dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Well, I went and did it! I purchased another GTA today. This makes my third one. This one is a 1989 GTA. It's in pretty rough shape, but with a lot of TLC & lots of $$$, I might be able to get it back on the road. It has a clean title, only 95,200 miles on it, a pretty decent interior and it's a pretty rust free car so far. So it does have some positive attributes. I just hate to scrap these cars if they can be fixed.

Here's a pic of it at the previous owner's house


That's the good end of it!

And now for the bad end...



The hood flew backwards on the previous owner when he was cruising down the interstate at 70mph. So it did A LOT of damage to the front end.

The interior is pretty decent. I don't have any pics of that yet. I will clean it up today and post a few pics.

I had a flatbed come pick it up and take it to my house.

Luckily I have a nice covered area to store it under.

I am currently working on taking off the front clip to inspect the extent of the damage. Hopefully it's just nose & fender damage & no structural damage. We will see. If there is any kind of serious structural damage I may have to scrap the car. Hopefully it won't come to that. I already have enough off of it to see the bumper bar behind the nose piece. It appears to be in good shape. So maybe I'll get lucky. I will post an update later.

LHernandezJr

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Javier87z28

iTrader: (1)

Nice car brother hopefully you can saver her!

DD9TransAmGTA

iTrader: (1)

Looks like a nice project! Good find

DonutGuard

Aw man... I saw those cinder blocks on the hood and I damn near wanted to cry... doesn't look awful all in all though. Good find, I can't wait to see some progress!

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Thanks guys! Actually Luis (Motobooks) was the one that found it for me on Craig's list. I think he's actually a Craig's list troll. LOL. I was just the one that ended up buying it. Thanks again Luis! Yeah DG, it's hard to see them so abused sometimes, but it went to a good home. I should be able to get it back on the road again eventually. I'm glad I got a hold of it before it got stripped-out.

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Excellent news guys... I got most of the front clip off and found no serious structural damage. So YAY!

Here is the only minor structural damage that was under the driver's side fender

A little bit of broken metal where the hood hinge bolt attaches. I can live with that.

straight DS frame rail


back of the DS frame rail


straight PS frame rail


Back of the PS frame rail


There is still one bolt on each fender inside the car that I need to remove before I can get the fenders completely off of it. I ran out of daylight.

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

The front bumper looks pretty decent. There are a few minor spots on it where you can see it was hit, but nothing that would warrant replacing it.


Here are the damaged parts that will need to be fixed or replaced:

PS driving light housing - busted


Front bumper impact absorber - completely mangled

That's probably the only thing that kept the bumper bar from being damaged more.

Lower headlight brackets - seriously rusted-out. Will be replaced.

Fortunately the metal underneath them was fine.


The metal plate between the nose & core support - bent across the middle. I will have to replace it.

Here's what it should look like

Just not in blue!

Other broken, missing or unusable parts:
Hood hinges
Hood & bumper cover (of course based on previous pics)
Headlight bezels (plastic housing that goes around the headlights) - both damaged beyond repair
DS turn signal housing (beside headlight)

And I only broke one stud off on one of the ground effect pieces, so that's not too bad.

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Here's the next relatively serious issue I need to have looked at.

(the rust on the windshield pillar) I need to dig into it and see how serious this is. I will need to R&R the windshield too and take care of any issues underneath of it. The door is bent under the mirror too. The PO hit the mirror on something and messed-up both the mirror & the door. I'm not sure if a body shop can fix that or not. I got an extra door in the deal in case they can't fix it. So I should be okay either way.

Think I should put these back on the car? Believe it or not, this is the wheel with the good tire on it!

I had to put my wheels on it to get it home.

Now let's move on to some good stuff...

...Like the interior!

Mostly in good shape with a few exceptions.

The seats are in great shape. They even still have both of the buttons that hold the seat belt guides together.

The console lid is not even attached. Actually the whole console area needs a lot of attention.

It even has all of the original floor mats!

Although they are quite stiff. Hopefully I can clean them up and save them.


Well, not all of the interior is in great shape.

Oh well. No big deal.

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Okay, just a few more goodies before I get into the rat's nest issue in my engine bay.

