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93-02 General Tech/Discussion 1993-2002 Firebird/Trans Am General Tech/Discussion

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  #1  
Old 06-21-2014, 10:33 PM
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Default A New, Modern Project (for me and the boy)

Well, as you may have noticed from my want ad, me and my son were looking for a modern project car: a 1998 to 2002 Trans Am WS6 (because he likes how the hood scoops look - hey, he's 13 he doesn't need a real reason).

We found one today and picked it up.

Amazing to say the least - After searching through weeks of Craigslist and ebay ads I narrowed it down to half a dozen cars. It was really difficult to find an unaltered original car in the Northeast, all the stock ones seemed to be out west.

The really weird thing was that there seemed to be two specific types of people that were selling these.

1) Young men who's wives just told them they were having a baby, and that they needed a larger car.
2) Older women who were the original owners of the cars.

It was three of each situation. Very strange to say the least.

Well, I found a car listed on Craigslist here in NJ that belonged to the latter group. She was an older woman (a former over-the-road truck driver) who bought the car new in 2001. Wonderful lady to say the least. The ad had no pictures and very limited description. So, after a few days of texting and photos being sent, me and the boy went down to Southern Jersey and picked it up today.

The lady was fanatical about maintenance. She has over an inch thick stack of invoices for oil changes every four months. Sadly it seems that the GM dealers were taking advantage of her and doing every crazy fluid flush and cleanse just about every time the car showed up in there service lane. They would perform the $169 "6,000 mile service" every 2,000 miles. The car only has 61,000 miles on it.

The absolutely amazing thing is that she bought three extended warranties over the past 13 years! The car's mechanicals are still covered until late 2016! In fact the GM dealer just rebuilt the noisy rear differential in late 2013 and she only paid a $50 deductible for a $2,200 repair.

So here are some photos:

The window sticker: Bought from Triboro Pontiac in Cinaminson, NJ. Came with the optional Hurst Shifter for the 6-speed, and the rare traction control option.

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Here's the pile of paperwork, and the inch thick stack of invoices from March 2001 to a early 2014. She paid full sticker for the car when new, plus the GM Mastercare extended warranty plus another aftermarket 60 month warranty when the GM one was about to expire in 2011.

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And the door tag with the WS6 Ram Air option prominently listed:

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Last edited by njsteve; 06-21-2014 at 11:16 PM.
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Old 06-21-2014, 10:40 PM
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The owner was such a fun person to deal with. I had to talk her into letting me test drive it after she drove us around the block. It seems that no one had ever driven her car but here. Even her husband who was standing there nodded his head in agreement. She never let him drive it (he doesn't know how to drive a stick shift anyway). So after I passed the interview she let me test drive it with her in the passenger seat and my son in the back.

The car just purred and tracked and stopped perfectly straight. Ran like it should. (And after perusing the stack of receipts I saw that she would get the car aligned every six months and the wheels rebalanced at the same time.










Last edited by njsteve; 06-21-2014 at 11:17 PM.
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Old 06-21-2014, 10:42 PM
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Very nice car !
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Old 06-21-2014, 10:49 PM
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The reason she was selling the car was that she and her husband moved to a large property out in the country on the end of a long dirt and gravel road and she hadn't driven the car in months because she hated seeing it get dirty. The car had never been driven in snow and very rarely in rain.

Here's the ebony leather interior. The seats are very nice but the car does need a new carpet set because she was a former smoker and the carpet has really absorbed that tobacco smell. There is a cracked outer plastic molding on the driver's seat where the power adjustment switches are.





And the obligatory cracked door panel that these cars are renowned for. She didn't realize that this could have been covered under the GM warranties had she only asked at the time they were in effect.



The passenger door panel is perfect:


Last edited by njsteve; 06-21-2014 at 11:18 PM.
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Old 06-21-2014, 10:51 PM
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2001 Blackbird.

Beautiful, just beautiful.

Your son is a lucky boy to have a father with such good taste in cars, hope you two have a great time doing things together on it.

Drove my 28K mile '02 WS6 convertible today (Silver/Ebony, A4, 100% original), doubt I'll ever sell it.
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Old 06-21-2014, 10:53 PM
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The engine compartment. All the factory ram air components are intact. Most original purchasers tossed those air cleaner box resonators the first day they had the car. Original drivetrain of course. Even the original clutch, too. As an over-the-road trucker she knew how to shift and transmission properly. That tranny doesn't make a sound! All the synchros are still intact.




