78 TA butt lift
 

Hi y'all. I'm not in need of help(yet) but I thought I'd share some pics of the work being done on my TA. This used to be my race car but it's been sitting outside for about 3 years now so needless to say it's in need of some attention. I knew when I bought it that the rear end was a bit rusty but what does an 18 year old kid care about that when it chirps 2nd & 3rd gear :D I asked my boyfriend(dealership mechanic) about getting back out last year and he said "we need to talk" :( So he's working on getting it road worthy for me again. I'll update the pics as he works on it. I may be asking for help as this is his first major project too.

Here's another pic of him working on it. And then my project, the back window channel :)

hmm and i thought you were looking for volunteers to lift your butt!

glad to see you're getting something done with the bird.

mike

Hey Mike,
Yea, I was wondering if I should have Steve change the title. I was thinking about Bjorn's(I think he started it) thread on what you got your car for christmas when I did my title. At least it should get some attention :)
After all this feasting over the hollidays I might need the butt lift though, lol.

I've heard there's a company that sells patch panels for those cars. Should be a big help to 'ya! ;)
That rear glass channel looks very good.

Hi Greg,
Heehee, the more we dig the more I think I'm just working for parts :oogle:
Thanks on the channel, I did have some practice with Punkey's windshield last year. It is a pretty easy job though which is why I'm doing it :) The toughest part is climbing thru the window opening to clean the parts I can't reach since I'm so short :rolleyes:

Sorry for the delay in progress pics. I was down with a cold/sinus infection last week. My boyfriend, great guy that he is, worked Sunday without me though. So I only have the after pics of him getting the old trunk floor out.

Then he worked on it again this past Saturday. As you can see from the last pics most of the mounting brackets on the end of the frame rails are shot. He made new brackets and welded them on.

Next he's working on the pieces on the top outer section of the trunk floor. They are not made so he's made his own patches.

While I'm on here I do have a question. Aside of sandblasting do ya'll have any tricks on cleaning between the frame rails :(

That's nice work the BF is doing. It's coming along nicely.
I wouldn't call it a trick...because it will require some work but I've gotten good results with the phosphoric acid treatments.
Let it soak on the surface and clean it with a wire brush similar to one of those things sold for cleaning an outdoor grill.
It may take multiple applications and several days to dissolve it all.
You can pick it up in some Home Depots...Usually in the paint section if they have it.

If you have trouble finding the phosphoric acid (as I did) they also sell a product called "Must for Rust" that has pretty much the same active ingredient. It's what I used and it worked really well. Just follow the directions.

The other alternative is to go with one of the rust convertor products and be done with it.

Thanks Greg. I'll have to check that out. My dad has a big wire brush that I was using but it's too big to fit with the brushes facing the side of the rails so I was using a tiny brush & I just don't have that kind of patience :( I'm going to paint them with POR but I'd like to get them as clean as possible first.

Stacey, check out this thread on rust removal using the phospo. It just happened to be a couple of posts down from this one. http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...=1#post3161671

Thanks Greg. I did see that yesterday while I was surfing :) Unfortunately my bf says I'm not going to have that kind of time :( He wants to start putting everything back together already & he does work quick. I guess I'll just shop for a better size wire brush & do the best I can with that. Then POR over everything & hope for the best. I'll get some more pics tomorrow & post them next week.

As you can see, I didn't have time for the acid treatment(s). I got them as clean as I could then POR'd the inside & outside of the rails. He used weldable primer for the tops.

In the last pictures with those pieces he made they were just tacked in to check fit. So he welded them in then used weldable primer on those also.

Then he tack welded the left trunk frop off in according to specs. My Mom has a 79 right next to mine in the barn so we have hers to take measurements off of :)
Next was to fitment on the trunk floor. He got it fit and used cleco's to hold in place for marking/welding it in. Then he welded the trunk floor in.

its looking good stacy! your " butt" will look better in no time!

mike

Yeah, he's moving along pretty quickly with it.
What's he planning to do about that inner wheelhouse on the driver's side?
You guys be very careful about fire hazards too. No old rags, cans of gasoline or anything like that around and make sure you're around for at least a couple of hours after every welding session.