Back of the car... good tail lights & bumper


'91 - '92 rear hatch I got with the deal

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

A Walk-Through of the Rat-Bastard's Old Home

The bedroom:

Looks like a dive to me, but probably perfect for a rat.

Oops... the maid came by and cleaned-up. Sorry rat-bastard!


The kitchen:

Rat-bastard's delicacy of choice... acorns!

Ah man, the maid cleaned this room too!


Last, but not least... The restroom:

There is actually a battery tray under there somewhere. Nasty!!!

Luckily the maid strikes again... unfortunately I was the maid!

I was really surprised to find that the battery tray wasn't completely rusted-away. You would think that all of that excrement on it would be really bad for it. I guess the factory paint & primer did it's job.

A special thanks goes out to the rat-bastard for chewing through some of my wiring & vacuum hoses. You are officially from ever coming back to your old home!

How do you like your old home now rat-bastard?

HAHAHA!

LHernandezJr

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dprest68

iTrader: (1)

I'm glad you liked it. I had to tap into my creative writing skills, which I probably haven't used in 25 years.

Yeah, I'm glad it's all "deturded" now too. It was pretty gross. Once I get all of the vacuum hoses fixed & the engine sealed-up I will give it a good bath

LHernandezJr

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Zane M

iTrader: (1)

Glad to see another one being saved!

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Mi Amigo, Luis (Motobooks) came over this past weekend to help me get the front fenders removed from the car. It appeared that the bolt on the bottoms of the fenders went up through into the passenger compartment. Turns out they don't, but I will get to that in a minute. While routing around under the carpet I discovered an infestation of carpenter ants. So, I went to the store today and bought (2) Raid Fumigators to take care of the problem and any other critters that happen to be residing in there!

RAID! Run for your lives!


Die suckers! In the next few days, Luis and I are going to remove the interior to inspect the extent of the damage caused by those pesky ants. Hopefully there is no serious damage. I want to get the carpets cleaned while they are out too.

Here it is with the front clip removed


Here's a candid shot that Luis took without my knowledge!


And here's that damn bolt that's on the bottom of the fender, under the car, by the door.

After a lot of head scratching we finally figured out that the metal that the bolt is connected to was bent-up. We had to pry the crap out of it to get it back into shape to get the bolts off. Pretty dumb design


Anyway, once we finished removing the fenders we decided to head over to LKQ salvage yard in Daytona. Man did we hit the jackpot! There was a pretty nice formula there that had just about everything I needed. I scored a nice center console, rust free lower headlight brackets, A pop-up headlight assy., a perfect impact absorber, working rear hatch shocks, the metal plate between the core support & nose piece w/ support bracket, (4) nice marker light lenses, headlight bezels, hood hinges & a nice rearview mirror. So that puts a pretty big dent in the stuff that I need to get the car back together.

LHernandezJr

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dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Luis brought me over a nice pair of Camel sill plates this afternoon. So I gave him a nice pair of black ones that I had been saving. The driver's side sill plate on the car had some pretty serious damage. He also brought me over a nice pair of smoked turn signal lenses along with a few other goodies from his stash. Thanks again Luis!

I also went through my stash and found a few more goodies for the car. I found a driving light housing to replace my broken one, a K&N air filter, A headlight housing to replace the broken one on the driver's side, a performance PROM & a radio pod.

So I think all I really need now is just the hood, fenders & nose piece. Not too shabby

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Yeah, I got excited about the rear wing on this thing until I got around to the driver's side. Then I found the usual rear wing deterioration that they are famous for. And yeah, that front bumper was a PITA! Having the right tools makes all of the difference.

chazman

iTrader: (4)

Looks like another cool thread....

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Thanks Chazman! I appreciate it.

Javier87z28

iTrader: (1)

Suscribed!

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Um, WOW! I didn't realize these Fumigators got THAT hot!

I'm glad I didn't open my car up and find a puddle of melted plastic. They did work though. I found quite a few dead ants today.

I think my radio pod exploded or something :O

every part of it was broken or messed-up

Here's what's left of it


I also got the console removed

It was a little unnerving removing the console bolt that connected to the shifter bracket since my hand was about an inch away from the (assumed) Black Widow's nest(?). I probably wouldn't have been sticking my hand in there if I hadn't put the fumigator in there a few days before!