Last edited by njsteve; 06-21-2014 at 11:18 PM.
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Old 06-21-2014, 11:11 PM
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And now the bad parts:

Like 90% of the 1998 to 2002 F-bodies, there is a factory defect that was covered under a Technical Service Bulletin (03-08-98-001 Feb 2003) but not a recall. If you didn't push the issue with your dealer back in the day, they didn't voluntarily fix it. - And it was an expensive job - around $1,500 to $2,000. Had she known that it was something she would have gotten repaired under warranty, she would have definitely done it. You'da thought that since the dealer was charging her for every new fluid flush and refill process under the sun, they could have at least offered to do the roof repair at the same time since she was at the dealership every six to eight weeks for 13 years.

The assembly line used an inferior adhesive to bond the sail panel/roof panel to the steel roof frame of the car, starting in late 1998. It was too chemically aggressive/reactive for the plastic roof panel material. After several years the adhesive wicks its way through the molded plastic roof panel and bubbles the paint. No matter what paint repair is attempted, the bubbles will return. The only fix was to remove the roof panel and install a new one (while the panels were still available from GM - they haven't been available for years now). The red outlined areas are hard to see in the photo but there is a distinct line of blisters going all along the glue route.



Unrelated to the roof defect is paint flakng off the front tips of the rear wing.




Last edited by njsteve; 06-21-2014 at 11:19 PM.
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Old 06-21-2014, 11:33 PM
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If anyone happens to have an original black Firebird logo insert that goes in place of the front licence plate, give me a PM. The seller's husband said he had it hanging in the garage for years but couldn't find it when he recently looked for it again.



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Old 06-22-2014, 07:26 AM
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Great car Steve - what a lucky kid. Wow what a crooked dealer - Elon Musk (Tesla) has the right idea: get rid of them and sell direct. Rant over. cool find.
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Old 06-22-2014, 08:27 AM
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Congratulations Steve! Nice Blackbird!
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Old 06-22-2014, 08:24 PM
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We spent about 4 hours today working on the car. Got a new pair of rear lift cylinders to replace to old ones which weren't holding up the rear hatch any more. Gotta love Advance Auto parts and their online $25 coupons!

After installing the new cylinders (while trusting my son to hold the broom handle in place to keep the hatch from slamming down on me), we started to clean the exterior.

I showed him how to use the clay bar and detailer to clean the crap off the paint. The car was surprisingly clean compared to when we did the black paint on my daughters Impala SS a couple years ago. That car was a mess. Then we waxed the car and polished the rims.

Times like these are priceless especially after spending all those hours waxing and primping the black paint to have my son then look at the paint and say: HEY, WHAT IS THIS! THE CAR IS ALREADY DIRTY AGAIN AND WE HAVEN'T EVEN DRIVEN IT ANYWHERE!!!

I replied in best fatherly tone: "Welcome to the wonderful world of owning a black car, my boy."

He was not amused.

Here are the after detailing photos. My wife, who usually doesn't notice anything more than the fact that her car was washed, actually noticed quite a difference in the shine from yesterday.





And parked next to the old bird. My son asked if we could move his great-grandfather's 1971 Lincoln to the house garage so he could park his car next to my Firebird and his great-grandmother's 1975 Firebird.

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Old 06-22-2014, 09:11 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by njsteve View Post
If anyone happens to have an original black Firebird logo insert that goes in place of the front licence plate, give me a PM. The seller's husband said he had it hanging in the garage for years but couldn't find it when he recently looked for it again.
I have one...its in great shape.

$75

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Old 06-23-2014, 09:09 PM
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Today I drove the car down to my buddy's garage to try to get those pesky GM wheel locks off the rims. The seller couldn't find the key and deduced that Pep Boys didn't bother to put it back in the car when they sold her the most recent set of tires two years ago. So, luckily the Cornwall Tool truck showed up as we were trying the worn-out, lock remover socket that he had. They had a brand new one with sharp internal teeth that took the locks off rather easily. What a relief!

