1976 Trans Am Resto-Mod

[ryeguy2006a]

Ok, I have a lot of updates from yesterday. I took the day off and worked my very hard and I am very glad that I did because I needed every minute I had yesterday. I was putting the finishing touches on my car throughout the day yesterday. I had a lot of projects going on. I will start with my blocker kit because that was the first thing I started.

Since I got such a great deal on the blocker kit I bought here I can't really complain, but it wasn't as simple as I thought to install. First the kit that I bought was for 77-79, meaning that I had to make my own insert for the shaker. This piece holds the filter. So I re-purposed my parents old shower and created a new shaker insert. I think that it turned out pretty good. I started with a piece of cardboard and scissors to get the right shape, then used the fiberglass board.



Here is the board fit in the shaker.



Cut the whole for the filter. And looks just like the one from blockers.... Well sorta.







And the insert with the filter installed.



Then onto the liquid nails and wait 24 hours. (which I didn't expect)



Also, since I have a Holley carb the shaker base wouldn't just fit in there. Of course why would it just bolt on that wouldn't make any sense. Anyway I have a neighbor that is really good with fiberglass and he helped me out by cutting out some holes for the float level bowls go on the Holley and patched up the holes. He even painted it for me. Great guy, he loves cars too. Even if they are ricers...



Ok, onto my next hurdle. We can call this an adventure, and I will explain along the way. I mentioned before that my rear end was making horrible scrapping sounds, so I figured it was the bearings. Well when I got the axles out I found that to be exactly the case. The bearings were toast and the axles were severely scarred.





I went to Autozone the night before and borrowed all the necessary tools to remove and re-install the bearings. Absolutely worth the time to get the right tools. I didn't exactly know what I needed for the install, so I bought the two stock bearings they had in stock and the one saver bearing they had. Once I got the axles out and realized I needed two saver bearings... So I made a phone call to one of my car guy friends, and what do you know he had a pair of z28 axles that were in great shape. The best part, only cost 20 bucks for the pair. Here is the comparison.



And up close.



And while I had the rear apart I painted my rear diff cover to match my body color. I thought it gave the underside a little more color than just the black paint.



That didn't sound like much of an adventure, but trust me there was a lot or running around to the parts store getting new fluids bolts, and then finally negotiating with the axles.

On to the sway bar, nothing can be as easy as the sway bar right? Wrong, I went to bolt on my sway bar and the threads on one of the bolts pulled out. So, I saw a trick that so one did on pro-touring that worked great. They drilled out the holes enough to fit a shoulder nut up into the holes and then weld the nut to the frame. Pretty cool little trick.