1989 Trans Am

[UAmember]

As if I needed another project, I picked up this drag car project today. Mild steel cage, 4 link rear with fabricated 9", strut front. I don't expect to make much progress on this, have too much going on at this point. Just throwing this up there

 

[Barry]

Just not possible to have too many toys!!
Nice find!

 

[UAmember]

I certainly don't have too many toys, just too many projects! I bought this from my Dad's best friend. Without going into the story there's a lot of history between them and this car. He has talked about wanting to get rid of this car for some time and he finally talked himself into it after he bought a "complete" car last week.
It has been a strange week, I had two different people approach me about buying a car this week. One of my friends approached me about his '67 Pontiac Lemans Sunday, this came about Tuesday. Poor timing, but opportunity always seems to be. With that in mind, if anyone is interested in a 1967 Pontiac Lemans project let me know. He pulled and sold the 350 Pontiac, that was my deal breaker. I am no purist, but I was only interested in the car as a cruiser. There ya go, that's the short and long of it

 

[UAmember]

Here's the car he bought, it is absolutely beautiful. Build quality and attention to detail is amazing. He brought it home in the rain, so it might not be photogenic. I will try to get a photo of my friends LeMans up here if anyone is interested.

 

[UAmember]

My friend just sent me a picture of his LeMans, I have no idea why I was thinking it was a '68. It's a 1967. If anyone is interested in it PM me, I can put you in contact.

 

[UAmember]

Brought the car to my Dad's Saturday. We spent the last few days talking about the chassis work and some of the other hurdles.
We spent a bit of time tonight playing with the ground effects and seeing where body lines are. The doors and front clip are pretty well out of whack. There's a fair amount of fiberglass work to be done.
As far as chassis work, wheelie bars need to be redone, chute mount and attachment need finished.
Lots of small fab work to be done for engine plates, trans mount, radiator, etc.

 

[UAmember]

The doors fit like socks on a duck. We yanked the drivers door, Dad sectioned about an inch of the inner door because it was hitting the cage. Getting close to laying some fiberglass.

 

[UAmember]

Dad started laying fiberglass on the driver's inside door repairing the mess we were left with.

 

[UAmember]

I would like to change the bridle mount for the parachute. This was fine 30 years ago, but there's better ways now. Off comes the bumper.

 

[UAmember]

Here we are. I have to do some work for the pack mount as well, but we have access now.

 

[UAmember]

When I pulled the bumper I was shocked to see the rear frame rails were wide open. That is not acceptable. We will be closing these up.

 

[UAmember]

We are trying to meet SFI 25.4D spec, 7.50-8.49 ET; 3,600# max. As we understand it the chassis needs modified to meet SFI spec. I called the local chassis inspector, he is coming out to do a preliminary and verify what we think needs done.

 

[UAmember]

I did some work work on the car Friday night and yesterday afternoon. The way I am mounting the pack mount is going to require redoing the bridal mount. Out came the plasma cutter.

 

[UAmember]

After what seemed like hours of grinding yesterday it started to look salvageable.

 

[UAmember]

This is probably 6" longer than it needs to be, but I wanted to feel like I accomplished something other than making grinding wheels smaller. We had to get going to a Christmas party so this was an excellent stopping point.

 

[UAmember]

Worked some more on the bridal mount today. If I have time tomorrow I will cleco the bumper back on to see how much I can trim up this tubing. I'm thinking it should be approximately 6-7" inches shorter.

 

[UAmember]

Here's my progress from after work this week. I shortened the bridal mount, and fish-mouthed the tubing. I reinstall the bumper with clecos and put the deck lid and wing back on. Then I started playing with the pack mount and strut location.

 

[UAmember]

Dad pulled this oldie out of the garage and I started cleaning it up. We are going to be using it as a mock up block but who knows, it was in much better shape than we anticipated. A few of the lifters were stuck, #4 cylinder has some rust. I got the lifters all free and cleaned up. I might try some evapo-rust to see if a hone job will clean up the cylinder or not.

 

[UAmember]

Dad started cutting up some box tubing to make a chassis jig yesterday afternoon. It has been a relatively productive week on the project.

 

['68 Coronet R/T]

It's really coming together. Can't wait to see the finished product.