[Formulabruce]

I have been walking on this set for years. Opps!

[njsteve]

You Monster!!!!!!!

[22687]

Thank you

[njsteve]

Did some suspension upgrades recently. I installed a Lares 974 quick ratio steering box (2-1/2 turns). Got it from rockauto to replace the original 3+turn, over-boosted box. It also comes with the new steering coupler. It was a direct swap and uses the same original-style flare fittings for the hoses. It now has a very tight feel to the steering instead of the heavily-sedated original steering feel. It took several fluid bleedings over a week to get all the residual air bubbles out. One of the symptoms of air still present is reduced assist at idle. After a week or so the assist at idle is good again.

Today I swapped out the original 1" front sway bar and 9/16" rear sway bar for 1-1/4" front and 3/4" rear bars that I got of ebay for around $110 for the set. (Shipping was a killer though - that front bar sure is heavy!) I also installed new Prothane bushings as well. Total time for the sway bar swap was a leisurely 3 hours.


New Lares 974:



Old 1" bar:




New 1-1/4" sway bar:

[njsteve]

And the rear bars, comparison

[njsteve]

More tinkering since we are sitting around on cootievirus lockdown.

I decided to update the speedometer in Gramma's car.

In 1975 the Federal Government frowned on the blatant braggadocio of the automakers producing cars with speedometers that encouraged their drivers to irresponsibly drive 160 mph simply because their gauges encouraged them to.

So they made cars with 80 and 100 mph speedometers to appease the powers that be.

The 1974 and prior Trans AM speedos bolt right in place with no other parts needed. I had one sitting in my parts stash in the garage but made the mistake of trying to wipe the dust off the dial and proceeded to wipe the silkscreened ink off during the process AHHHHHHH!

I did some searching on the internets and found a guy in North Carolina - Daniel at GaugeMarks who sells the silkscreened dial numerals in a kit for Camaros and Trans Ams and other cars. He was willing to sell me just the speedometer face and it worked out great. He actually has a video on youtube which shows how easy it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKHmxl0Ljs0

Anyway, here is the bad dial after removal from the speedometer. I then wiped off the rest of the numbers with rubbing alcohol and painted the face with semigloss black. After that it was easy to place the new "decal" on the face and peel away the backing.

Another youtube video helped me set the spare speedometer's odometer to the exact number that the car has for mileage in its present speedometer. It took a few headscratching moments to understand, since most of the videos only show you how to wind it back to zero. But after several minutes of Rubiks cube wrassling I was able get it to 81,884. I then reassembled the whole thing. Next step is taking apart the dash to put it in.

[njsteve]

I have no idea why the website is rotating my photos 90 degrees? Anyone have a fix for this?

[Pepi]

Looks good Steve.

[njsteve]

Swapped out the speedometers today. Not too bad of a job, just tedious getting to the two speedo screws and unhooking the speedometer cable. To do it you gotta remove the lower dash panel, the A/C ducting, unbolt the inner reinforcement brackets for the dash, drop the column, before you can even attempt to remove the gauge woodgrain panel and its associated hardware. An hour of labor to do a one minute gauge swap from the pod.

Now it looks like a respectable pre-smog, top speed, gauge cluster. And as an added bonus, it even works and it's reading the same exact mileage on the odometer as before!

[OVERULD]

Steve, I feel you brother. I had to do the same on my 74 to swap the clock out for the tach with clock.

BJ