1976 Trans Am Resto-Mod; Rebuild Thread

[ryeguy2006a]

My name is Ryan, And I bought my 1976 Trans Am when I was a Junior in High School (Spring 2005). I first went to look at this car with my friend because my uncle was interested in the car. He said this was too much of a project for him, but I couldn't get the car out of my head. (And that's when I caught the fever for Pontiac's) So I convinced my dad that I could do this project and for him to loan me the money. Eventually he was convinced, and we came home with a brand new to me 1976 Trans Am 400 4 speed.

Now this car was 100% complete when I got the car. My dad told me that I couldn't touch the car until I completely paid him back. I worked so hard during the summer and finally paid him off. That following Saturday I decided to do a full frame off restoration, and little did I know what I had gotten myself into. This is where I started that Saturday afternoon.

When I first started working on this project I was going for more of an original restoration, but have changed where I want to take the project. I have been on this site for a while now, and decided to take more of a resto-mod direction for my car. I want to keep the car's original feel, but update it with all of the modern conveniences.

[ryeguy2006a]

As you can see the car needed a lot of rust repair, although it wasn't too badly rusted. It was isolated mostly to the lower quarter panels and a few sections of the floor pans. I put new quarter skins on both sides and put new floor pan patch panels from Goodmark.

[ryeguy2006a]

I cleaned up the rear end and put it under the car and got some primer on the shell.





Once that was done, I cleaned up and rebuilt the front sub-frame with all new bushings and ball joints and put it under the car. I sand blasted the A-arms and painted them with POR 15 along with the frame.

[ryeguy2006a]

Once I got the car on 4 wheels it was time to start the body work on the car. My dad and I worked to get the car into primer and get the car prepped for paint. I was able to get some rust free doors and fenders. The rest of the parts that came with the car were in good shape so they didn't need to be replaced.








I wanted to remove the rear window because I thought that there may be some rust in the channel and I was glad that I removed it because there was some in there. Nothing was through so I cleaned it up and got it primed.

[ryeguy2006a]

Once the doors were hung and on the car it was time to do the rest of the body panels. We started with the fenders, then worked our way to the hood and trunk lid.








Then we worked on the hood.





And the deck lid. There were a lot of dents so I had to fill them in and make them smooth. Took more time than I thought.

[ryeguy2006a]

The engine that I am using is a 1973 Pontiac 400 that has been mildly rebuilt. It has been bored .030 with TRW postions, stock rods and crank. The heads are 6x-8 and an aluminum Edelbrock P4B intake. I have several pictures of the various carbs that I have run on my car, when I finally settled on a Holley 750 DP.

Here is what I started with



All cleaned up and ready for some paint.


Painted Pontiac Blue, if you look closesly you can see the cross hatches from the rebore.


All cleaned up and back in the car.




Here is my engine with the stock quadra-jet.


And with the 600 Edelbrock carb,


with the 850 Holley DP race carb, Way too much for this engine.



And finally I settled with the 750 DP

Here is a picture of the Borg Warner Super T-10 all cleaned up too.

[ryeguy2006a]

I also upgraded to cooling fans from a 1999 Camaro LS1, and used a home build relay box with dual sensors to control each fan.



I cleaned all the brackets up and painted them with POR15. I also put on the rest of my engine accessories.







I mounted the relay box where the charcoal canister used to be on the core support.

[ryeguy2006a]

Now we are off to the paint shop!! The car was primed with high build primer and blocked roughtly 7-10 time to ensure it was super smooth. Then I had my body guy lay down 3 coats of Ford 2010 Dark Shadow Gray paint. That was followed with 3-4 coats of Clear for that deep finish. I also had them paint my dash and rear trim panel with SEM Trim Black semi-gloss paint to replicate what it came with from the factory.

Well to my surprise one morning when I started to work on my car there was a hair line crack down the side of my quarter panel where the skin was put on and come to find out we didn't weld the skin on with the correct technique so it cracked. I took it to the body shop for them to repair and paint the car.






Then the dash and rear deck panel got some color.




Then some Dark Shadow Gray

[ryeguy2006a]

Then a little wet sand and buffing.








Once we got the car back it was time to assemble the car finally.

We got the car home finally and put the doors on and got the deck lid adjusted. After fighting with the doors for a while we were finally able to get them adjusted to my liking. Then I was able to get the front end on and took the car out for a photo shoot with my dad's 1971 Chevelle SS.






