I didn't take my wife and daughter around Sebring at triple digit speeds in a car that had issues; and I R&R'ed three fuel gauges in my 63 just because I didn't like the way the fuel gauge worked. Just replaced my 63 steering box and installed an NOS coupler because the steering was a bit looser than I cared for.

My friends will tell you how **** I am about things operating at their peak...and how hard I drive my cars...

Some are just happy if they can get through a 20-minute test drive to complete a check off list an "open book test" under ideal conditions. Try limping home 25 miles at night on a country road with this:







Here's my PV....






Son-in-law couldn't get out of the car fast enough and told my daughter, "Your Dad is crazy!"
Members wmf62, plasticman and tomsilver60 can attest to how I drive my cars...and how they run.