OK...I finally have a Big Block Roadsta..... .....as mild as the 74 LS4 may be ... the low end power is crazy...

It arrived Saturday morning on a truck riding with an Edsel and an old Benz. Much simpler than driving it from Chicago to N.Ga. I HIGHLY reccommend 3M Auto Carriers...I called them on Thursday...they picked up on Friday and presto...arrived Sat !
No pics yet...It is too filthy to show to anyone. I will put some pics on later this weekend...gimme a break. The last owner basicly ignored this car for 17 years. The original GM steel braided spark plug wires were in the box of extra parts......is that original or not?...I am not sure. It's all there and is filthy. How these motors run sometimes I do not know. The dwell was set at 21 degrees and the timing was advanced off the scale and it still ran amazingly well. Tires had 19 pounds of air and the previous owner had been driving this poor thing to work everyday. What i have enjoyed the most so far...looking at the VIN # that ends with 00036. Appears to still have the original carb. It is not a pretty car, as the bumpers have rotted and cracked pretty bad. There can't be any rust underneath, as the entire belly is coated with 17 years of a VALVE COVER leak....makes me crazy. Previous owner said the temp gauge needed replacing as it hadn't worked in years.....I found that it worked great IF the wire to the sending unit was HOOKED UP! Tomorrow I will start pressure washing the underside. I'm shocked at how well this car runs or the fact that it runs at all. This car is showing 6500 miles, but has to be 106,500. And btw...I have NO CLUE as to the story about the RED hardtop. More later. Hopefully no nasty surprizes!

OK...here's a few pics.......Like I said.....it ain't pretty.......!

 

yup, need pics, and do it befor you clean it....

 

Best of luck with that big block.....take tons of pix......I should have my 454 fired up this week after a 10 month rebuild....I took pix of every step along the way....keep us updated.....Jerrylee///

 

FortyfoBravo---

I think that car is hot...stolen...larcened...
And; since my dad is a retired state trooper, my mom is retired from the DMV, my sis is a trauma nurse, and twintubo' cat got nuetered; I should help you, and take that junky, stolen, larcened car off your hands before you get in trouble.

I'll do it as a favor to a CF brutha'...I shall hook up with kevinator, and Gator79 and we will all help...but...I'll take one for the team and let you sign it over to me...you know; southern hospitality and all.

I'm in a generous mood this morning.

Glad I could help!


Jim

ps.
Seriously; great score!!!!

 

I am in

nice car, gota love big blocks

 

As always...this forum is great....I knew you guys would be lookin out for "my best interest" !

We just dropped the spare....appears to be the original....GR70 - 15 Firestone / 721 / steel belt white letter - ?

This is fun

 

are you kidding? It looks beautiful!! You must have cleaned it up quite a bit before taking those pics, especially the engine. The way you described the bottom I can't believe the top looked that clean. Sounds like a fantastic car. There aren't too many 74 bigblocks on this forum, but I suspect it won't be too difficult to get some good power out of it, even if it was pretty tame from the factory. Did you say it is vin #36?? That would be day 1 of production i guess.

(I doubt the hardtop is original! ) I have a white hardtop for my blue car.

 

Looks pretty good to me.

'74 was the last year I considered getting when I was looking for a Vette.

 

Very sweet ride! I cant wait for more pictures!!!

 

A 74 454 vert is a great find.Looks pretty good under the hood already,and a original spare to boot....

 

Looks real good!! Congrats

 

I personally love that car. 454 74 Really really COOL

 

That looks to me like a very stock BB car with some dust on it. Perhaps a few minor scrapes here and there. An unmolested piece of history perhaps neglected but only in need of some TLC. A very nice find!

 

A 74 vert is the reason I love Vettes now. A neighbor of mine when I was a teenager would let me a my brother have his 74 vert for the weekends. I still can't beleve he done that. My brother keep it for a whole summer one year. He said it needed to be driven, we were more than happy too. This was back in the early 80's. He still has it sitting in a shead. Looking bad now, no one to drive it.
Sorry for long reply. Just sparked memorys.

 

Very nice...big block plus vert =

 

that's a rare Vette, Good on ya.....

 

I doubt the 721 is original. It is likely that the car had Firestone 500's as original equipment that were exchanged later due to a safety recall issue. The 500's had belt and tread separation problems. I know, I had a set of 500's on one of my cars back in the '70's. I had two of them go bad before Firestone finally fessed up to the problem and exchanged the other three (one was a spare) free of charge with a brand spankin' new set of 721's.

It looks like you did very well with your '74. It may have been neglected but it appears unmolested. My '68 427 'vert was the same way. A little TLC will get it back to good as new.

 

I think it's beautiful.

 

Took me years to find one in good shape. You did great!!