And now the front end goes on.






I also replaced the factory mesh for a honeycomb mesh. Eventually it will get painted body color.

[ryeguy2006a]

And the photo shoot, with my Dad's Chevelle SS. Also here is a shot of my Custom Chromed Aluminum 17x8.5 rims. I got an awesome deal on them and couldn't pass them up. They are beautiful and the chrome is amazing. Gotta love Craigslist.

[ryeguy2006a]

Next was time to put some interior back in. I had a parts car that had the 160 mph speedo, so I upgraded to that, and I already had the 8k tach. I also got a perfect dash, door panels, front and rear seats, and the headliner board. I was able to get a lot out of the parts car that saved me buying all of the parts individually. I also bought the dual speaker upgrade from NPD, Year One rear package tray, refurbished 8 track player, and an upgraded factory AM radio with all modern internals.

Before I laid down the carpet, I bought some Fat Mat insulation and put that on the floor pans up to the trunk.






Here are the Speakers and the new speedo.





Here is the Upgraded AM radio that I bought along with the fully rebuilt 8 track player.






Here is the Year One rear package tray. I really like it compared to the factory package tray. I think that it really cleans up the rear of the car.

[ryeguy2006a]

Here is some more of the Interior being installed. I put in the seats front and rear, along with all the interior plastics. I applied some smooth faux leather material for the headliner. It turned out great considering that I had never done anything like that before. There are also some pictures of the crack free dash that I found in the parts car I bought a long time ago.

[ryeguy2006a]

The next obstacle was to get my exhaust done. I started with some Hooker competetion headers, and was unsure what I was going to run from there. I ended up finding a guy who was selling a custom 3" exhaust with SpinTech mufflers from a 2nd gen Firebird with custom 3" chrome tips that look factory. I bought it and started the intsalltion. Now what I thought would take me a weekend ended up taking me 5 weeks to get done working only on the weekends. I ended up having to cut a lot of the sections and welding/extending/contracting to make it fit the way I wanted to. Here are the pictures that I took along the way.





Before I had the tips to mock up the rear tail pipes.




Here are the massive 3" custom factory looking tail pipes. They are pictured with a CD to show you how massive they really are.



And the tips installed and just peeking out.




The completed exhaust hung.

[ryeguy2006a]

I also decided that I wanted to black out the chrome trim around the car includding the door handles. I will eventually do the front grills and fog light bezels.





Then I was able to get the rear of the car buttoned up.

[ryeguy2006a]

And that brings us to about October 2011, when I made a huge mistake. I finally got the car tuned up and running very well. I wanted to take the car for a drive. I thought that I checked everything, but overlooked a small and fundamental area... my lug nuts. When I was pulling the car back into the driveway, the front wheel feel off causing it to contact my front fender. I felt so stupid for not having them properly torqued, but it could have been much worse. The only thinkg affected was the driver's fender. I cut my losses and took the fender back to have it repaired. It came back about 5 months later, but I wasn't until I needed it.





Here is the damage.

[ryeguy2006a]

It was actually that event that made me turn my build into more of a Resto-Mod build. I will explain. I was forced to take the front end apart due to the damage. While I had it apart I decided to upgrade the front springs to PTFB GT springs along with Koni single Adjustable front shocks. I also got the PTFB solid body bushings. I made the order to Custom Works, all in all I bought Keith's C5 kit with hubs, brackets, bearings, SS lines, Solid body bushings, Koni's, and the GT springs.





This is the new ride height.


Since I was tearing into the car I also decided I wanted to shave the firewall, but instead I went with block off plate. I went with .050 Aluminum with is the NHRA Spec for sheet aluminum. I will eventually upgrade to the Vintage Air Gen IV Setup for my car. For now I am going to run without one.

[ryeguy2006a]

That brings me up to Last weekend where I finally did my C5 conversion on a budget. Excluding the wheels I have $325 bucks into it. I found deals on things and jumped on them when I could. I also have a complete LS1 rear brake setup to do install after I get the car running a little bit. I want go get it on the road before I tackle that job.

I wasn't able to get as much as I wanted done, but still I was able to get a huge step forward. I was able to get my C5 brakes installed. I have been collecting parts for this upgrade for a long time and now I was finally able to get it installed. It took a lot of work and patience making sure that everything lined up and was going to be square. I used the included instructions from Custom Works to modify the spindles to accept the new C5 calipers and brackets.

