[poncho4554spd]

Originally Posted by transam1972

it was nice finishing off the exhaust..the tail end really comes together now...I cannot wait to spew fumes in a smokey burn out!....another delay as when I pulled my tank and then sending unit (car has not been started in well over 10 years)...rust..these are scrap and a new tank and unit are on the list...rust never sleeps and will this ever end?...and note the "before" photo of the "dirty" frame rail...it never occurred to me to clean them after 30 years...I don't get it though, it appears as though some sort of undercoat was sprayed on and then the Lucerne blue was sprayed..check out the"after" photo to see what I am talking about..anyone know about this?..my car also has sound deadner on the front and rear wheel wells...nothing on the under carriage..and yet the exposed bottem of the gas tank had sound deadner

Ok not much for pics yet but I did get a few clamps on the exhaust, set timing, and topped off trans fluid. I pulled the car out of my buddies garage and drove it down the driveway of his farm. It seems to shift good so in Glenn's honor I "spewed fumes in a smokey burnout" Though I went easy with only half throttle it was plenty to launch the car and smoke the tires. So next will be working out electrical bugs in the dash guages and then onto the body.

[poncho4554spd]

I got some news today regarding the shaker assembly that Glenn had for the car and dissapointingly I am losing confidence that it will return to the car though we still have hope that it will be sent home to either us or Glenns family. In the mean time if anyone has any correct dual snorkel air cleaner housings for sale, please shoot me a PM as we may need a back up plan for one. On another note, we removed the fenders and I will begin work on the brackets soon and plan to post pics as we progress.

[poncho4554spd]

Scratch the last post. We jumped the gun forsay. All is good now and the shaker assembly will be reunited with the car so one less task to worry about and we can move on to more good stuff soon.

[Judge273]

I said it before and will say it again.

I would have grabbed that complete running 72 TA LB with Black deluxe guts for 15k and made some good money selling it after paint and tweaking. That's ,even before I knew it was Glenn's old car too.

Not sure what you and your buds plans are for car. But, a even better price than expected and the gifts keep coming is a great start...I might be a little jealous, but deals never fall in my lap.

[poncho4554spd]

Originally Posted by Judge273

I said it before and will say it again.

I would have grabbed that complete running 72 TA LB with Black deluxe guts for 15k and made some good money selling it after paint and tweaking. That's ,even before I knew it was Glenn's old car too.

Not sure what you and your buds plans are for car. But, a even better price than expected and the gifts keep coming is a great start...I might be a little jealous, but deals never fall in my lap.

The car was a deal and so far luckily things seem to be falling into place. My buddy had been looking for a 2nd gen TA in blue because he loved a blue 79 I had in High School. I actually helped him find the car, and obviously it checked out for him when seen in person . The price was negotiated and he was able to purchase it. He and I have an agreement that I will help him wherever I can as far as parts, labor, etc to get the car together and correct as possible and if he ever wants to sell it I have first dibs for the amount of money he has in it, or he can sell and we split the profit, though I probably would buy it for myself if it came to that. And of course I get to drive it any time I want and plan to do as much as I can to keep his cost down on the car for obvious reasons lol.

[poncho4554spd]

Ok. I spent some time working on the fender braces. First I took the early pair of firebird fenders and carefully heated the paint along the skin faces that connect the skin to the upper and front braces and wire brushed off the paint to clearly expose the spotwelds.. I drilled through the spotwelds on the skin just deep enough to cut the welds but not go into the top braces nor the front upper brackets that sit behind the nose. Once they were all drilled I used panel seam splitter tools and a hammer to separate the pieces from the fender. I found the passenger side front upper bracket bent from a hit at one time, but was able to use a press, some pieces of steel and a body hammer to rework back to shape. So the braces are out and ready for bed fenders. I used a spot weld drill on the old fender since I was able to access all the welds with the drill.

[poncho4554spd]

Now for the tedious part. I took the NOS later style fenders and identified all of the spotwelds on their top braces and front upper brackets. This part would prove to need a little finesse since I planned to cut the spotwelds on the braces from behind to avoid putting any holes in the fender skins. I was only able to use the drill for a few welds on each fender, the rest had to be carefully ground down through the thicker bracket without harming the fender skins
For this I used a 1/2 x 18" belt sander made for cutting spotwelds. I used 40 grit belts on it. Carefully I ground the welds from behind and slowly separated the braces and front brackets with the panel splitter. I did cut a piece out of the top braces where the front bolt holes are to give a little easier access for the seam splitter. These newer braces are getting tossed anyway so I wasn't worried about saving them for anything. Braces came out with no holes in skins. Now I need to clean up the earlier braces and spot weld them into the NOS fenders.

