1981 Pontiac Trans Am

[moparmad]

Now that is what you call oil slick black. Looks awesome!

[Picard]

Picked up the Trans Am from Barry. He helped me get a flat bed to take it back to the workshop for me as I wasn't up for the hassle of loading it up on a car trailer etc...




Once I got it back to the workshop, the first thing I had to do was put back my wheels


This time the car has come out with a deeper black with tons of shine. Lots of clear went onto it this time round and it looks stunning. 8-)


Unfortunately the bumpers still seem to be an issue because of the material they're made of, but one day, I'll hopefully replace them with fiberglass units.





Our main aim for the week was to get it fired up.
I managed to fit the fuel tank in again and my brother and I did some plumbing work.


We fitted the fuel filter in just behind the tank where it has enough clearance from anything.


This is how it's currently looking, but I may still take the hoses off and go get collars pressed at the hydraulic shop to eliminate the clamps.


Once the tank and filter were hooked up, we primed up the fuel system. The Spectre tank I purchased seems to be doing what it was designed to and I'm very happy that I went with it as the fuel pump is inside the tank. With all the setups I've heard with a external fuel pump, they can be quite noisy and to me it doesn't sound very nice when you standing outside the car and can hear it buzzing away.

We double checked all the connectors, earths etc....before hooking up the battery and trying to start it.

[Picard]

It didn't start.

We could get the motor spinning but weren't hearing any spark.

Out came all the tools.


Plugged everything in, pulled out the multi meter and went through it all again. Picked up a slight discrepancy on the earth readings, which we resolved with a better ground. Checked the Crank Sensor and everything was showing that we should be getting it fired up.

After a bit of "forum research" I spotted a post about how someone had the same symptoms and it ended up being their injectors were stuck from standing. After a couple of light taps on the injectors...here's what happened.

Click the pic



Whoop whoop. I can't describe how happy we all were to hear that noise!

Now, we're one step closer!

[barrydorr]

Awesome looking car, great paint job...and those wheels just complete the car...

Surly you can't wait to drive her around specially after hearing the engine rumble

[Picard]

Awesome looking car, great paint job...and those wheels just complete the car...

Surly you can't wait to drive her around specially after hearing the engine rumble

Thanks man. Dying to get going with it!

[lumi-fan]

That sounds proper.

Congrats man, and the car looks awesome, love the colour.

[Picard]

That sounds proper.

Congrats man, and the car looks awesome, love the colour.

Thanks Nico! Nice to hear from you!

[Picard]

Time for an update. Quite a bit has been happening since we've managed to start her up. Last few weeks the excitement has started building up big time. Being able to take it for a spin is starting to become a reality so the motivation to get it out has been huge.

I've spent some time fitting the lights and trim as well as the windows. I need to adjust them, but I've got them going up and down nicely. I'll lube up the rails once I've adjusted the windows.
To do this, I've also had to fit all the new rubber I bought for the car. Door, T Top and boot seals.

Shitty picture of the T Top Seals. Hopefully they work nicely and don't leak all over the show.


Here's a picture of the fitted glass, door handle and lock.


Was a bit of a mission getting the links inside the door hooked up as everything is held together with clips and the space is quite limited.

Fitted the new side markers.




Got the mirrors on.




Hooked up the front lights and the park lights.


Got my intake pipe connected up. Had to drill out a hole in the Core support to fit this into my new BMC air filter. Think it came out quite nice.

[Picard]

Had to make a little bracket to hold it up. Dam custom work always takes a lot of time.


Wasn't really keen on the blue pipe, but it's grown on me. Think it looks quite nice in there.


Used my old water bottle again. Yes, a VW product on my car :-) Fitted this bottle when I went 383 and it's always worked very well, so decided to keep it.
Had to make a bracket to fit it. Ended up modifying a bracket that held the rear bumper onto the Lumina and it worked out very well.


Wasn't to keen to mount it close to the fuse box, but it was the best spot we could find.


Helped my brother pull the motor out the Buick. We wanted to get rid of a irritating gearbox leak and replace all the welsh plugs. At the same time, the engine bay will get a nice clean and paint as well as the motor.




Fitting the glass was quite challenging as I had stripped everything out the insides of the doors and even though I had taken tons of pictures, none of them were quite good enough to see how it went back again. Luckily, it's quite easy and logical once you lay it all out.

As I said, the windows are in, but once I've got all the seals hooked up and the electric windows connected I'll spend some time aligning it all.

[Picard]

My Trans Am has 2 speakers on either side of the top of the dash and 6x9’s in the boot. The originals were working but quite old so I decided to reuse a set I had at home for the front. They’re a bit bigger than the standard size so I had to make up a few brackets to get them to fit. Only worry now is if they will impact the fitment of the dash. Hopefully not. They’re quite a nice set of Focal’s and together with a set of JBL 6x9’s that fit in the back should sound good enough. I was still contemplating fitting an amp etc…but that’s not the really necessary in this car. I want to hear the motor and on long drives, this setup should be sufficient to bump out some tunes. If necessary, it’s something I can fiddle with later on.



All these brackets I’ve made have been all sprayed with Rustoleum.

I was hoping to use the Lumina’s accelerator cable, but ended up having a new one made. I see I didn’t take picture of it, but it came out nice. They managed to reuse the original firewall grommet and has an adjustment for slack.


I measured up and sent my prop shaft in to PropMaster in Edenvale. R1500 later a new one was bolted into the Trans Am. They fitted new Universal’s and hooked up the Lumina’s yolk to fit the new gearbox.


I fitted new vents into the doors.


The last few days I’ve been fitting the interior. I did the floor pan with sound deadening material and cut out some underfelt to go under my new carpet.


I then started fitting the new carpet and back seats.


I also fitted the extra trim pieces and the roof lining.

I had all of these recovered a year or so back and decided to try and remain with as close to original as I could. I opted for vinyl instead of leather. It’s a personal choice but I prefer the look of it to a leather interior in the Trans Am. Hopefully with a working Aircon this won’t be too bad in summer. :-D
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