72 TA : New Project

[njsteve]

These are the clutch related parts I had to replace on my 114,000 mile Trans Am. I will have to weld up the elongated clutch pedal hole but look at how much of the linkage parts were worn through after 33 years of heavy shifting. By the way, these pedal is as it came out of the car: that's the original finish on it -still no rust after all these years!

[njsteve]

I installed the subframe on the car today. It actually went very easy, just rolled it back on the floor jack and lifted the body with a transmission jack with a 8-foot fence post supporting the body.

[njsteve]

Here it is all connected back together after 6 months apart:

[njsteve]

I am in need of the little rubber molded hose that goes from the heater fan motor housing to the a/c housing. The one pictured is actually for a Corvette and the curve is wrong. Anyone out there have an extra? They should be the same for all F-bodies for a number of years.

[Xplantdad]

Awesome stuff Steve! I enjoy the pics and the info.

[njsteve]

As a post-Thanksgiving family activity I finished the rear differential and cleaned it up. The one thing that always bothers me about restorations is that some guys out there take way too much time to reproduce paint marks that were originally applied in about two seconds at the factory. My solution? I had my kids do the paint marks and they had a ball! I had the 10 year old do the letter "E" that was on the bottom of the dif, simply because my 5 year old isn't so hot on his alphabet skills at the moment.
Here's the original paint marks:



and here's the 10-yer-old's version:

[njsteve]

Here's the remainder of their arts and crafts activities for the day. We replaced all of the marks that were found on the rear as it was in the car, no extras, just the orginals. I printed out photos of the marks and gave them to the kids to duplicate. Here's the 5-year-old's masterpiece. They are available for contracting out on outside restoration projects. They now consider themselves "Semi-Random Paint Application Restoration Technicians."

[njsteve]

Anyone ever see one of these? I found it in the bottom of my driver's side fender last year and didn't think it belonged to the car so I tossed it in the garbage but it missed and landed on the back of my workbench and it's been there ever since. The other day I was perusing the 71 and 72 Pontiac repair manuals and found this diagram that explains exactly what it is! Turns out it is the original horn relay cover, installed at the factory. I have no idea why they used it but I guess I'll put it back on since it came from the car.