[poncho4554spd]

Here is a pic with the braces out and no damage to skins.

[unruhjonny]

Nice job!!

[poncho4554spd]

Originally Posted by unruhjonny

Nice job!!

Thanks. I hope to sandblast the braces this week and spray them along with the backside of the fenders in epoxy primer then spot weld them together. Next I will put them, along with the hood and nose back on the car to make sure all fits well. After that it will be into the bodywork and paint prep.

[Norwood]

Nice work, good to see progress

[poncho4554spd]

Originally Posted by Norwood

Nice work, good to see progress

Thanks Craig. Trying to get what I can accomplished between my regular job and juggling my own TA projects. I sandblasted the fender braces and scuffed the inner sides of the fenders then coated everything in epoxy primer. Hopefully I will be spotwelding everything together this weekend and refitting the front end.

[necdb3]

Just met Dave, the current of Glenn's 72 T/A at a car show tonight. Lives a few miles from me now.

[poncho4554spd]

Originally Posted by necdb3

Just met Dave, the current of Glenn's 72 T/A at a car show tonight. Lives a few miles from me now.

Small world. Dave sent me a pic of your car. I told him that I saw it once before there but the owner wasn't around the car. Then he mentioned your conversation and I realized who's car it is. Brian is the one who bought Glenn's car but he and Dave are twin brothers and pretty much claim each other's stuff lol.

[necdb3]

Originally Posted by poncho4554spd

Small world. Dave sent me a pic of your car. I told him that I saw it once before there but the owner wasn't around the car. Then he mentioned your conversation and I realized who's car it is. Brian is the one who bought Glenn's car but he and Dave are twin brothers and pretty much claim each other's stuff lol.

That would explain why he didn't know the year of the car "he" just bought. We put the story together when he told me he bought it out of Toms River and the guy that owned it passed away. We figured it was Glenn's car.

Do you ever make it to Johnson's? If you do, you have my phone number, call me. I usually go every Friday if I'm around.

[poncho4554spd]

Originally Posted by necdb3

That would explain why he didn't know the year of the car "he" just bought. We put the story together when he told me he bought it out of Toms River and the guy that owned it passed away. We figured it was Glenn's car.

Do you ever make it to Johnson's? If you do, you have my phone number, call me. I usually go every Friday if I'm around.

Yes I get up there from time to time. The TA is sitting about 2 miles from there and I live 10 minutes away and am constantly in the area. I will try and catch up with you the next time I go.

[necdb3]

Originally Posted by poncho4554spd

Yes I get up there from time to time. The TA is sitting about 2 miles from there and I live 10 minutes away and am constantly in the area. I will try and catch up with you the next time I go.

I live right in Mt. Laurel, 10 min from Johnsons. Dave told me Eagle Auto Body most likely will paint it? I that where it is?

[poncho4554spd]

Originally Posted by necdb3

I live right in Mt. Laurel, 10 min from Johnsons. Dave told me Eagle Auto Body most likely will paint it? I that where it is?

No the car is at their family farm on Rt. 541 in one of the garages. I have been working on it there along with taking parts with me such as the fenders to work on. Once the fenders are spotwelded I will be blasting the endura nose and fixing any issues and priming. I will bolt the nose and fenders on and begin stripping the complete exterior body to metal and spraying with epoxy along with fixing any dings/dents. I will then block the car with 320. Either I will cut the car in and send it to Eagle complete or take it and have them paint the shell , doors, hood, decklid and fenders separately in the booth then I will reassemble. I am still up in the air on how I want to do that part of it yet.We are friends with the owners or Eagle and I worked there years ago so we will do it at night and have their painter give us a hand when it come time for color.

[necdb3]

Would love to see it move along.

[poncho4554spd]

Originally Posted by necdb3

Would love to see it move along.

I will keep progress posted. Hopefully we can get it up to Johnson's Corner one Friday night once it is together.