76 Trans Am: Project Hand Me Down

[car_guy]

So its been a couple weeks of lack luster progress. I can definately say that I am gaining a new found appreciation for guys who do full on body resto's, cause this seems like a never ending, no light at the end of the tunnel update for me. I have been bouncing all around the car cutting here, welding there, and so on. I did source a donor sail panel to tail panel peice from a 73 camaro, to fix the trans am with the swiss cheese that was going on in the trunk chanel. I also nabbed the lower portion of the door jamb for the pass side door. The hardest part was trying to get it fitted up with the big window. Im not overly happy with it so far, and in retrospect should have sprung for the more expensive full quarter...but oh well. That was the first repair in the last little while, which then led to cutting the other tub out, and widening it. This time the I had to pie cut the piece of tub extension to get it to fit up the the body better up the first 1/3 of the way from the front of the tub (terrible way of explaining it i suppose, haha). That led to little repairs of the tubs themselves all over, and finally coating the insides of the frame rails after clearancing for the tubs, to lay the trunk floor in finally. Now I'm just battling plug welding, and trying to keep warpage down as best I can trying to the the floor wraped up.

[car_guy]

Pics...

sail panel donor

super light wieght swiss cheese trans am sail panel long gone


new donor welded up with trans am tail panel section

donor door jamb

wierd pic showing a little frame clearancing for the tub

trunk floor in its final resting place


tubz

[ryeguy2006a]

Looking good!

[car_guy]

More pics...

trans am tail panel mated to camaro quarter


trimming up /welding tubs


tubs to shell interior. You can see the aforementioned pie cutting on the drivers side tub

[car_guy]

Looking good!

Thanks man....likewise, the ls1 swap is looking good!!

[car_guy]

Making more progress....I think

Finally got my donor car home. At first glance it looks pretty decent. Further inspections shows its actually tougher than the Trans Am. So im gonna do what I do best, and strip it for its good parts for the T/A, and sell the rest. I will probably keep the front sub frame, clean it up and build it, until its ready to slide under the T/A. The real estate is becoming scarce in the garage! There is pontiac parts everywhere!

On another note, I finally broke down after trying to repair my tail panel for the car. I ordered up a new one from Year One, and the fit seems pretty decent. I removed the inner structure from the old tail panel, and still have to strip it, make repairs, and weld it up to the new tail panel. Also, I was on the fence about my camaro donor quarter panel portion i put on, and decided finally it had to go. Im going to remove the quarter from the donor car like factory, and add my quarter skin to it. I also had a chance to toss on the new drivers side door. Spring has sprung, so it seems like there will be decent progress across both pontiacs in the stable. Looking forward to making more progress.

[srh3trinity]

Did you measure to see how much room you freed up when you did the tub job? I will likely have my sheetmetal guy do the same thing since my tubs are in good shape. He said he would charge the same as doing the DSE tubs, but I would save the cost of the tub. May lose a little of space, but not much.

[car_guy]

Did you measure to see how much room you freed up when you did the tub job? I will likely have my sheetmetal guy do the same thing since my tubs are in good shape. He said he would charge the same as doing the DSE tubs, but I would save the cost of the tub. May lose a little of space, but not much.

I measured against the stock firebird, and I've gained just about 2.25" or so. Which sounds about right. I added 2" to the tub, and stretched it to the shell a little bit. I just bought 17x11 billets for the LeMans, and tossed one under the Trans Am to see how it would fit...and it swims in there, Even a 12" wheel which is probably what I will run will have plenty of room as long as I 4 link it.