Later in the day the boy and I took the wheels off and cleaned the back sides of the rims to get the brake dust out. One thing I noticed was that the rear axle snubbers that are mounted to the frame had no snubber material left - it had just crumbled away when I touched the last bits of it. Were they made of some weird purplish looking urethane that didn't survive 13 years?
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Old 06-24-2014, 05:36 PM
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It was a nice day so I had the boy do an oil change on the car. I instructed him on the safe way to jack up the car and where to place the jackstands. Hysterical to watch an 80-pound kid try to turn a wrench on the drain plug. All he succeeded in doing was to rotate himself around the underside of the car. I then told him to brace himself against something and then try again. That worked a little better after I loosened it.

I was able to locate the engine VIN and take a photo of the spot, That only took about 25 attempts to get the light in one spot, the mirror in another spot and the camera in a position to capture it all.

The machine-etched VIN is on the back of the engine mounting area that mates with the transmission bellhousing. It is directly blocked from view by the driver's side catalytic converter. You can reach it with a mirror and then see it in reverse. I was thrilled to see it matched the car's VIN.

Here is the general location. The silver rod is the handle of the mirror.



And the actual VIN, stamped in a dot matrix format, as viewed on the mirror face.

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Old 06-24-2014, 05:42 PM
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I did some research on those axle snubbers and it turns out that they were made of some inferior foam material that decomposed ten minutes after original warranty coverage. Most guys install aftermarket urethane snubbers, or originals from the 93-97 cars which used a more durable rubber material.

Anyone got some old GM snubbers from a 93-97 car they want to get rid of?
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Old 06-25-2014, 09:38 PM
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This evening me and the boy drove the car over to my buddy's garage and rebalanced the tires. The prior owner had religiously brought the car to Pepboys every couple months to get the car aligned and the wheels balanced. Besides losing the lug nut lock key, the Pepboys tire "experts" method of balancing the tires consisted of throwing the wheel on the machine and then adding another weight. They never bothered to remove the existing weights. The result was 4 rims with half a dozen weights on each rim.

So we pulled all the weights off and rebalanced each rim. Turns out each wheel only needed an ounce or less of weight.

The boy had a lot of fun using the impact wrench to remove the lugnuts. Had to train him to take his finger off the trigger....after half of the lug nuts skittered across the garage at hyperspeed.

We then headed home and made it into the garage ten seconds before a thunderstorm hit. Timing is everything!
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Old 06-26-2014, 06:25 PM
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BTW, does anyone have this plastic, seat panel that goes on the driver's side seat and houses the control switches? Mine is broken (this is a photo from a set of seats on ebay).

I outlined the part I need. (I will post in the parts wanted section, too)
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Old 06-26-2014, 10:16 PM
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Here's my actual seat with the broken trim piece visible. The interior color is ebony (black) by the way.
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Old 06-26-2014, 10:32 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by njsteve View Post
It was a nice day so I had the boy do an oil change on the car. I instructed him on the safe way to jack up the car and where to place the jackstands. Hysterical to watch an 80-pound kid try to turn a wrench on the drain plug. All he succeeded in doing was to rotate himself around the underside of the car. I then told him to brace himself against something and then try again. That worked a little better after I loosened it.

I was able to locate the engine VIN and take a photo of the spot, That only took about 25 attempts to get the light in one spot, the mirror in another spot and the camera in a position to capture it all.

The machine-etched VIN is on the back of the engine mounting area that mates with the transmission bellhousing. It is directly blocked from view by the driver's side catalytic converter. You can reach it with a mirror and then see it in reverse. I was thrilled to see it matched the car's VIN.
More important than that is if its a LS6 block or a LS1 block...roughly 5% of 01s and 10% of 02s got the stronger and better flowing LS6 block.

The easiest way to tell is to look for a bullseye mark on the block just under the passengers side head...if its there its a LS1 block. No bullseyes its a LS6.

This is a LS1 block....

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Old 06-26-2014, 10:36 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by njsteve View Post
Today I drove the car down to my buddy's garage to try to get those pesky GM wheel locks off the rims. The seller couldn't find the key and deduced that Pep Boys didn't bother to put it back in the car when they sold her the most recent set of tires two years ago. So, luckily the Cornwall Tool truck showed up as we were trying the worn-out, lock remover socket that he had. They had a brand new one with sharp internal teeth that took the locks off rather easily. What a relief!
I never knew they made a special socket for that...I always just take a socket a hair smaller than the locking lug and knock it on with a hammer and take it off with an impact. It takes a good 5 seconds.
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