Electrical Nightmare

Lately I noticed all my lights will flicker at night. It seems to happen when the car is in gear idling, and my foot is on the brake.

I've been on a hunt to fix this problem -

• Tightened the loose nut behind the volt meter
• Replaced AC Delco mechanical voltage regulator with Transpo solid state voltage regulator
• Reground the entire car - Headlights, new NAPA engine ground strap, tail light housings to body, gauge pod to dash, added star washers under all grounds
• Found out my alt was going bad (and was too small - 30A). Replaced with a Quality 61A
• Raised the idle up 100 RPM
• Nut on starter was WAY loose and started sparking against the body. Tightened up the connection

The next step is going to be checking out the rear lights and seeing if one of them is not grounding properly. I'll keep posting until I find the problem.

Feel the Breeze!

Pontiacs are plagued with heating issues. After the heat started to get unbearable, I decided to install a shroud and stock clutch fan. Now the car stays at a crisp 195 degrees, and you can feel a LOT of air pass through the grill. Note: Flex-a-lite flex fans are the worst, and should not be used.

Hood Painting

The paint job on the GTO has hit its expiration. I decided to paint the hood in order to fix the major problems that COULD happen if I left the paint chipping off. Very simple job, Duplicolor Paint Shop primer, gloss black, and matte finish clear coat. Here is the job:







Sanded down to bare metal

Primered





Duplicolor Gloss Black





Duplicolor Matte Finish Clear Coat




On the car

Ram Air Hood Chrome

Took a few hours to shine this up:

Now it has to be removed to I can paint the nostrils black.

New steering wheel and Stewart Warner tach

Took out the original Pontiac Rally clock and installed a stewart warner gauge. Also installed a new 15" steering wheel

Console installation

Installed the console. Top plate still needs to be created. Here are pics:

Car show season is here!

Finally warm weather allows me to work on the car again.

1. Last weekend, installed OEM Pontiac rear "heavy duty" wagon springs. This weekend, took out my Moog front springs and removed half a coil. The effect:

Rear raised 2", front dropped 2". The rake looks pretty mean without being overly aggressive.

2. Some tuning needed to be done on the carb - there is a nasty bog, and the car needed to warm up to 180 before it could even be put in drive.

• Replaced accelerator pump with 10cc upgrade
• Backed timing off
• Tuned idle

Things should be straightened out now. Will start the car tomorrow to see how it goes.

3. Trunk woes

Trunk had several rusted holes along with being pretty rusty. Sanded down the rust, welded in some replacement panels, and put down a layer of primer. Next step is to speckle-paint the whole trunk.

Winter is here!

Car show season is over. The plan was to update the suspension over the winter, but that is put to the side, because I brought home this beautiful Pontiac:

2001 Pontiac Trans Am WS6!

Currently working on putting a console in the GTO. I took apart the console, sanded it down, and repainted.

Paint used: Duplicolor Satin Black (on both metal and plastic)

Console before resto

Sand and strip the main top

Painted

Painted body

Glove box door

Sanded glove box (felt was dirty and ragged)

To use the B&M shifter, I had to create a stand, placed under the console.

To enclose the top, we have 2 options -
1. A solid sheet of black plexiglass
2. A curved sheet of plastic, heated and curved to the shape of the B&M shifter enclosure. I will report on which we use.

Custom mirrors

Installed 71-81 GM sport side mirrors on the car. It looks good and fitting. They also don't move when the cover is put on the car (since the mirror is inside the shell and not outside on a swivel).

Too much power!

1. The engine torqued itself so hard the transmission crossmember ripped out of the frame.
Installed:
G-Force reinforced crossmember that bolts to the frame
Energy Suspension transmission mount

2. Sanded the hood to remove the cancer. Paint matches pretty well.

From:

To:




3. New wheels - 15x7 Rally II's with 235/60R15 Firestone Firehawk Indy 500s