81 T/A restoration

[70_71_78]

This is the link to my post about floor repair: https://www.transamcountry.com/community/index.php?topic=85342.0
It appears from your post you are beyond the point where I have temporarily stalled. How did you address the uni-body framework that contains the subframe mount points shown in the pictures I have posted? My floors are in pretty bad shape, worse than yours appear in this post. I have my concerns listed in my post. Is there something I have not thought of yet? I reached out to an aftermarket frame manufacturer who has photos of a second gen. F body on their site for advice/ideas/inspiration, but no reply at all. Frustrating.

[81Resto]

Seat covers finally came, still a little cool to do much body work/paint so still going on the interior.  I got these covers from Legendary Auto Interiors.  Little more money than the PUI ones but Legendary is about 15 minutes away from me so this is my effort to buy local. 
Started off cleaning up the lower and painted hinge on front seat uppers:
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While that was drying, the rear frames were in good shape so went ahead and covered them:
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I reused the original foam for the rears.  Had to do a quick foam repair, darn mice!
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Before putting all the hog rings in the back, we laid everything in the car to see how the stitching would line up.  Hopefully will not get thrown off carpet and other interior parts go in.
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I added a little bit more foam in the bottom corners and after pulling everything tight, the wrinkles that can be seen in the above picture are gone.  Looking forward to doing the front seats this weekend.  Also would will try to clean up the seat tracks this weekend too if I have the time.  Was waiting on the machine shop, to get my 400 block in for work, but will also try dropping that off this week.

[81Resto]

5th, I do believe that the rust would have been from the battery try and judging by your signature, I think I have similar engine plans to what you have done.  I have been scouting the Butler Performance website for a little while now, but haven't pulled the trigger yet!

[N PRGRES]

Looking good!

[roadking77]

How long was the wait from Legendary? I have been putting off ordering new covers for financial reasons. I need to save a few more dimes in the piggy bank, LOL. When I got the door panels for my car I was lucky to find the last pair on anyones shelf, otherwise the wait time was about 9 months but that was during the 'flu'.
You did wise by going with Legendary though, I have heard that there is no comparison to pui. The Legendarys are more money but from what I have seen they are worth going with the extra cost for a quality product.

[5th T/A]

Thank you all for the replies.  5th, it really helps that I am the only body guy I can afford haha.  I do enjoy the challenge and want to try to do as much as possible myself.
My dad and I just finished his 1968 Mercury Cougar this summer.  The only thing that was sent out was the engine block to get bored and have the camshaft bearings put in.  The paint could have been better,
but hopefully my trans am being round two will help.

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That's a nice looking Cougar. I don't see many nowadays. They were definitely a more luxurious version of the Mustang.

[81Resto]

5th. Thank you, condition wise it build wise had a lot of similarities to my T/A project.

Roadking, I placed my order just before new years and showed up last week, so was about a 12 week lead time.  I was pretty impressed with the covers from them.  Will be buying more from them in the future!

[5th T/A]

5th, I do believe that the rust would have been from the battery try and judging by your signature, I think I have similar engine plans to what you have done.  I have been scouting the Butler Performance website for a little while now, but haven't pulled the trigger yet!

Years ago, I built and repaired a lot of engines. Unfortunately, I can't take credit for the engine that is in my TA. It was built by Butler Performance for another TAC member by the name of Spoon for his 1979 TATA. The car had a stock Olds 403 and he wanted a Pontiac 455 that was built, like he owned years ago. I think he lived in Oregon and had to contend with strict emission regulations. So, the engine has a somewhat mild cam and EFI. The engine was built in 2015 but never installed. Fast forward to 2020, he put it up for sale in TAC and I purchased it. Honestly it is more engine than I ever intended to put in my car. But it was a high-quality build and the price was right. A great engine for the street, dyno numbers were like 488 horsepower and 580 ft lbs torque. If you are thinking of doing a similar build, I could send you the invoice. Its 5 pages long with all the details.