First I had to actually cut into my spindles, and let me tell you that was a cool feeling that I was doing the upgrade, but once that one ear came off of the spindle I realized there was no turning back.



Once the ears came off the spoilers to clear the new brackets I used a grinding wheel to clean up and smooth out the areas where I made the cut. I think that it turned out really well.





The two holes for the old dust cover need to be drilled out with a 3/8 inch drill bit and then tapped with a 7/16 by 14 threads tap. This is what took a really long time is making sure that the hole for the tap was completely square and that the tap was going in straight. If this is off it can cause failure by making the bolt fatigued.



Next I had to re-install the spindles onto the car and getting the C5 brackets installed and torqued down. I made sure to check all of the fitment of the brackets before I did a final install and glad that I did because I ended up needing to remove more of the spindle. I also made sure to torque down the ball joints to the correct specs and install the cotter pins so the bolts won't come out again. I bought new grade 8 bolts and torqued them down to what was recommended by Custom Works. I added a little thread lock to them for some added insurance.









Now it was time to install the hubs that I also bought from Custom Works. They are pieces that were machined from 3rd gen F-body rotors and turned down into hubs to allow for the correct spacing for the wheels. They came from Custom Works with new inner and outer wheel bearings along with new dust covers for the rear. One downfall to the hubs is the studs are Metric, so I either have to press on some new SAE studs make sure not to mix and match my lugs. Once they were installed I torqued the spindle nuts down to 12 ft/lbs. to set the bearings, then backed the nuts off until there was some play back and forth with the hub. Once I felt the play I tightened the nut to the next closest hold for the cotter pin and king nut to line up. I put new cotter pins in and put the dust caps back on.





This was the most exciting part for me. I put on the rotors and calipers to check the clearance with the wheels, and what luck the 17" rims that I bought fit over the calipers! Actually I knew they were going to fit because before I bought the rims I used a template that was supplied by Kore3 to measure the rims. Although I wasn't 100% sure, I was confident enough to buy the rims. They fit great, although I may need a small spacer for the rims when I install new pads, as when they have new pads, they calipers float too far out causing the rims to contact the caliper.





Lastly I installed the stainless steel braided hoses that came with the kit. They are conversion hoses that are metric on the side for the calipers and SAE for the side that bolts to the brake lines. That way it is a complete bolt on kit that doesn't require any other fittings. They came with new clips, crush washers, and bolts. Very complete kit from Custom Works, and they did a great job with the parts that I ordered. And last but not least my favorite picture of the day.



There is some slight surface rust on the rotors, but will clean up as soon as I hit the brakes.The only thing that needs to be finished is the brakes need to be bled. I tried to bleed them, but for some reason they were being difficult. It was getting late so I decided to call it a day. I was able to cross that off my list of things to do. I was putting this off because I knew that it was going to be time consuming, and I am glad that I jumped in head first.

I also was able to get some 1976 grills from a member on 78ta.com, and I will be painting them black to match the trim. I am really excited to see what the car is going to look like when it is finished.



That is all for now. Enjoy.

[ryeguy2006a]

I was able to take Friday and Saturday off of work this week and I was able to get a lot done on the car. My first goal was to get the fenders and front end of my car back together. I put the fenders and nose piece together and all of the body lines matched up very nicely. The fender that is on the car was actually the fender that was damaged earlier. My body guy did a fantastic job of getting it back together and you can't tell that the fender was ever damaged. Here are some pictures.





I was able to get the marker lights in and they fit very nicely.





Then I got the front bumper on.





Here is a picture of the stance with all of the front sheet metal on.





I blacked out the front grills and the fog light bezels.







I feel like I didn't get that much done, but I think it is because I am just getting back to where I was before I had the incident with the fender. This is all that I got done on Friday. More to come for Saturday. I will post those pictures up soon.

Ryan

[ryeguy2006a]

Now I was also able to work on the car this Saturday as well. I wasn't able to get as much done as I hoped, but progress is progress. What took me so long was the first two tasks I did; Kick panel installation and fixing the fuel gauge. I was able to get the fuel gauge reading correctly as well as putting my kick panels on. I didn't think they were going to take that long, but that is how it goes. They ended up taking me most of the morning to accomplish. Any way, I was able to get those tasks done and on to other things.

Here is the car in the air when I was fixing the fuel gauge.



Here are the kick panels that I installed.



Once they were done, I was able to get my Koni Adjustable shocks on. That was a good feeling bolting on something that was new!







