[njsteve]

Here is the "CMG3331E" stamp code and date for the original 3.42 positraction rear, dated the 333rd day of 1971 which would be November 30th 1971, which is in line for the 12A built car.

[Pzr]

Nice work and a nice car !
When i reconditioned my own it was far more goo underneath )
What is the wite plastic pipe in the rear axle for?
(Noticed that on my own but didnt get it.)

Regards Emanuel

[Larry Navarro]

Nice work steve!
Congrats on your feature of the Charger in Musclecar!

[njsteve]

Originally Posted by Pzr

Nice work and a nice car !
When i reconditioned my own it was far more goo underneath )
What is the wite plastic pipe in the rear axle for?
(Noticed that on my own but didnt get it.)

Regards Emanuel

That is the axle vent. It allows the excess internal air pressure caused by the spinning gears to vent out the top of the differential. If it is blocked or sealed up then the axle fluid will be pushed past the pinion and axle seals...very messy.

[njsteve]

Originally Posted by Larry Navarro

Nice work steve!
Congrats on your feature of the Charger in Musclecar!

Thanks Larry. I was on vacation and finally received my own copy of the Sept. Musclecar Enthusiast issue today. It's hard to believe I've owned that Mopar for 18 years now!

[njsteve]

I pulled the inspection cover off of the rear differentail and here is what I found...ouch! It looks like broken pieces of the posi clutch discs.

[njsteve]

The 11/71 dated coded 3.42 gears look great though. There was a little too much play in the pinion anyway, so I guess I'll replace the bearings, seals and whatever is broken in the posi unit. Note the different compressed heights of the two green posi springs. There's a tell-tale of something wrong in there!

[HWYSTR455]

Great use of a weight bench! NJSteve, what a find, and I've been drooling for hours on the photos!

[PetesPonies]

as far as dipping control arms...those Firebird arms look just like the Mustang control arms do. The Mustang arms are dipped and they also did not do the area where the ball joint was. Therefore, I think it is very safe to assume the Firebird control arms are done exactly the same way.

[Formulabruce]

heres a pic of some red oxide with some WD 40 on it. I had just slid in a reinforcement plate with nuts and installed the rear swaybar hook up on an old esprit. that primer sure shines up good

[baron_]

fun pictures to look at, not knowing anything about these cars

the '72 had the round port engine didn't it?
what are these cars worth these days
i saw that one sell on ebay for 6500 that was just a front clip/motor/data plates
they're gorgeous cars

[johnsma22]

Real nice job! Thanks for taking the time to document all your hard work here for all of us to see. Keep them coming. Looking forward to seeing your continued progress.

When I started my project back in 1994 I did all the detail work that you did. It looked so good you could eat off it. Then like a bonehead I let my cousin do my body work and paint. He did a good job except he did not take the time to mask off all my excruciatingly detailed underbody and frame detailing! He got overspray all over my subframe and suspension. I could have killed him but I guess you get what you pay for. Some day when I paint the car red I will go through the process of detailing it again. It's always something isn't it?

John

[njsteve]

I've been working on some minor sub assemblies lately. Removed the tilt column and repainted it, and replaced the burned up universal joint rubber boot on the firewall end. (the boot is available on ebay as a Jeep CJ part, along with the column bushings, for about $10). I also pulled out the guages and got the original clock working again. Easy to do, just get a small fingernail file and file the points flat and then reassemble the case back on the gauge. Then spray the heck out it with WD40. Works every time.

I pulled the fuse box down from the firewall and found a nice surprise inside. Here's the fuse box:

[njsteve]

And here's what I found inside when I pulled the fuse box apart: a factory riv-nut with white overspray on it. These were the steel collapsable nuts that they used to mount things like mirrors to the doors.

As you may recall, this car was built while the UAW was still deciding whether to go on strike (which later occurred in early calender year 1972, shutting down the entire F-body plant for the rest of the 72 model year).

So far this is the second "mystery gift" left in this car by the disgruntled assembly line workers. The first was the extra side marker lamp bezel stuck beneath the mastic sound deadener, under the rear seat. Left there, no doubt, to make some mysteriously, un-locatable road noise.

Can you imagine this car going 114,000 miles with that little piece of metal just hovering above the main fuse terminals? That was a complete electrical melt-down just waiting to happen.

[Larry Navarro]

incredible!!.....

[njsteve]

I just finished restoring the Trans Am's air cleaner base plate. The original had been run over by the previous owner in his haste to put out the engine fire that was attempting to immolate the entire car. I ended up using a small chisel to remove the passenger side snorkel and transplanted the driver's side snorkel from a standard four barrel dual snorkel 1972 air cleaner (they use the same snorkels), that I got off of ebay reasonably cheap. Instead of trying to weld that paper thin metal back together, I used some 2 part steel epoxy. It is actually holding it together better than any weld would and looks just like it was factory installed.

The fun part was removing the thermactor heat riser valves from the snorkels. It's easy to bend the tab and get the units out, but to reinstall the retaining tabs you need to use a special tool: My late Grandfather left me a pair of long wood vise clamps. You put one leg of the clamp down the mouth of the snorkle and the other on top of the thermactor bracket and tighten. It bends the interior tab forward perfectly. Sure beats trying to pry and tap with a long chisel and hammer. Thanks Grampa!

I also used paint stripper to remove all the factory paint. Once it was together I used Rustoleum Satin Black which duplicated the factory finish exactly. Another backyard auto restoration success story.

[njsteve]

The finished result looks just like this $2000 NOS air cleaner from ebay a few months back! Total repair price: $3 for epoxy, $3 for primer, $4 for paint, $75 for extra 4 bbl air cleaner, which I can probably resell on ebay for the same amount I bought it for. Total investment, minus labor = $85.

[dreambird72]

Very nice job NJSTEVE - someone cut both of my snorkles off, and I'm missing the lid, any tips for a lid replacement?

[njsteve]

I think Pontiac used that lid for a while on the Trans Ams, up into the late 70's. I think the driver's side snorkel on any Pontiac 4bbl air cleaner from late 60s to 72 is the one you need to replace either of the snorkels on a 70 to 72 Trans Am air cleaner. Unfortunately you need two of them. (Even though both sides have the Thermac valve, the passenger's side snorkel usually doesn't have the heat riser tube mount on the bottom, but sometimes you get lucky). In these photos you can see the 4 bbl donor air cleaner, the flange area and the underside which shows the passenger side snorkel without the tube mount.

[njsteve]

Since it finally stopped raining after a week or so I decided to reinstall the drivetrain back on the finished subframe. Using my superior male logic I figured I would lift the engine and move the subframe around under it and then set it down. This was my "Plan B" after I couldn't move the engine and trans assembly by myself while it was up in the air on the winch.