[roadking77]

I remember when that motor was for sale on here. I dont want to get into numbers but I recall you got a smokin deal on the whole thing

[scarebird]

...otherwise the wait time was about 9 months but that was during the 'flu'.
You did wise by going with Legendary though, I have heard that there is no comparison to pui. The Legendarys are more money but from what I have seen they are worth going with the extra cost for a quality product.

I did a short writeup about the differences here:

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=741494&highlight=legendary+PUI+comparison

That said, can we stop this "flu" foolishness?

Covid is a respiratory illness, like SARS.  Diminishing it for weird political ideals is stupid, as it was quite lethal to a lot of people, including a few I knew.   

[N PRGRES]

That said, can we stop this "flu" foolishness?

Covid is a respiratory illness, like SARS.  Diminishing it for weird political ideals is stupid, as it was quite lethal to a lot of people, including a few I knew.

Ok..... Lets argue about something that isn't even a factor anymore.  It's amazing how it went from some lethal pandemic to something that's not even as bad as the flu and how so many people got the jab and used masks and still got Covid, but you want to keep living in fear of Covid then that's your choice. 

[scarebird]

People here were amazed at the stupidity of Americans concerning Covid.
 Europe has a long, sad history of plagues and pandemics - they do not fool around when it comes to pandemics.   I use every tool needed when this arises: vaccines, distancing, masks.   Mocking the threat by calling it the flu is idiocy- it does not reduce the lethality one bit.

[roadking77]

WOW, this took a serious turn for the worse, almost starting to sound like some other forums and not the proper decorum of TAC. I meant no disrespect, political motivations or any other such nonsense when I said the 'flu'. I had no idea it was such a sore topic still I too lost friends and family members to COVID 19. Now can we get back to cars please.

[81Resto]

Yes Roadking back to cars not to downplay the affect that the pandemic had on all.  I was able to finish recovering my seats.  I did run into one issue, in my excitement I must have made a mistake and ordered the foam for the deluxe interior and not the standard interior.  Since I had already started I was unable to return so had to go the modification route.  This was fairly easy to do.  The lower horizontal listing rod is several inches higher up on the seat back than that of the deluxe.  Lucky for me the seat has many horizontal rods as part of the skeleton.  So I cut an inch strip out two rods above where the cutout for the deluxe foam was and glued that piece back in lower. 

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While ideal to order the correct parts for the car, it was easy to modify.  In all this seat recovering and adding some foam, I can make one suggestion for anyone coming to this part of their project.  To cut the foam the best tool used was an electric kitchen/carving knife. 

Also about two weeks ago we adopted this little guy
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[roadking77]

Is he an Am Staff? Cute little fellow. I have a soft spot for dogs! Which is funny because growing up we always had a cat and I despised dogs!

Seats turned out really nice. I have only done one back as of now. It was not bad, but not as easy as I thought it would be. My hands are what I would call pre-arthritic and I have a hard time grasping small things. I could barely pull the material tight and hold it into place to install the hog rings. I may have my son help me on the next set. I also had more wrinkles than I wanted but I think that may have been because I was using old foam. I plan on new when I put the permanent seats together.

[81Resto]

We aren't 100 percent sure what he is but I would say yes he definitely resembles one.  His litter was abandoned outside a grocery store and picked up by the humane society.  They had an adoption event at a local brewery.  I could of been easily convinced to do it before the beers.  After a beer or two there was no saying no

[langss]

 Man After My Own Heart.

[roadking77]

 

[81Resto]

Still plugging along but haven't updated enough. 
Latest project I sandblasted the doors, fenders, and hood.
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Found that both fenders were in need of further repair.
Passenger door is beyond what I want to deal with so I am on the hunt for a new passenger door.  Both fenders and the driver door are in need of repair.
I repaired the fenders still need to work on drivers door.

Passenger fender
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After some body filler work and dent pulling/hammering
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Sprayed epoxy primer
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[N PRGRES]

Good progress

[FormTA]

Great progress there! Always interesting what you find under paint. What did that passenger door look like? Is it able to be skinned?

[81Resto]

Hey Form, door would need a new skin plus bottom of the door is pretty rough.  Drivers door had a couple of pinholes but passenger door is beyond what I am interested in trying to fix.