Here's a close-up

I'm sure I will be finding more of this the farther I get into the interior.

And finally the hatch stays open on its own

That's a fun job changing those shocks by yourself.

It sounds like Luis is going to come over and help me out again this weekend. So we will work on getting the rest of the interior removed.

m2rtin

Looks like a great project, all the work is hundred percent visible, i like that! Thumbs up! Noble piece this one

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Thanks M2. I appreciate the kind words.

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Luis came over today and we really made a lot of progress on it. We pretty much stripped the entire interior out of it, I put a battery in it to test the electrical system & we got the new rear hatch installed.

I am currently uploading the pics to Photobucket. So I will post them on here once I get them all uploaded.

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

We went right to work on stripping the interior out of it. It only took us about 2.5 hours to accomplish. Not too shabby.

Carpet... now you see it...


Now you don't


Oops... there it is again!

Overall it wasn't in too bad of shape. I will probably go ahead and put new carpet in it though once I get back to that point.

One of our piles of removed pieces


Most of it is pretty clean under the carpet





Oh, by the way Luis, that is the correct "glove box" for this car. I looked at my other '89 after you left and it is the same with the bird on it only. I guess '88 said GTA, but '89 didn't. Weird huh?

Most of it looked pretty clean under the carpet until you get to this point. There was no ant damage, but there was a nice patch of rust


Looks like maybe the windshield was leaking

It almost completely ate that cable away that goes from the shifter to the steering column. Hopefully that won't be a problem.

Here's my temporary fix to keep the critters out

I have a friend in my neighborhood that welds, so I am going to have him come over and weld me in a nice patch panel. I want to get it fixed properly. I will clean-up and neutralize the rest of the rusted areas. As you can see, the car now has a battery in it. (the light bulb is on)

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Our next order of business was the hatch. It was time to remove the old crappy rear hatch...


...and replace it with the shiny new one

I'm sure you purists will argue it's not the correct wing for the car. Honestly, I don't care. It works & is in much better shape than the other one. That's all I care about.


Luis & I spent quite a bit of time aligning this darn thing

It's about as close as we could get it.

Way better alignment than what was on there. The new hatch is lighter too, so it makes it much easier on the hatch shocks. They will actually push the hatch up now without human assistance.

After Luis left, I removed the battery from my other '89 and put it in this one to see what would happen. Luckily there were no smoking wires or anything like that. I did hear the rear hatch motor going up though. That made me happy. I proceeded to click the rear hatch down into it & it pulled the hatch down just like it's supposed to. Yay for the small victories! I also tested the PDL's, but they only kind of, sort of worked. I will do some more electrical system testing later.

So that completes phase 2 of the project. I have yet to determine if phase 3 is going to be getting the engine back up to par (fixing rat damage) or getting the fuel system taken care of. There is 3/4 of a tank of gas in there that has been sitting for quite a few YEARS! That should be fun I think I will probably have to put a new pump in it. I can only image what has happened to that gas after that many years. I'm sure it's going to be a serious mess.

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

A huge thanks goes out to my buddy Luis for all of his help today! It was really appreciated.

BTW, he also brought me over a nicely restored steering wheel & shifter ****. So that was super cool of him. I will post a pic of them later on. I'm just too tired to deal with it ATM.

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

I tried starting the car this evening. No dice. It just clicks like the battery is weak. I think my battery is bad from sitting idle too long. Spiral cell batteries don't like that. So I ordered a new 7 year AC Delco battery today from NAPA. I will pick it up in the morning.

I also tried the power windows. No dice there either. I think the motors are locked-up. the dome light dimmed when I pushed the switch up or down, but nothing happened. Maybe a new battery will help, but I doubt it.

Lastly, I don't hear the fuel pump priming when I turn the ignition switch on. I kind of figured as much since it sat so long. Oh well.

Luis and I went to LKQ again yesterday and found quite a few more items that I needed for the car that were broke. So that was cool. They also have a "new arrival" there that's a '91 firebird with good front fenders. So I am going to see how much they want for them and probably go remove them. The same car also has a Camel interior, so I got a few nice interior parts from it.

