A New, Modern Project (for me and the boy)

[njsteve]

Well, as you may have noticed from my want ad, me and my son were looking for a modern project car: a 1998 to 2002 Trans Am WS6 (because he likes how the hood scoops look - hey, he's 13 he doesn't need a real reason).

We found one today and picked it up.

Amazing to say the least - After searching through weeks of Craigslist and ebay ads I narrowed it down to half a dozen cars. It was really difficult to find an unaltered original car in the Northeast, all the stock ones seemed to be out west.

The really weird thing was that there seemed to be two specific types of people that were selling these.

1) Young men who's wives just told them they were having a baby, and that they needed a larger car.
2) Older women who were the original owners of the cars.

It was three of each situation. Very strange to say the least.

Well, I found a car listed on Craigslist here in NJ that belonged to the latter group. She was an older woman (a former over-the-road truck driver) who bought the car new in 2001. Wonderful lady to say the least. The ad had no pictures and very limited description. So, after a few days of texting and photos being sent, me and the boy went down to Southern Jersey and picked it up today.

The lady was fanatical about maintenance. She has over an inch thick stack of invoices for oil changes every four months. Sadly it seems that the GM dealers were taking advantage of her and doing every crazy fluid flush and cleanse just about every time the car showed up in there service lane. They would perform the $169 "6,000 mile service" every 2,000 miles. The car only has 61,000 miles on it.

The absolutely amazing thing is that she bought three extended warranties over the past 13 years! The car's mechanicals are still covered until late 2016! In fact the GM dealer just rebuilt the noisy rear differential in late 2013 and she only paid a $50 deductible for a $2,200 repair.

So here are some photos:

The window sticker: Bought from Triboro Pontiac in Cinaminson, NJ. Came with the optional Hurst Shifter for the 6-speed, and the rare traction control option.

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Here's the pile of paperwork, and the inch thick stack of invoices from March 2001 to a early 2014. She paid full sticker for the car when new, plus the GM Mastercare extended warranty plus another aftermarket 60 month warranty when the GM one was about to expire in 2011.

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And the door tag with the WS6 Ram Air option prominently listed:

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[njsteve]

The owner was such a fun person to deal with. I had to talk her into letting me test drive it after she drove us around the block. It seems that no one had ever driven her car but here. Even her husband who was standing there nodded his head in agreement. She never let him drive it (he doesn't know how to drive a stick shift anyway). So after I passed the interview she let me test drive it with her in the passenger seat and my son in the back.

The car just purred and tracked and stopped perfectly straight. Ran like it should. (And after perusing the stack of receipts I saw that she would get the car aligned every six months and the wheels rebalanced at the same time.

[HO 67 BIRD]

Very nice car !

[njsteve]

The reason she was selling the car was that she and her husband moved to a large property out in the country on the end of a long dirt and gravel road and she hadn't driven the car in months because she hated seeing it get dirty. The car had never been driven in snow and very rarely in rain.

Here's the ebony leather interior. The seats are very nice but the car does need a new carpet set because she was a former smoker and the carpet has really absorbed that tobacco smell. There is a cracked outer plastic molding on the driver's seat where the power adjustment switches are.





And the obligatory cracked door panel that these cars are renowned for. She didn't realize that this could have been covered under the GM warranties had she only asked at the time they were in effect.



The passenger door panel is perfect:

[njsteve]

The engine compartment. All the factory ram air components are intact. Most original purchasers tossed those air cleaner box resonators the first day they had the car. Original drivetrain of course. Even the original clutch, too. As an over-the-road trucker she knew how to shift and transmission properly. That tranny doesn't make a sound! All the synchros are still intact.

[njsteve]

And now the bad parts:

Like 90% of the 1998 to 2002 F-bodies, there is a factory defect that was covered under a Technical Service Bulletin (03-08-98-001 Feb 2003) but not a recall. If you didn't push the issue with your dealer back in the day, they didn't voluntarily fix it. - And it was an expensive job - around $1,500 to $2,000. Had she known that it was something she would have gotten repaired under warranty, she would have definitely done it. You'da thought that since the dealer was charging her for every new fluid flush and refill process under the sun, they could have at least offered to do the roof repair at the same time since she was at the dealership every six to eight weeks for 13 years.

The assembly line used an inferior adhesive to bond the sail panel/roof panel to the steel roof frame of the car, starting in late 1998. It was too chemically aggressive/reactive for the plastic roof panel material. After several years the adhesive wicks its way through the molded plastic roof panel and bubbles the paint. No matter what paint repair is attempted, the bubbles will return. The only fix was to remove the roof panel and install a new one (while the panels were still available from GM - they haven't been available for years now). The red outlined areas are hard to see in the photo but there is a distinct line of blisters going all along the glue route.



Unrelated to the roof defect is paint flakng off the front tips of the rear wing.

[njsteve]

If anyone happens to have an original black Firebird logo insert that goes in place of the front licence plate, give me a PM. The seller's husband said he had it hanging in the garage for years but couldn't find it when he recently looked for it again.

[b-man]

2001 Blackbird.

Beautiful, just beautiful.

Your son is a lucky boy to have a father with such good taste in cars, hope you two have a great time doing things together on it.

Drove my 28K mile '02 WS6 convertible today (Silver/Ebony, A4, 100% original), doubt I'll ever sell it.

[The Boss]

Congratulations Steve! Nice Blackbird!

[njsteve]

We spent about 4 hours today working on the car. Got a new pair of rear lift cylinders to replace to old ones which weren't holding up the rear hatch any more. Gotta love Advance Auto parts and their online $25 coupons!

