[The Boss]

Amazing work Steve - thanks for the updates.

[njsteve]

I was doing some more finagling around with the car today, cleaning up the headlight buckets. While I was waiting for them to dry off I unbolted the trunk latch. I took some photos for documentation purposes. As you can see the trunk latch was installed when the car went into the giant primer dunk tank back at the Norwood plant in December 1972. You can see the red primer covered with traces of the exterior white overspray as well as the black and turquoise trunk spatter paint over that. It's interesting to see that the undersides of the mounting bolts have the primer on them as well. That e-coating did its job: it got everywhere.

[njsteve]

I went to Carlisle a week or so ago and picked up a new gas tank for the car. I have been holding off on ordering one since I didnt feel like paying $50+ in shipping for a $150 part. I bought the tank there and carted it home. My original tank has two large screw holes in the top where someone in the past had drilled through the trunk floor to mount something and went right through the tank. Ouch! Yeah, I could have repaired it and kept it but when it comes to safety items like brakes, brake hoses, fuel lines and gas tanks, I dont play around with my life. Replace them, save the originals for posterity and don't ever worry again.

My original tank still had the factory silkscreened stencil barely visible on the bottom with the 12-20-71 date code on it. I have been scratching my head on how to reproduce it when I stumbled across the website www.inlinetube.com and found that they reproduce the stencil! (go to their website and look under "gas tanks" and you will find it). I had to do some modifications to get my exact date code but in the end it reproduced it exactly.

Here's the original tank with the ghost image of the factory US Steel Stamp still visible (barely):

[njsteve]

The stencil is more like a decal with cutouts in it. You clean the tank with lacquer thinner and carefully peel the front off of the decal and place it one the tank. Then use a squeegy and make sure it is firmly attached. You then carefully peel the backing off making sure all the centers of the letters stay on the tank.

[njsteve]

The stencil was close but it did not have the cutout for the day, only the month and year. (They accidentally sent me the wrong year "72" instead of "71"). I ended up taking a photo of a ruler next to the decal and printing out the correct scale photo on my printer. I then used an exacto knife and cut out the "20" and the "71" from the photo. I then cut out a spot for the month in the center of the stencil and applied both sets of numbers.

[njsteve]

Next, I masked off the tank and sprayed the stencil lightly with several coats of flat black.

The final result duplicated the original tank stencil perfectly.

[njsteve]

Here's another bit of useless trivia for everybody. The date on the original gas tank is 12-20-1971. According to the cowl tag, the car was scheduled to be built the first week of December 1971 (12A). It was completed and shipped on 12-21-1971 to Reliable Pontiac in Roseville, California. How's that for "just-in-time" parts delivery at the plant?

[Larry Navarro]

Were the USS logo's used on '73 t/a's?

[njsteve]

I have been slowly refinishing the headlight assemblies over the past week. Nothing high tech: I just disassembled one of them, took a lot of photos of where the little clips and attachment points were installed and then used paint stripper to completely strip the bucket and the backing plate. I soaked the stripped pieces in the derusting liquid to get rid of the underlying specks of rust and then I repainted the pieces in gloss black. I then reassembled the left side and put all the little clips and springs back in place. Once that was finished I tackled the right side. The adjustment points have four possible positions, only one of which is correct for the particular side of the car. The headlight bezels also have four possible mounting positions. So if you dont watch what you are doing you have 16 possible combinations, only one of which is correct (according to my 5th grader who is definitely smarter than me) It's like doing drum brakes: always leave one side untouched so you have a roadmap of where everything goes.

[njsteve]

Here is the finished pair with the bezels installed:

[njsteve]

Here's another interesting item I picked up from the www.inlinetube.com guys. They sell "rivet bolts" for the upper control arms. The tops look like the original factory installed rivets but they install with a nut and lock washer on the underside. They are a little tricky to get tightened since they tend to rotate a little and you have no way to hold the top part since it is round. Make sure you use a bunch of loctite on the bolts and tighten them to the 12 ft.lb. spec as listed in the directions.

[Norwood]

Steve, did you put anything on the control arms to protect where they are not painted?

[njsteve]

Actually, I used some stainless steel paint to duplicate the original bare metal area at the ends of the control arms. I also used the Boeshield metal protectant spray to cover everything that is bare metal everywhere else.

[weranc55]

Thats great to know about the inline tube bolts. I was going to send my arms out to a guy in Fl to get them riveted.

[keith k]

Originally Posted by njsteve

Here's another bit of useless trivia for everybody. The date on the original gas tank is 12-20-1971. According to the cowl tag, the car was scheduled to be built the first week of December 1971 (12A). It was completed and shipped on 12-21-1971 to Reliable Pontiac in Roseville, California. How's that for "just-in-time" parts delivery at the plant?

Sounds like your car rolled off the line without a gas tank (or with a defective one), and then when the tank shipment came in they probably installed it as a "plant repair" and then shipped your car....

Nice job with the stencil, btw.

[njsteve]

In the never ending search for more metal things to soak in that www.safestrustremover.com liquid, I found the inner sill plates and the front headliner mount. Since they are all about 5 feet long and I only have a limited supply of the precious liquid, I had to create a five foot by 3 inch deep by 5 inch wide trough. I went to the local Home Depot and bought a section of plastic roof gutter for $3 and some 4 mil plastic sheet and created an plastic lined trough the exact size. I then filled it with the liquid and placed the parts in it for an overnight soaking.

Of course, I had to acquire the specialized tools to hold the contraption in place: Only an officially licensed, battery operated, mini-Bigfoot monster truck will do.

[njsteve]

I broke down and bought a set of 5 F60x15 Goodyear Polyglas GTs for the honeycombs. Nothing looks better than the original equipment tires. Plus, through the help of Glen, one of the enthusiasts on this site, who managed a package deal, the final price from Kelsey Tire was reduced a good amount (about $10-$15 per tire). (Thanks Glen)

[Jim Rotella]

I love that look, Steve. The squared shoulders of the original Polyglas GT's and the Firestone Wide Ovals really set off those vintage wheels. I have seriously thought about running a set on my '72 T/A, but I've heard a lot of complaints about the way they ride and handle. I've gone as far as to buy one of each of those repro tires and mounted them each on a Honeycomb and a KR Rally II. I was going to use one of them as a spare in my Trans Am, but they look too good to be hidden away in the trunk. Let us know how they ride and feel when you get them on your car.

Thanks,
Jim

[njsteve]

You're right the do handle badly...exactly as badly as they handled when new. We take for granted the advances in tire technology that have occurred in 35 years. But they just look so good!

If I can find another 2 rims to match these I will throw the old radials on them for a vintage Day 2 look:

I found these in the attic of an old speed shop here in Jersey. They are NOS 1973 American Racing 200S 15x7 "Daisies".

I need another 2 to match them.

Anyone got a couple they could spare?

[The Boss]

I'm not sure what you do for your regular job Steve, but I'm sure you could start a new career if we could afford your hourly rate.