Thanks Mike ;)

Greg, he's going to make a patch for that as well as some other places that I don't have new sheet metal for. I'll take pics when he does them. Thanks for the warnings. We do our best to be careful. Ecspecially since most of my Dad's toys are in that garage also :)

Hey Stacey, the car is coming along really good! I know you can't wait until it's all done! Hey, remember when you offered to ask your BF questions for me since I have the same issues with my '70 TA? Since no one makes an aftermarket "butt" for 70-73's, I was kind of thinking about chopping the entire tail section off about 6" up on the 1/4 panels on both the TA and my parts car and just sectioning/butt welding in the entire section, rather than having to drill out all of the spot welds, etc. Can you ask him what he thinks? Thanks Stacey, I appreciate it! - Randy

that's going to be a LOT of filler across the tail panel.

personally i'd rather deal with the spot welds.


mike

Isn't this the same car that you all discussed 'short clipping'?

Hey Greg,

Yes, it is the same car. I don't want to get off topic on Stacey's post, but after all of the discussion we had about shortclipping the TA, I did more research. I came across an auto body site where they showed photos of short clip repair jobs on late model vehicles. They basically said if you short clip a car and cut through the frame and weld another clip onto the car, it becomes unsafe because you have changed the integrity of the frame. Cars that have had shortclipping done are designated salvage vehicles by insurance companies, and the last thing I want is to have the TA tagged with a salvage title. If that were the case, I'd be better off turning the Esprit into a TA clone.

I also can't see having to chop the entire back of the car off when the 1/4's and the rest of the trunk (besides the pan) are pretty decent. Granted, the 1/4's will need some patching, but it's not like the entire rear section from the rear window back is crumbling from rust. I know it will take longer to repair the rusted areas than doing a short clip, but so be it.

Also, I really don't want to cut the frame and throw off the integrity of the frame. I would much rather either drill out the tail section at the spot welds or cut the section at the 1/4's about 6-8" up, since about 6" of the top rear portion of the trunk channel is rotted out as well.

Stacey, I apologize for getting off topic on your thread :sorry: - I'll post this on the thread I started about the tail section..........

Hey Randy,
Don't worry about getting off topic, it's not a problem for me :) I will forward your questions to my BF & my Dad to see what they say. This is the first time Jory(BF) has done anything like this and he refers to my Dad sometimes to make sure he's doing ok, even though Daddy usually agrees :rolleyes:
BTW, I'll be posting more pics tonight. He got the left quarter patch on & has the right one mocked up, he's gettin there :D

got another days work in :)

well stacey, can honestly say your butt's looking better every day.

i don't know what your b/f does but he's got somemetal working skills.


keep it up and you're gonna have a nice car there.

mike

Thanks Mike :p
He's actually a mechanic at a Chevy :eek: dealership. He's got a friend with a street rod that he's had to fab a lot of stuff for though. He does do good work, even for a chevy guy :rolleyes:

Hey Randy,
I got an answer for you, it's a bit long though. I am just going to copy & paste the answers.
Like I mentioned I had emailed my Dad also for his opinion which was:
I don't think that he will have the same strength of doing it the way that Jory is.
And Jory's(BF) answer:
In regards to Randy, I agree with your father in that it won't be as strong. How much of the rear of the car is he going to cut off? If he takes the trunk floor in the section he is still going to have a lot of spot welds to drill. The majority of the spot welds are in the tail panel and trunk floor. Drilling the spot welds was the easy part it was finding all of them that can be tricky. It may just be my opinion but I think it may be easier to align the panels easier when they are individual versus all in one piece, and in my thinking the more detail and fit you have in the panel replacement the easier and less work the finish body work will be. If I was placed in his situation I think I would still do the panel replacement as I am doing in your pictures, the only difference would be the use of used sheet metal. On the brighter side if he drills all the spot welds out of the donor metal that's good because now he had predrilled panels versus all the holes we had to drill in the new panels, What it comes down to is patience and some time. Also have him inspect thoroughly the rear frame rails and brackets where the bumper mount. Depending how bad (if any) they are you know how we fixed yours so you can explain.

