[Bentwheelbob]

Chad - thanks for sharing all the pics and NOS porn. This car is going to be amazing. Can't wait to follow you through the rest of the process. What's the history on the car?

[Transamric]

Thanks again for all the great pics! Seeing one of them leads to another question,...do I see black painted spindles?

[TA455HO]

Originally Posted by Bentwheelbob

Chad - thanks for sharing all the pics and NOS porn. This car is going to be amazing. Can't wait to follow you through the rest of the process. What's the history on the car?

Sold new from Householders dealership in Ohio. Mentioned back a couple of pages. Look for my post #67 and read a couple forward from there. Second owner brought the car to WA. I've had it in the garage since 1996 time frame. I believe that was Oakley Householder that chimed in there - his family owned the dealership.

Originally Posted by Transamric

Thanks again for all the great pics! Seeing one of them leads to another question,...do I see black painted spindles?

Yes, you do. Shop painted them with a black basecoat. Rather than strip that off you can see the masking paper and tape as it is ready for a top coat of a cast looking paint. Do the spindles have a date code on them? I suspect these are the originals - no I do not currently have any NOS spindles as mine seem very nice, but I do know where to get some should I change my mind.

I'll post some pics of the spindles to see what the consensus is.

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[77 Canamman]

Originally Posted by TA455HO

Sold new from Householders dealership in Ohio. Mentioned back a couple of pages. Look for my post #67 and read a couple forward from there. Second owner brought the car to WA. I've had it in the garage since 1996 time frame. I believe that was Oakley Householder that chimed in there - his family owned the dealership.

My '77 T/A was also sold new at this dealership.

[Norwood]

Well that sure looks nice and Chad I need your address

[TA455HO]

Thanks Craig.

Here's a few pics of the spindles. I could also strip the paint off and use some of that Tectyl 846 that William mentioned.

Mike, any indication which parts he used that stuff on, like the spindles? If so, how's it holding up by now? A.k.a. Cosmoline...



I'm seeing some casting numbers on these and date codes. Casting number looks like 3983992 and looks like F230 - June 23, 1970 (A Tuesday).



This one looks like casting number 3983991 but the date code seems odd. It sort of looks like B27 - just 3 characters as far as I can tell. Not sure what is up with that.






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[Judge273]

You can see a little flash rust thru the cosmoline....



But, that lug on stud is said to be original.

Chad, What's your thoughts on the 71 Lugs?

[TA455HO]

1971 Trans Am had two options for lug nuts

399683 - tall cap stainless steel acorn lug nuts

484391 - black center eye lug nuts

The 484391 was a carryover from 1970 so you would typically see these on early build cars, but either is possible. I'd say anything after the strike would probably generally have the acorn style.

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[Judge273]

Do you have any tall SS capped ones?

The ones I was being told were solid chrome type finish?

Shaped like an acorn with a flat top.

[Bentwheelbob]

Originally Posted by Judge273

You can see a little flash rust thru the cosmoline....

I've been using Rust Prevention Magic produced by ECS to prevent rust on bare steel, and I think it is a good product. I'm sure there's others that I haven't tried.

[TA455HO]

RPM. I saw that advertised by National Parts Depot in an e-mail and thought about it, too. Any pics of treated parts you can share? Feel free to post them here. I think that AMCPacer (?) guy was also talking about it on here.

.

[RamAir]

Mine are a little different in that they are caps.

[TA455HO]

Originally Posted by RamAir

[IMG]

Mine are a little different in that they are caps.

I'm sure they had a few different vendors that supplied their lug nuts. Even the NOS sets I had varied some from box to box, not all identical.

.

[Judge273]

Things flash rust in Memphis before you get a protectant on it....haha

The lugs in question were from Blls car originally and are solid chrome plated. That's why they are rusty. Craig is looking for the ones he has from Bill.

Will post later...

I have seen the ones Chad posted before, and heard of early black center lugs. Never saw these before.

[TA455HO]

Mike, not casting stones here, but tell me about the rear drums. They look great but I didn't think they used the finned drums until 1973. The smooth drums were used on Firebird, Chevelle, Camaro, etc. and ones I've seen have a casting number of 3993560. Not a big deal, one of those things you don't see much once installed, just was curious what you know about them and maybe the front disks, too. Did you get the date coded NOS disks he mentioned?

.

[Judge273]

Chad, The NOS rotors were sold about the same time the nos heat shroud too. Not sure on finned drums as that's a good question.

[Transamric]

Originally Posted by RamAir

Mine are a little different in that they are caps.

To me these look like later Snowflake lug nuts.

The nuts Chad showed are the same that my '72 TA had. Unfortunately both my current '71's had aftermarket nuts in place, even though I bought them way back in the mid '80's.

IIRC, the 399683 capped nuts were used by every GM division except probably Cadillac. They were a royal pain to deal with because tire shops would often over tighten them using air guns, and next time you tried to remove them the right way with a socket the stainless cap would spin on the nut.

[superdutybob]

Originally Posted by Transamric

To me these look like later Snowflake lug nuts.

The nuts Chad showed are the same that my '72 TA had. Unfortunately both my current '71's had aftermarket nuts in place, even though I bought them way back in the mid '80's.

IIRC, the 399683 capped nuts were used by every GM division except probably Cadillac. They were a royal pain to deal with because tire shops would often over tighten them using air guns, and next time you tried to remove them the right way with a socket the stainless cap would spin on the nut.

Snow flake lug nuts were flat top, maybe even a little concave as I recall.

[The Boss]

Did somebody set you loose in the warehouse with a shopping cart? Seriously, how did you come to own all of these rare & obscure parts?

[TA455HO]

Hi Chris,

A variety of places over the years. When I was a kid I used to ask for specific small parts for birthday and Christmas presents. After I got out of the Army then it was a few things from Year One when they still had some NOS parts - not much from there, really. A few years later then my Uncle passed away and some things were on the shelves and in the cupboards at his shop where he worked after mechanics went non-union in the 1970s. That was where I learned many things from my Uncle. My folks would send me to his house for the summers, basically to get rid of me and have one less to deal with and my Unk was a good teacher and his only son, my cousin Steve, was off to college when I was still a young teenager so they had room at the house for me.

Two of the rarer parts I have that I haven't taken pics of yet - came from his shop - identical pieces to each other so I'm sure he bought them at the same time.

We would work on Firebirds, GTOs, Mustangs, all the way up to very large Ford dump trucks. He would take on anything old and get it running. My Uncle would make me do things by myself like remove the harmonic balancer bolt from one of the big dump trucks. His usual advice to a scrawny teenager was "What would you do if I wasn't here". Got me thinking outside the box at a very early age.

I was on eBay for a long time buying things for my wife like missing pieces of her dishware pattern when it dawned on me that it might be a source of parts so some things from there in later years.

And I have a few friends that were, or their parents were, in the business back then and can still get a thing or two from them or some of the other obsolete parts vendors through the dealer to dealer network (D2D).

Junk like that.

.