Picked up a 78 Y82 W72
 

Picked up a super early 78 (09C) built Trans Am from fellow PY'er "gpguy". Super nice guy, with two sweet GPs!

The car needs some rust repair, but isn't too far gone. I'll end up doing a passenger quarter, rear tail panel, driver side rear rail at the shackle point, and driver side toe board.

It's a pretty well optioned car. The most important being the Y82 W72 with a 4 speed trans. I believe it's 1 of 489 4 speed Y82s built, as it's a Norwood car, while the Y84 black and gold were all built in Van Nuys if I'm reading correctly.

I need to finish up a car I'm working on now, but hope to start thr build on this very soon. I'll keep the thread updated as I go along.

Very nice!!!

Question for the 78 Y82 guys:

I had another early built 78 Y82 (January 78) but it had drum brakes despite being loaded. This one is earlier and has discs. Was Pontiac just using whatever they had in hand?

Also, it has the right 78 style snowflakes, but the 77 style round stainless steel center caps. Would that be correct since it's built so early, or should it have the hexagon style caps?

Werent disc brakes only available starting 1979? Never seen a 78 originally come with disc brakes regardless of options.... maybe someone added the rear disc which was/is a very popular mod?

Same for the center caps, the plastic hex caps were only used on 79 & up years, the 78s all had the round stainless caps.

I thought some 78s ended up with discs, and was the first year for the plastic caps? Maybe I'm off a year? lol It's very possible

maybe some others will chime in on that, but i have never seen or heard of a 78 with factory rear disc... but could be wrong or some special order from a GM exec late in 78...

The hex caps were definitely 79-81.

After reading a bunch, I think you're right. Somehow disc brakes worked their way under this car, which I dont mind necessarily. I do have a date code correct 78 axle with drums I could put under it, but we'll see.

I believe it has the original master and proportion valve, which I would imagine make the rear discs unpredictable under use. It'll be getting all new everything, so I can just keep the discs and use the correct setup for them.

I'll grab more pics of the car tomorrow for you guys. It currently has a Chevy Q-jet on it, but I just ordered Cliffs rebuild kit for a 77 Pontiac Q-jet I'll use on this car.

I read years ago that a very few 78’s had 4 wheel discs sent out to customers late in the year by the Van Nuys plant. It was a magazine article iirc so I’ve always kept an eye out for one with no luck.

the hex caps were only on the 10th ann cars in 79

I could see that happening. Unfortunately this is an early built Norwood car, so somewhere down the line it got swapped. No biggie.

I would check the codes on the rear end and see what it says?

I'd also look for a buildsheet in the car. It would be great if you found it.

:)

Got a few pics. Cant make heads or tails of the rear axle code. All the other axles I have I can read no problem, go figure lol

Also grabbed few pics of the car. It hasn't made its way into the garage, so they aren't great. Got a good shot of the crumpled and oil canned passenger quarter.

Heres some more. I do have the correct shaker for it.

5PV, 1979 2.41 Posi-Traction.

Ahh, idk why I couldn't find it in my axle code info stash.

Interesting. The thing must have been a highway warrior back in the day.

johnta1 has it only listed as PV on the Wallace site. Along with the 2PS.

Thank You

I usually check the Wallace site. I guess I just overlooked it.

I have a 78 rear for it, but it's after the build date of the car, so idk if it's worth swapping, although those 2.41s are brutal

I’m surprised it has a master cylinder with bleeder valves. None of my ‘77’s or 78 have them, so I would assume that’s been swapped out as well.

My 78 MC did not have bleeders either.

Yeah my 77 doesn't have them, so idk where the master came from? I'll see if I can get a code off it.

Got the car running under it's own power. Rebuilt a Pontiac Quadrajet I had laying around and installed it. Also put in a new tank and sending unit. Fires right up now.

It would have been swapped along with the proportioning valve when the 4 wheel discs were put in.

Agree , the 79's with 15x8 Flakes still used the round stainless caps.

An old friend had a 79 403 car with 2.41 ,,,, the road had to be wet and power braked to make it spin the wheels.
Would be a great gear with a 5spd Nash transmission

Interesting about the caps. Learn something new every day!