While the car was on the lift, I also painted my rear drums black so they weren't in primer any longer.



I was having trouble with my factory 8k tach so instead of having it sent away to be fixed, I gutted an Autometer gauge that I had laying around and grafted it into my factory gauge bezel. I think that it turned out great and will be a good temporary fix to my issue of not having a tach.











I now have the rest of my parts all painted! I got the wheel spoilers and shaker back from my paint guy. Let me tell you it looks so good. I cannot wait to put them all on the car. It is going to change the appearance of the car completely. Here they are.







Here are just another few photos of the car just parked and in its current condition.

[ryeguy2006a]

Here are the pictures of my C3 new Master Cylinder. I still need to clean up my engine bay so please excuse all of the dust from sitting around.





I ended up buying a pair of Bosch E-code glass headlights off of Ebay, for $50 shipped. These will allow me to do the H4/9003 upgrade for a much brighter headlights during the night. Also allows me to have a replacable bulbs incase one blows, the whole headlight doesn't need to be replaced. I am very happy with the quaility when I opened them and they look more clear than what was shown in the pictures. From what I read online these headlights are on par with Hella, but are 1/3 the price. Now I had to buy some bulbs from the auto parts store, so all in I have $80 into them. I will give a better review once they are installed.







I hope to get some time in the garage this weekend, but no guarantees. If I do, I will get the hood and wheel spoilers on and possibly the shaker. It would sure be nice to see the car complete.

Cheers,
Ryan

[ryeguy2006a]

I was able to put in some time this Friday to get some more accomplished on the car. I have been trying to just get as much done on the car as I can. I worked on the car from Friday at around 7:30 and continued on until 4am the next day! Once I start working on the car I just don't want to start. I didn't get as much done as I wanted, but that is how it goes.

The first thing I wanted to do was get my dash bezel ready to install. It was super dirty and wanted it to look as good as it could without being refinished. Eventually would like to send it out to Randy Combs to be refinished, but at this time I need to focus on getting the car on the road and things like that for a later date. Here is what I started with.





I got it cleaned up and installed, after I got the wipers working that is. I am not sure what I did to get the wipers working, but I just started to move things around inside and it finally started to work? The wipers were a mystery to me, so I am glad that they are working now. I no longer have any wiring issues, so that was a great weight lifted off my shoulders.

Here is the bezel installed.





I also installed the door lock switch that I bought a few months ago. I bought it from ILLTA77, and he included the wiring pigtail and a new decal for the switch. Here is what it looks like installed. I don't have the power locks installed yet, but it will be something I do in the future.



Now here is what I was really excited about. I was finally able to get my wheel spoilers on! When I originally bought the front fenders I was told they were off of a 79 and I knew that we had to change the front of the fenders where the mount to accept the front bumper. But to my surprise, the must have been off of a 77-78, because my front spoilers bolted right on. I thought I was going to have to drill new holes for the front fenders. I am super happy with the fit and finish of the spoilers. They all fit so nicely. I have no regrets to buying original oem wheel spoilers.













I also put a different nose emblem on. It is chrome and black, instead of the original red one. I think that it looks much better than the red one.





And to top it all off, I was able to get the hood on. I still need to get the gaps all worked out on the hood, but it's on! I couldn't be happier, well I will be when I get the shaker I guess. I really feel like the car will be done soon. It has been so long since I have seen the car in one piece that it almost sounds unreal to have it all done. Also, don't mind the hood, it has been wet sanded and not buffed. I hope to have that done next weekend.





That is all for now, Enjoy.

Ryan

[ryeguy2006a]

I didn't get a whole lot done on Friday, but it was a very rewarding step. I had my paint guy come over and wet sand and buff out my car. It looks absolutely fantastic. I took it outside to get some pictures of the car in the sun. I was just taken back at how much I love the color. It took most of the afternoon to get done, but was worth it. It was nice to see the car complete and what it will look like once I have all of the little details worked out and the bugs all taken care of. Here is what we started with first thing in the afternoon and  where we finished later in the day.















I sanded and hand buffed the shaker. I think that it turned out pretty good for my first time.


And outside with the new stance with the GT springs from PTFB. I am absolutely happy with the stance. Possibly lower the rear slightly, but overall very happy. I also just threw the shaker under the hood to get an idea of what it will eventually look like.

[ryeguy2006a]

Saturday we went over the car again with a couple other compounds to really make the paint pop, and get rid of some of the small swirls. I thought that it looked good yesterday, and when he got done today, I was just amazed. it just looks so clear and reflective. I took some more pictures of the paint, it looks like a mirror!











I also did a little work here and there. I put in my Bosch H4/9003 conversion headlights in and realized that I only had one headlight bucket retainer for the lights. So looks like I need to find one in order to finish those. I did test them and they bolted right in. Very happy with the fit of those.



I also modified my stock shaker base to lower it in order to fit it over the Holley carb. I have to finish adjusting the hood before I finalize the fitment of the shaker, but here is the trial run for the height. Let me know if you think that it is too low? I feel that it is slightly too low, but then again the hood isn't completely fit yet.







That is all for this weekend. More to come in the short future.

Ryan

[ryeguy2006a]

Worked on the car on Saturday for a few hours and finished up some loose ends that I have been putting off for a while. I spent all of the morning working again on my brakes... The brake lines that I bought weren't going to work with my set-up as they were hitting the frame. I think that they aren't working because of the lowering springs that I bought for the fronts. Fortunately I had a set of stainless steel lines that were from my factory brakes and they worked perfectly with my current set-up. I didn't take any pictures of this because it has been an on-going dilemma and I wasn't happy of how I was spending my morning. Once that was done and I was finally able to bleed my brakes for I hope, the last time I could focus my time on other areas. I had some left over material from my headliner and I had my mom sew me together a shift boot. I tried to do it myself and failed miserably.







I didn't get any pictures of this last time, but I deleted the window guides off my weather stripping rail for a cleaner look. It isn't a big deal, but I think a lot of little things like this add up to make a really clean car.



I painted the rest of my trim, SEM trim black, along with my wiper arms. I installed the door locks and was surprised at how easily I installed them! I was thinking it would be much harder than it was. Good for my time management.





I also put in the rest my interior and got my passengers seat installed. I put in the radio, but didn't get it hooked up. I am not going to worry about that at a later date and just concentrate on getting the car on the road and getting the bugs worked out. Also, I am going to used the spare headliner material to recover my console lid. 





Finally, I got the hood aligned and started to get the shaker base modified to accept my Holley carb. Here are some pictures of the height at which I like the shaker. Let me know if you guys think that is a good height. I moved it up slightly from the previous post. I like it much better.





All for now.

Ryan

[ryeguy2006a]

I worked on the car for a few hours on Saturday and I was able to get a few things done. I installed my new battery and that seemed to get rid of the problem I was having with the "Draw", just ended up being a bad battery. I was able to get the other headlight installed and wired up. I want to give a big thanks to richduty455, on TAC, he went above and beyond to get me a headlight retainer.



I also put on my door trim, which was the last piece of trim that I needed to install.



I won't be able to work on the car this coming weekend, but I am looking forward to getting a lot done for the following weekend. I sent in the request for registration for vintage plates yesterday. I hope to have that back soon and then I will be able to legally drive the car on the road.

Cheers,
Ryan

[ryeguy2006a]

I got some parts at my doorstep on Saturday and yesterday. I got some more of the parts that I was looking for to complete my LS1 rear brakes for my car. All I need to finish the rear brake swap is the spacers, ebrake cables, and adjustable proportioning valve. I am really looking forward to this and it should make a big difference in looks and appearance.





I also got the blocker kit that was offered to me from Am Fan who is a member here on TAC. He gave me a price that I couldn't refuse and I am glad that I got it. I will have to do something to modify the shaker piece as it is for a 77-81 style shaker piece. I don't think that will be a problem because it is a flat piece of fiberglass. I should be able to make another one and fit it into my shaker. I should be able to put this on this weekend and finish up the rest of the little things.





I should get my registration back either by the end of this week or the beginning of next week. I should have sent this in sooner and not waited, but that is the way that it goes.

All for now.

[ryeguy2006a]

I finally finished my interior. I got all of the seat belts installed and vacuumed out the carpet. I couldn't be happier with the way that it turned out. I also detailed the car and got all of the buffing residue off the whole car.





I also decided to recover my center console lid. Eventually I will get a new one, but I want to make it good enough to get me through the summer. Here is what I did let me know what you think. Keep in mind that I did this at 2:30 this morning and did it in about 20 mins. I used some more left over headliner material that I had. *











I also took my car for a test drive, again and unfortunately I found out that I need new axle bearings... So that means that I am now thinking of just putting the money forward and doing the rear disk brake swap. I don't want to have to pull the axles twice so I am not sure what I want to do.