Hey Stacey,

Thank you so much for asking your Dad and Jory for me. I've been kicking this back and forth, and their answers reinforce what I've been thinking the past few days. I think I'm going to drill out the panels and replace them, rather than slice off the back and weld another one on. Jory's right, finding the spot welds is the hardest part, especially when there's that inner panel in the tail section that welds up to the rear frame rails.

As luck would have it, I just located a 73 Formula 350 shell that's only going to cost me $200, a trailer rental and a tank of gas. The guy told me the tail section is in great shape, so I looks like maybe I'll score the donor I need and save the Esprit from getting hacked up all at the same time :D.

I'll post picks of the Formula shell in the thread I started after I pick it up next weekend.

BTW, your TA is coming along great! I know your TA appreciates all your doing for it! :car:

Hey Randy,
Glad I, well um they :rolleyes: could help you. I'm glad you found another donor too. That esprit does look to be in pretty good shape. I can understand sacrificing it for something you love but it would still be tough. I'll keep my eye out for your pics.

Thanks, Jory does good work and fast! He's got a car that we need to work on next before the spring so that helps with the motivation. We'll be at it again Saturday so I'll post more pics monday night.

I think he'll(sorry my cars are not girls) be happy to be on the road/track again. It really hurt having him sit in the back corner of my Dad's yard the last couple years :(

Hey Stacey,

Yeah, I'm glad I found another donor too; it took me a long time to find one, I'm just hoping when I see it next week it will be something I can use. I talked to the guy who's selling it to me; he told me he's gotten a lot of calls on it and couldn't understand why there was so much interest in what's basically a shell with doors on it...:confused13:

I know I would feel really bad about hacking up the Esprit, especially since it's such a rare car. I guess now I'll have two projects going on at the same time....work on one while waiting on something for the other.......

That's cool how you and Jory work on your cars together, what kind of car does he have that you're going to be working on?

I know your car (your "boy") will be happy to be on the road/track again; I know how much it hurts to see them just sitting there while we dream about the day we can get behind the wheel and show them off in all of their glory. I've had my TA (my "girl) for almost a year and really haven't done much to her; I plan on changing that this year, but a lot of it had to do with trying to figure out what to do with her "butt".......

What kind of motor set up will you be running in your TA?

Hey Randy,
I'll keep my fingers crossed for you on the new donor :) Having two projects can be a bit frustrating but when you're done & can drive them both it's well worth it! As you can see I have the goat too so I know. The last two winters I spent on getting him road worthy again. That's why this year is the TA. I feel bad not working on "Punkey" as he needs a lot also but he is driveable so...

Jory bought a 69 Chevelle :rolleyes: last year. I know it's a chevy but at least he's into cars and willing to work on mine :) It's got a "race" motor in it but he needs to upgrade the fuel system, add a roll cage and do some other stuff to it. It could use a paint job but the body is in pretty good shape.