Other progress continues though.
Firewall, underside, rearend, and subframe have been painted in eastwood chassis black

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Then this past weekend I sprayed the body and fenders in eastwood polyester high build primer
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[N PRGRES]

Looks great

[Dreamn2]

Very nice!

[scarebird]

Good to see, keep us up to date!

[81Resto]

Well had a hard time finding a good set of doors and trip to T/A Nationals turned up nothing on that front so I started repairs on the set I had.
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Cleaned up old door and sprayed with rust encapsulater
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Made a patch up out of two pieces since brake used was too small to do it in one
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welding in and cut to width

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Touched up with encapsulator when done
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Also sprayed hood, trunk lid, and reshot fender after some more touchups
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[81Resto]

Work continues.  This past weekend got the bird into some color!!!!  Noctorne/nightwatch/dark blue metallic whatever you would like to call it.

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Overall went well, do have a run on the clear coat on top of one of the fenders but that will sand out.

[5th T/A]

Congratulations, getting to this point is a major hurdle. A coat of paint makes a huge difference. Also, I love the color!

[FormTA]

Oh man! It all leads up to this point! Great job, looks killer. I love that color! You have to be super excited to have got to this point! I have done my share of body work so getting to lay down paint, that's awesome!

BTW, what brand of paint did you use? I'm just curious as the price have gone through the roof for PPG DBC. I did my car in single stage PPG DCC as I wanted top quality paint but it really cost me. (I used single stage to try to mimic the original paint/gloss of my car but it ended up being extremely glossy and mirror finish. Not complaining but way more shiny than what I was shooting for. Still looks awesome though.

[81Resto]

Thank you 5th and Form, it is pretty exciting getting some paint on.  The paint I got from Eastwood as part of their OEM select line.  This was a basecoat cleaarcoat.  Don't know if I will ever say this again but I can't wait to wet sand and buff it out to see the final product! The paint was a little bit pricey as far as Eastwood goes but I like it.  I remember getting an NPD catalog sometime around 2008 or so that had a Noctorne Blue 79 on the cover and that is when I knew what I wanted mine to look like.

[81Resto]

It's been a little bit since updating but work continues.  Door skins finally came in and have been installed. various small parts have been primed
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Put the trunk lid torsion springs back on and put the filler panel back on the car.  First thing put back on the car in years!!!
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Also started to wet sand and buff the body. 
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Heres a good look at the orange peel I'm working with looking at the difference in shop light reflection
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[5th T/A]

You sure have made a lot of progress this year. Paint looks great after sand and buff. For a multitude of reasons the activity level on TAC tends to slow down this time of year, so it’s refreshing to see complete restorations moving ahead. Great job!

[N PRGRES]

Im not a body guy but it must suck to get it looking good then having to sand it!  I know in the end it will be better but still......

[FormTA]

Looking good! I'm interested to see how your doors line up. I reskined some doors for my formula and once on the car I realized they were too short and the center body line was off. I hope your fit better than mine did.

As long as you put enough clear on you'll be able to correct any orange peel.  Paint looks great!

[81Resto]

Thank you all.  I am also interested in how these doors will line up.  If I had done things in a different order I would have bolted them up but took a risk here.  Hopefully not too far off

[murt]

Any updates?

[81Resto]

Hey murt.  Been awhile but I do have some updates.  I have a super t10 transmission that I have been working on rebuilding running into a small issue with it binding so will have to come back apart.  I also bought a set of 3.73 gears and yukon duragrip carrier.  I installed those into the rearend this past weekend. 

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Been on a couple of work trips so I haven't done as much as I like.  I have been working on sandblasting and painting some little parts and put new pins and bushing in the door hinges.

[scarebird]

Good to see progress!

[FormTA]

That's a pretty good pattern.  I really should do the same to my LS swapped 79. I have 273s.... keep the updates coming! I bought a supposedly rebuilt ST10 not long ago. I might be able to actually install it in a few weeks into my other 79, a Formula.

Motivation is what I call posts like these.