LHernandezJr

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dprest68

iTrader: (1)

I actually have a set of new PDL actuators & PW motors if the PW motors are in fact locked-up. I already know the PDL actuators don't work properly. I guess I may as well put the new ones in there while I have the door apart. That would be the smart thing to do!

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Wow, $34 is a bargain! I will verify it tomorrow morning. I am going there to return my "cores". $12 is $12 I also wanted to see if they had any other third gens since we ran out of time to check yesterday.

According to Hawk's website, it appears that the fenders fit 82-92. So there shouldn't be a problem. I may just have to drill holes in the correct locations for the GTA ground effects.

Good luck with the wheels tomorrow.

LHernandezJr

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LHernandezJr

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dprest68

iTrader: (1)

I'm real glad someone did all of the work to get that hood back up on the white T/A at LKQ. Hopefully now we can get the fenders off of it easily enough. I'm not sure when I am going to able to get back over there.

I got the new battery in the car Friday afternoon before I had to leave. The good news is that the engine did turn over a few times with the new battery in there. Unfortunately it didn't sound all that great. It sounded kind of sick. I guess that is to be expected after sitting idle for so many years. I still didn't hear the fuel pump prime when I turned the key on. So it looks like I will be replacing that in the near future.

LHernandezJr

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86T/A_Ram_Air

Looks like some good progress so far. I'm glad to see your saving another GTA

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Thanks 86'

Yeah, it would still be a good idea to check the wiring to the fuel pump. Let's hope I don't need to use that engine in my garage!

Yeah, we will be prepared when we go to get those fenders. And yes, we have to take the old fenders in as cores. Otherwise it's an additional $8 for each fender (core charge)

Lmancha96

Awesome thread dude!!!!

LHernandezJr

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dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Thanks Lman'!

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

You find me a good one and we'll stick it in there!

Mike92Firebird

iTrader: (3)

This looks like it will be an awesome thread! Love seeing a car brought back to life! Good luck with it!

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Thanks Mike'! Hopefully one day it will look as nice as your car.

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

Luis & I went back over to LKQ this afternoon to get the fenders off of the '91 T/A before someone either took them or messed them up. Here's what's left of the car after we removed the fenders...



We brought the fenders home and temporarily hung them on the car... pretty much just to make it look a little better



Luis and his candid shots!

I was actually working on putting on this cool little fender brace that the '91 had that my '89 didn't have.

extra braces can't hurt. Doesn't add hardly any weight.

And finally...

Holes will have to be drilled in these fenders for the '89 ground effects. I figured there was a pretty slim chance that they would use the same holes between the different years. Oh well. No big deal.

Now I just need to find a front bumper cover & a hood to be done with the front end. I am thinking about going with a Ram Air II hood if I can find one locally. I already have the ram air filter box for it. So that would be cool. I'm sure my favorite Craig's list troll will keep an eye for one for me! Right Luis?

I'm starting to get real busy at work again, so it might be awhile before I make any more progress on the car. We'll see what happens.

dprest68

iTrader: (1)

I went to a small car show today with Luis and it motivated me to do a little bit of work on the car. I didn't have much time, so don't expect much.

I started working on fixing the rat-damaged hoses, but got annoyed with that kind of quick. So I decided to deal with the broken driving light. Here's the broken housing that came on the car & one that I had in my stash.

The lens inside of the housing that came on the car, on the right side of the pic, was actually better than the one that was in my stash

So I combined the two together to come up with one good one.


Back on the car

...and adjusted

I actually lost the top adjusting bolt this morning somewhere between the side of my house and my garage. I got incredibly lucky though and found it this afternoon on the asphalt in front of my car. Thank God!

Unfortunately, neither of the driving lights worked though when I turned them on. And I know the bulb was good in the one I rebuilt. So I will have to track down the problem. That should be fun.

My neighbor that welds came by too. He told me just to cut out what I wanted repaired and he would build a patch panel to replace it. So that will be cool.

I talked to my mechanic on Friday about the gas tank situation. He said he would take care of it for me and put a new pump in it for about $300 (pump not included). So that's not too bad. I figure I will just go ahead and have him get it running while it's there too.

LHernandezJr

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LHernandezJr

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86T/A_Ram_Air

that's a little much for a car with a blown motor