I should have my registration back next week. I am using vintage plates that used to be my dad's plates. He ran them on his 1970 Chevelle, and his 1970 Camaro SS back in the day. I think that it will be really cool to use his original plates on my car, I know that it means a lot to him too.

Thanks,
Ryan

[ryeguy2006a]

Ok, I have a lot of updates from yesterday. I took the day off and worked my very hard and I am very glad that I did because I needed every minute I had yesterday. I was putting the finishing touches on my car throughout the day yesterday. I had a lot of projects going on. I will start with my blocker kit because that was the first thing I started.

Since I got such a great deal on the blocker kit I bought here I can't really complain, but it wasn't as simple as I thought to install. First the kit that I bought was for 77-79, meaning that I had to make my own insert for the shaker. This piece holds the filter. So I re-purposed my parents old shower and created a new shaker insert. I think that it turned out pretty good. I started with a piece of cardboard and scissors to get the right shape, then used the fiberglass board.



Here is the board fit in the shaker.



Cut the whole for the filter. And looks just like the one from blockers.... Well sorta.





And the insert with the filter installed.



Then onto the liquid nails and wait 24 hours. (which I didn't expect)



Also, since I have a Holley carb the shaker base wouldn't just fit in there. Of course why would it just bolt on that wouldn't make any sense. Anyway I have a neighbor that is really good with fiberglass and he helped me out by cutting out some holes for the float level bowls go on the Holley and patched up the holes. He even painted it for me. Great guy, he loves cars too. Even if they are ricers...



Ok, onto my next hurdle. We can call this an adventure, and I will explain along the way. I mentioned before that my rear end was making horrible scrapping sounds, so I figured it was the bearings. Well when I got the axles out I found that to be exactly the case. The bearings were toast and the axles were severely scarred.





I went to Autozone the night before and borrowed all the necessary tools to remove and re-install the bearings. Absolutely worth the time to get the right tools. I didn't exactly know what I needed for the install, so I bought the two stock bearings they had in stock and the one saver bearing they had. Once I got the axles out and realized I needed two saver bearings... So I made a phone call to one of my car guy friends, and what do you know he had a pair of z28 axles that were in great shape. The best part, only cost 20 bucks for the pair. Here is the comparison.



And up close.



And while I had the rear apart I painted my rear diff cover to match my body color. I thought it gave the underside a little more color than just the black paint.



That didn't sound like much of an adventure, but trust me there was a lot or running around to the parts store getting new fluids bolts, and then finally negotiating with the axles.

On to the sway bar, nothing can be as easy as the sway bar right? Wrong, I went to bolt on my sway bar and the threads on one of the bolts pulled out. So, I saw a trick that so one did on pro-touring that worked great. They drilled out the holes enough to fit a shoulder nut up into the holes and then weld the nut to the frame. Pretty cool little trick.

[ryeguy2006a]

To continue on, I found out that because I have a new MC (C3 disk/disk) that I need to have a residual valve installed for the rear drums. The residual valve is built into the factory MC, so when I switched I no longer had one and the drums won't work as efficiently without one, so I bought one. I still need to install it soon, just need to figure out where to install it inline.



Now, off to my appointment over an hour late. It is a good thing my uncle owns the shop or I doubt I would have gotten it in. I needed a front end alignment and inspection. I think that my uncle was messing with me during the inspection, saying things like "I'm not going to use my license to inspect this." or "I doubt this is going to pass like this" After all that work I was thinking, this can't be the case. It ended up getting the inspection and alignment done and then I was actually legal to drive my own car down the road. So first thing I did was got some gas. Which judging by how quickly my gauge went down will be something I am going to be very familiar with. Here are a few pictures to end the day.







Right after I got back from the gas station. And just so I don't get people mad at me, if you remember my shaker needed 24 hours to dry. It will not have that filter on it going forward. It seems surreal to me that I am actually driving this car after 7 years of ownership. I have already put 20 miles on the car and hope the numbers keep going up.



I have been waiting for a while to put this decal on so here it is. I think it looks so cool on the muscle cars. Since I have bought several parts from them, I will give them some free advertising. Also you can see my vintage plates. These actually belonged to my dad in the 70's so that is pretty cool that I can use them.





That is all for now, I hope to get some nice photos from the car show tomorrow.