After installing the new cylinders (while trusting my son to hold the broom handle in place to keep the hatch from slamming down on me), we started to clean the exterior.

I showed him how to use the clay bar and detailer to clean the crap off the paint. The car was surprisingly clean compared to when we did the black paint on my daughters Impala SS a couple years ago. That car was a mess. Then we waxed the car and polished the rims.

Times like these are priceless especially after spending all those hours waxing and primping the black paint to have my son then look at the paint and say: HEY, WHAT IS THIS! THE CAR IS ALREADY DIRTY AGAIN AND WE HAVEN'T EVEN DRIVEN IT ANYWHERE!!!

I replied in best fatherly tone: "Welcome to the wonderful world of owning a black car, my boy."

He was not amused.

Here are the after detailing photos. My wife, who usually doesn't notice anything more than the fact that her car was washed, actually noticed quite a difference in the shine from yesterday.





And parked next to the old bird. My son asked if we could move his great-grandfather's 1971 Lincoln to the house garage so he could park his car next to my Firebird and his great-grandmother's 1975 Firebird.

[The Boss]

There are a whole series of special lug removing sockets for the different styles of locks. My local mechanic sent me home with 8 of his to take off the lugs on my BBS wheels. They would also hammer on but had reverse threads to them so they would bite the lock - all you had to do was pick the one with the correct taper angle and the right diameter.

Cats out of the bag on the LS1/LS6 blocks now! Is there an identifying code on the RPO tag or were they just used as they came down the line? I understand quite a few of the 02 collector's editions got the LS-6.

[97ramsst]

Originally Posted by The Boss

There are a whole series of special lug removing sockets for the different styles of locks. My local mechanic sent me home with 8 of his to take off the lugs on my BBS wheels. They would also hammer on but had reverse threads to them so they would bite the lock - all you had to do was pick the one with the correct taper angle and the right diameter.

Cats out of the bag on the LS1/LS6 blocks now! Is there an identifying code on the RPO tag or were they just used as they came down the line? I understand quite a few of the 02 collector's editions got the LS-6.

There's no rpo code they seem to have just been used at random. I have had 50 or so 02s and about 10-15% have had LS6 blocks. People say (mostly people with LS1 block cars) say there's no difference performance wise but there absolutely is...those cars are what a lot of people call the factory freaks because they are a noticeably stronger. I think GM Hitech did an article on them in 03 or 04 and dynoed two identical z28s and the ls6 block car made about 20hp more. Again the counter is it's the same heads cam and intake so it should make the same power but I can tell you you can feel the difference.

As for CETAs having more ls6s than average...total BS. They are just as random...I have had 5 and only 1 had the ls6 block. In fact if you look close you will see the pic below with a ls1 block is of a CETA.

[The Boss]

Look at all of those original line tags! A surprising amount of pitting on some of those parts considering how well she cared for it - damp basement garage Steve? You're going to have to get your kiddie pool and sprinkler setup back out!

These 4th gen birds are blazingly fast cars - hard to keep your foot out of the pedal!

[njsteve]

Damp ground actually - always parked outside in the pine barrens. Yeah, it's gonna take some derusting after we hand scrub the underside. Can't use a pressure washer as we don't want to lose all those tags.

[The Boss]

Lots of work, but real nice condition underneath!

I've found that most of these I've looked at were far better protected from the elements than the old cars. Coatings in most cases, even on the 80's cars, protected them well. Paint is another story however.

[njsteve]

Here's the finished product. After scrubbing all the seats and applying leather preservative, my son and I spent the afternoon reinstalling it all. The car actually smells nice now. No more smoke residue.





I was able to salvage the cracked polypropylene seat bolster by using the plastic welder and extra polypropylene welding rods. The repair is underneath and on the back side so it is invisible unless you remove the seats.

I also used some flexible bumper repair material, supported by wire mesh, along with a couple zip-ties, to the pull the two large cracks together on the driver's door panel and then permanently repair the cracks. There is still a visible repair spot but not nearly as visible as the original 1/16" fractures.

We pulled the passenger side panel to reconnoiter the condition and found one tiny crack about to start in the same locations - the 90 degree angles that are cut into the panel where the inner weatherstrip attaches. We removed the factory staples, reinstalled new staples in a non-stressed locations and then used the flexible bumper repair material to form a layer of internal bracing to the area.

All is well now, until we can find a nice unbroken (and inexpensive) driver's side panel.

[njsteve]

We went out to the local cruise night tonight and the Firebird and Camaro just so happened to be tonight's featured car. There were several dozen first, second, third, and fourth gen Firebirds there. Another black WS6 pulled in and parked next to me right after this photo was taken. (It was an 2002 with an automatic...and a baby seat in the back.)



Thanks to 97ramsst, I now have an original black front license plate filler panel in place. The car looks so much nicer with the giant ugly plate area filled in.

[njsteve]

Just picked this up today off of a 1997 Firebird in a local salvage yard. If the paint was a little bit better I could have used it as is, but the clear coat is crackling from sitting out so long. Now comes the fun part of carefully removing it from the steel frame.

BTW, what is the small triangular trim piece by the lower edge, held on with?

[Formulabruce]

I have those exact same Ebony seats in my '72... I really like them.. Cool car I have a had a couple 4th gen.. Awsome cars, and yours/his in sweet shape! So, does it get to sleep in the garage??

[Formulabruce]

The rare one is the Purple 88U code car in '98, I know a girl who has one in a ragtop.