And yeah, I'll be swapping out the 2.41 rear with another 78 rear I have laying around. One is a 3.23 posi, the other I think is the same but I need to double check. I'll be swapping back to drums.

Hmmm. My 77 TA with 2.41's had no trouble spinning tires ANY time. I didn't test on it that much though. My car ran exceptionally well, even though it was the 180 HP engine. I think the initial timing was 18 degrees. I kept it in tune, always. I baby-ed it, changed oil every 3000 miles. AND for all the kind treatment I gave it, the #7 exhaust lobe started to go down around 70,000 miles. Engine is sitting on engine stand in my garage just as I pulled it in 1992. I have a bunch of engine options in the works!!! I put an essentially stock 1970 350 in my TA as a temporary fix....that is still in it...not for long!!!

I thought 78 was first year for rear disc???

Nope 79 for rear discs.

And my 78 180 HP with 2.56 could light the tires up also. And at Texas World Speedway all it could pull was 4000 rpm though-about 130+mph.

So I'm jumping on the 78 now that the 79 I was working on is done. Started stripping the body down in preparation for metal work. I'll be replacing both door skins, the passenger quarter, the driver rocker, and lower patches on the driver quarter.

I have a new nose cone for it. The original is smoked.

Here's a couple pics, including one of the passenger quarter and why I'm replacing it.

You must like to stay busy!

Nice bird and well-optioned! Congrats.

Correct rear gear for a 1978 with 4-speed is a 3.42. 1977 and 1979 used the 3.23. Makes a huge difference in fuel mileage though. My 1979 TATA gets 17 mpg while the best I used to get with my 1978 Y88 was 14 mpg. Both 4-speed cars.

Where do you get the ambition to do all this? I used to be like that, seems to have left me........

Perfect gears for an overdrive.

I just like to stay busy, and what better way to stay busy than to play with old Pontiacs? lol

More stripping. I'm using a harbor freight surfacer tool with a 40 grit drum. It actually makes quick work of it compared to a DA with 60 grit.



Door skins should be here this week. I'll get those banged out pretty quickly. I'm waiting on the inner and outter tail panel.

Man I wish one of mine only needed exterior work. All my cars are torn apart for floor work!

Making good progress there!

Making progress. Got the glass out, nose stripped, trunk stripped, and interior mostly gutted. Still need to remove the dash, and fix the corners on the steel part. No biggie.

Picked up another passenger fender instead of having hours and hours of hammer and dolly work in the original. It looks like it was attacked with a hammer lol.

This snowballed into stripping the front end so I can pull the drivetrain and go thru it and detail everything.

More tear down going on. Time to strip and paint everything, replace bushings, hoses, belts etc etc

Had to do a heater core, so I decided to pull the dash so I can clean up the wiring and give all the hvac related items a deep cleaning.

Mission creep, happens to all of us.....

Looks great! I am waiting on the body shop to get the body done on my Y88 so I can start putting it together.

NOW is definitely the time to do the heater core!!!

Looking forward to your dash corner repairs. My 77 has that going on too....

Doing door skins today:

Got the driver door skin on and door installed. Also started on the body bushings. We all know how fun those are!

The car gained 1/2" of height with the new body bushings. Those old ones were cooked.


Next up, inner and outter tail panel replacement.

Hood totally stripped, and my tail panel and driver quarter pieces came in today.

Getting ready to tackle the tail panel and the driver side rear rail. Already have a replacement rail from a 78 parts car, so it'll be all original steel underneath.

Have begun masking for etching primer. Running the heat in the winter creates moisture, so rather than keep sanding the metal down, into primer it goes.

Also grabbed the replacement rear rail from a parts car. Can't be original GM steel!

Got the car shot in etching primer today.

Some updates. Floors are going in, and driver side inner wheel housing and quarter are getting patched up. You should never be able to tell someone was in there when it's done.

Rocker and quarter panel going back together:

Starting on the quarter and tail panel...

Quarter almost fully mounted....