Cheers,
Ryan

[ryeguy2006a]

I was able to get my car done enough to attend my first show. Here are a bunch of pictures. Once I got back from the show I took a bunch of pictures of the car at my parents house. Enjoy.

This Cobra had a 521 cu. fuel injected BBF! Wow.



I was too busy at the show to take many pictures of my car, but once I got home I took a bunch of them at my parents. That is where I store the car when I am not driving it.



































Lots of pictures, but I guess I am just a proud parent, haha.

Cheers,
Ryan

[FormTA]

Great to see you repost this. I bet you're having fun reliving the journey!

[5th T/A]

Ryan, after following Project Penny Pincher and your new house upgrades, I knew you were a man of many talents. Thanks for taking the time to repost the story on your 76TA. This new to me as it happened before I was a member of TAC. I like all the details and photos of your restoration, even when things don't always go according to plan. I hope it inspires some members to post on their projects or repost on previous projects. I love the part where your dad made you pay for the car before you could start working on it. Also, about you and your father working on it together. That kind of time together is priceless.

[hakitup]

Great to see this build, thanks for reposting.

Tom H

[ryeguy2006a]

It's really crazy to me that it's been over 10 years since I sold the car... It's definitely cool going through all of the old pictures and thinking about all the work that went into the car. There's still a bunch of pictures that I need to update here, but I'll do that when I have more time. I haven't even gotten to the LS swap part yet!

[FormTA]

There's still a bunch of pictures that I need to update here, but I'll do that when I have more time. I haven't even gotten to the Best part, the LS swap

There,I fixed it for you.

[rkellerjr]

Whoa boy Ryan! It took just as long to post this thread as to do the rebuild on the car!  j/k!  Nice work on that car!

[kentucky yeti]

Thank you for going to all the trouble of reposting your awesome thread!

[ryeguy2006a]

I was finally able to get a good day here on a weekend in Upstate, NY to go for a cruise. My wife and I got in the car and just drove with no particular place in mine. We ended up driving to Montrose, PA and turning around and heading north on some roads that we picked at random. We ended up putting just over 75 miles on the odometer, and it felt great. The new exhaust pipes weren't contacting my axle over ever bump, and the ride was really smooth. I ended up picking some nice windy roads, and the PTFB GT springs and Koni shocks worked flawlessly. I am very happy with the performance of the car so far. I still need to fine tune my carb, but other than that it is great.

Once I got the car back to my house, I realize how dirty the car was. I decided to give my car it's first real bath, and the first coat of wax. I had to wait to wax it until all of the parts were fully cured, 90 days. Although the shell of the car was painted over a year ago. Any way the car really polished up, and I decided to take it out for a photo shoot. The pictures turned out much better than I thought from my cell phone. Here are the results.





















This is my favorite picture from the day.



Finally, here is a picture of my rims all cleaned up, with the C5 Brakes showing through.

[ryeguy2006a]

After a great summer filled with many trips in my car, I am getting ready for the winter. I made myself some car stands to put my car on just like the ones used by DSE, so I can work on the car up in the air at ride height. I haven't finished them all, but I will have them all done shortly. I build the ones shown out of treated lumber and will use them for the bottom stand, and the rest will be out of regular untreated lumber. They will put my car in the air about 12", which will give me some space in order to work under the car this winter.







And lastly, here is a picture of what I should be picking up this Sunday. I will let you guys guess why I got it. Let's just say I will have a busy winter.



Ryan

[ryeguy2006a]

Ok, made some big progress towards my engine swap. I had my buddy come over and we stripped the front end of the car off so that today I would be able to just pull the motor out. After a few hours I was able to get the motor down and pull the body off. It is the reverse of how I have ever done engine swaps, but is actually the proper way to remove the engine from the 4th gen cars. Here are some pictures of the process.









And the motor is gone...well from this car anyway.



Here is the mess that will be swapped over to my car. I need to strip off all of the emissions equiptment and remove the wires from the ECU that are not necessary, such as the rear O2 sensors.











I found this written on the bellhousing for the T-56. I think that it says Halcucca Motorsports JB Performed



This is what I ended up with once I stipped away the wiring.





Now that the engine is out, I need to get the engine cleaned up and figuring out my wiring right off first. I ordered some engine mounts from Dirty Dingo made for 74-81 F-body's and they should be here soon. The next thing to purchase is going to be Dynatech LSx engine swap headers. They are Ceramic coated and fit very nicely.

That is all for now.