A Tale of two TA's

[EVO]

Well, after a quick trip to Milwaukee to see Son #1, Its back to the TA. Ive finished the passenger side floor repair with the rebuild of the lower part of the torque box. All welded up and primed outside with etch primer and inside with some red oxide that for some reason looks orange.

E.

[EVO]

Once the floors were done, progress has increased quickly. Ive finished the dynamat on the interior plus mounted the pedals and ETC bracket along with the detroit speed wiper and booster/master assembly. With the new body mounts, the subframe mounted up really easy. I also installed the ridetech composite springs along with the new currie 9" with 3.50 gears and posi. Now I can measure for the driveshaft and get busy with the new wiring.

E.

[thumper877]

Moving along. Looking great

[jaybee]

Awesome projects, I'd be proud to have either. And I love the LS motor painted Pontiac blue. Very cool.

[EVO]

Thanks Guys, Having lots of fun on this one. Now deep into the wiring. Ill post pics soon.
E.

[Blown396]

78 build is looking great! What type of bed liner did you use on your firewall? Also, what brake booster/master cylinder combo is that?

Just finished stripping/painting my subframe and getting to reassemble. Want to refinish the firewall and liked the way yours is turning out.

Thanks,

Eric

[EVO]

Eric, The bedliner is Raptor. Its an easy to apply urethane bedliner kit that comes with 4 bottles of bedliner, one bottle of hardener and its own dedicated cheapie spray gun. The master cylinder and booster are a set sold by Detroit Speed for all 2nd gen F bodies.

Speaking of raptor, I went ahead and sprayed the inner fenders with it to match the firewall. I ended up replacing the drivers side inner with a new one as it was rusted out from the battery tray. I also installed the new core support from Dynacorn. The original was salvageable but woulda taken alot of work. Much easier just to replace it. Seguin Equipment Services made me up a nice 3.5" performance steel driveshaft to my measurements. Great turn around service, only 3 days! and only 5 min drive from the shop. New fuel tank and in tank fuel pump installed along with new braided fuel line all the way to the rail. I also ran the hoses for the vintage air ac. I like how they are hidden in the fender, makes for a nice clean install. Wiring is coming along too. got the Dakota Digital box mounted and wiring started. The new harness is from American Autowire. Ive used several of their harnesses and like them as they are pretty straightforward and easy to install. On a side note, I sprung the TA to my daughter last month on her birthday. She was absolutely ecstatic! Even though it was all disassembled, She was instantly in love with it. She promptly gave it a new moniker. Its now officially known as "ROXY" My other 2 kids trucks are named Estelle and April and have their names engraved in a wood glove box overlay so I plan to do something similar to the TA. I was thinking a small wood overlay for the glove box door with the name ROXY but the letters made from engine turned aluminum plate just like the dash. More on that to come.

[Vimes]

How much did the 4 bottles of Raptor and bottle of hardener weigh? Kinda curious how much this adds.

[EVO]

Not much, its 4 liters of paint plus hardener in the kit so about 10-12 lbs.
I used all 3 on the firewall and floor and the last one on the inner fenders.
E.

[Vimes]

Not much, its 4 liters of paint plus hardener in the kit so about 10-12 lbs.
I used all 3 on the firewall and floor and the last one on the inner fenders.
E.

Useful and lightweight. Adding it to my list. Appreciate it.

[EVO]

Lots of progress on the Brown TA. Im using the cold case radiator setup for the LS conversion so I had to fab up an upper radiator mount. Also welded up an upper radiator line as it was almost impossible to find a hose with the right bends and end diameters. I had some 4" polished stainless left over from the C10 so made an intake tube to grab air from behind the headlight. Also made a custom battery hold down and new cables from 1/0 welding cable. Made a little platform mount for the GMPP harness fuse box and installed the PCM of NC double fan kit that uses the stock GM relays and operates the fans in 2 speed mode. Finished up the wiring for the front end with the nose and headlights and turn signals. Made some mounts to hold the transmission cooler as the cold case wasnt available with an in tank cooler. Suprisingly the front end went back together rather smoothly with all gaps looking respectable.

E.

[EVO]

So after all that was done, I took a week off to get over a case of the Rona. Really sucked for a few days but all better now. I next tackled installing the Pypes 2.5" stainless exhaust system. All the bends lined up nicely and fit well. I went ahead and Tig welded all the connections as well as the Pypes famous Trans Am split exhaust tips. I also ditched all the pipe clamps and installed 6 stainless Vband clamps to make the system removable as I really hate using bolt clamps or having to cut the pipes to get the transmission out.

E.

[Jonathonar89]

Great build on the brown car thus far! Nice selection of parts.

[EVO]

Thanks Jonathon! Its coming along.

Been making progress on the wiring and also finished up the MAF sensor install on the intake tube. Had to get a SS mount so I could TIG weld it to the tube. The crate motor came with an aluminum mount. I also sprayed some fresh Dark Saddle on the dash, console, various dash panels and kick panels. Light Buckskin on the new sail panels and the rear seat side panels. Intstalled the Digitails LED tail lights and new holley LED head lights.

E.

[thumper877]

Interior pieces turned out great. I like that color. Very fast progress. Bet ur daughter is getting excited

[EVO]

Thanks Thumper. Yeah she's pretty stoked about it. She's demanding regular picture updates daily! I don't know if ya'll are into this sort of thing but my other hobby is building and flying giant scale remote control warbirds. I just recently was able to attend the Warbird meet at Fond Du Lac Wisconsin. Great flying field with a huge grass runway and way cooler temps than down here in Tx. Here's a few pics of my fleet of 1/4 scale German warbirds at the show.

E.

[bkbkbk]

Awesome birds you have there!

[EVO]

Thanks BK! Ive been enjoying your 73 build. Nice work so far!
E.

[Martin71RS]

Nice build.... and wow on the planes!!

[69CougarXR7]

Big fan of the DO-335 and ME-262.. There is a 335 at the Smithsonian. I have a fondness for the FW-190’s design also.

Brian