About twelve years ago I had a 455 built for my TA, after I spun a rod in the 400 :(
I'm using the original TH350 trans but I switched the rear from a 2.56 to 3.42. My best so far was a 12.43 at 107mph. But I never went more than a couple times a year so we'll see what we can do this year :D
p.s.Here's a good pic from a couple years ago :burnout:

I'm not so sure I want to post pics tonight but...
The right rear wheel lip has some bad rust. I ordered a new one but it won't be here until next week so we were kinda stuck waiting. Jory wanted to just get templates done for the patches he needs to make. Well, he started looking futher to make sure he covers everything. We started by taking the rear wheel flairs off :eek:

And pics from the inside

We won't be back to work until the 23rd. We're hoping to have some new metal by then :)

stacy, that typical rust on that gen of bird. i'd have been shocked if the 1/4 had been intact behind the flairs.

the interior pics actually look better than i expected it to.

mike

Hey Mike,
Yea I guess we should've known. I/We just can't believe the amount of bondo the :censored: idiot(s) before us put on this car. I'm just glad Jory didn't get too upset seeing how much more work he has to do. I think he feels worse for me since I bought & he installed the 1/4 patches and now I have full skins on order :( Oh well, maybe someone can use what he has leftover once we're done.

it seems like birds and bondo go together. when the car's shiney they sell well and every car lot tony wants to flip them and get rich so the putty's slathered on and it's sprayed. if the paint holds for a couple years life's good. i've ssne 1/4's made of tinfoil and chicken wire. the best was an oldchevy truck that was rotted over the wheelwells.someone had sprayed high build primer on it and stretched newspaper over the holes. when it stuck they recoated the area with more primer until it quit soaking and making dry spots. they then sprayed color over it and it actually looked ok. we had it one the hoist and could read the funnies thru the rust holes on the inside of the wheel wells.

it failed when the truck was driven in the rain.

you'd be amazed how long a cob will hold if it's sealed on the back side from moisture.

mike

Well, we were back at it. I only got new sheet metal for the right side so far, dang parts houses ;)

my project :) Might as well get the back all done & in primer. I doubt it'll get painted this year but it's getting closer :D I'll have to check out some of the primer discussions. The trunk lid will be done with primer sealer. I don't know any more than that though. The place that blasts it coats it. I guess I should ask them so it matches? Does that matter :noidea:

We're back :)
We were actually back last weekend but didn't get a whole lot done. I bought what I thought was a right side rocker panel. Turns out it's just an overlay and not a very good one at that :(
Jory decided to make his own. :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2:
I did actually find some GM style rocker panels but we'd have to order them so he still did them himself so he could keep moving forward or backwards really :rolleyes:

going back together :D

And my project...
I pust some of Eastwood's Rust Dissolver on some of the heavy spots, we'll see...
And one of Jory making the rockers :D

Between getting & disassembling the Astre there hasn't been much done to the TA. :rolleyes:

Well, he's back at it. He made all the panels for the door jams since they don't make full skins. I must say he has a knack! He is super picky so I'm sure that has a lot to do with it. The right side is pretty much done, other than whatever that note hanging says, lol.

keep it up and you'll have a car again! it's looking good.

mike

Very nice welding and fabrication.

Thanks, I'll pass it on :)

Since it was nice out & my Dad's car could go outside he jumped to the left side. There was one snag when he found another hole in under the rear seat and into the wheelwell. Got it covered and will move on next weekend. It's getting closer :D

Back to work again, YEAH :D

Jory worked on my Dad's Judge in the morning and then after lunch we had to play "car hockey" as Daddy calls it. My TA was at the door so it was blocking a spot. We had to move it to the back of the barn. Which turned out good because there's more room and much more light!! And the car next to it that could get crap on it is mine also :)
So without a whole lot of time he got started.
p.s. see it's not all bad :rolleyes:

Boy, I'd love to have a place like that to work in.
Is that a lighted GTO sign on the wall in pic 2 or is that a flash refection? Either way, where'd your Dad get something like that?

Hi Greg,
Me too, to own that is :) The only problem is he didn't build it high enough for a lift.
It's just a reflection but it is a pretty cool sign! He was president of the GTO association of PA years ago, he had a picnic at his house and had the sign there. He's still a member so I guess he's just holding the sign for the club. I'm not sure who made it. I can ask if you want.

No Stacy, you told me enough with that. It just occurred to me that any sign shop could probably make that on vinyl any size you want.