[68bird400HO]

Originally Posted by 165th

One interesting note is when the stripes are centered over the shaker opening, the distance from the front edge of hood to beginning of the stripe is 1 1/16". Brent's car is the same. The proof is fashioned this way, however, it is different than the assembly manual sketch which shows 7/8" from edge of hood to stripe.

I just recently put an S&S stripe kit on my 71 TA. I noticed the same thing about the hood stripe. The manual says .88 from the edge of the hood but when I centered the stripe over the shaker opening, I also ended up a little over 1" from the hood edge.

I am thinking that the manual instructions may not be perfect (no surprise) because I also followed them on the "Trans Am" script on the the back of the rear spoiler. It says .88" up from the crease of the filler panel. I followed that and now my "Trans Am" looks too high. The tops of the letter go into the curved area and start coming back out at you. I looked at a number of pictures, afterward unfortuneatly, including a few factory photos I could find and it seems like that entire script is lower and on the flat area of the back of the rear spoiler. I would be interested to get a measurement from your friends original car since it looks like I will be redoing that one.

[165th]

Here is the rear spoiler Trans Am on an original paint unrestored car.

[165th]

Time for a quick update. Development is... well, development. I've had to move to a different screen printer after some quality defects could not be overcome with the company I was working with. Screen printer no. 2 however is confident the issues identified can be easily overcome. More proofs to come in the next week or so.

Meanwhile, I picked up a set of NOS blue stripes for a white car that were recently being sold by Restoreamusclecar. The second set of stripes are very helpful and informative comparing with the items provided by members here. By the way, I'll be returning your stripes now that the artwork is complete and I have this record set of stripes. Thank you again!

I've mentioned this before, one detail I've noticed consistently with all of the NOS stripes I've seen is the distress to the original stripes that is caused by the original backing paper and transfer paper. These quality old decals are literally sandwiched by two papers of less quality. After 40 years of storage, the transfer paper and backing paper has shrunk, curled, tugged and pulled on an otherwise great decal. I'm mentioning again because now with the stripes I have, I can remove the paper.

What I have done with the NOS set I have is photo documented the decals and part numbers, then removed the transfer paper from the top and moved the decal to some fresh backing paper. This is allowing the decals to relax from the tugging and stretching from the old paper.

Some of these decals have nominally enough adhesive to possibly still be used some day, but in all cases the transfer paper would have to be removed and new transfer paper put on prior to installing anyway, so it's best to get it off sooner than later.

For those of you with NOS stripes holed away, you may want to consider this. Besides, you get to enjoy them more anyway because you can see them instead of the old paper. The backing paper can be picked up from any sign company doing wrap on cars, because it's literally trash to them, as they discard the backing paper after installing decals on cars. Transfer paper can be put on (if it's even needed) in the future just prior to installing the stripe, if you ever do.

Below are some pictures and the impact before and after removal. First removing the transfer paper. In the last picture you can see the wrinkles and contours left by the papers:

[165th]

Then, reapplied to the new backing paper: