72 TA : New Project

[njsteve]

I just spent the entire day with a pressure washer underneath the Tran Am. The entire original floors are still covered in their factory red oxide primer with white overspray. Not a speck of rust underneath the car (other than the trunk well but that is standard on any 2nd gen F-body). There was no undercoating so all I was removing was the years of road grime. Just amazing! I found the factory paint marks on the suspension pieces, the part number tags on the coil springs. Even the leaf springs had the part numbers still stenciled on them in white paint. Now I know how archaeologists feel when they unearth a new dinosaur. I will post some detail shots this week after I finish removing 33 years of grease, oil and tar from my entire body. My wife saw me coming near the house and locked the doors. She said that was the dirtiest she has ever seen me in the entire time she has known me. I wore a full rain suit (which is now in the garbage, but still managed to get my face hands and hair totally blackened.) -I looked like a West Virginia coal miner coming home from work!

[njsteve]

And here we are: Greasy Man and Spotless boy, about a half a second before my wife abducted him and dragged him away from grime-central. She just doesn't know what fun really is!

[Belair62]

That must have been fun !!!

[budnate]

did the same thing on the '68 last fall..I came up with laying old king size sheets under the car to keep all the grease and dirt off the driveway...sure made cleanup fast roll them up toss in the garbage, rinse a little all done sure beat cleaning the driveway after the car trick, I always had a gravel area for messy stuff until this place now I have to think before making a mess..lol.

Bud.

[mmcporter]

Looking good--you really realize the details and effort that goes into a restoration of this type when you do it yourself. You've got quite a journey going there.

Morris

[njsteve]

I get more of a kick out of the restoration process than I do after it's finished and just sitting there. It's like a jigsaw puzzle; what do you do with it when it's all finished...take it apart and do it again? This car is kind of neat in that I am keeping as much of it in its original form. The floors will remain in their original (now clean) state. Other than stripping and straightening the upper sheetmetal and replacing a portion of the trunk well, the car will be a "reassemblation" not really a restoration. -a new challenge for me.

[njsteve]

Here is some of the underside's original finish: this is the inside of the trans tunnel if you were laying on the ground looking up.

[njsteve]

Here is the underside of the rear floor, passenger side, along with the rear dif with yellow paint on the yoke.

[njsteve]

Here is the front of the cowl. The VIN was stamped in two places, below the circular fan motor cut out and next to the heater box rectangular cutout.

[njsteve]

Here's the 3.42 rear dif with color codes, orange and green.