ROFL, that's funny. Though I look at this board as a preservation type of board already. Body and Interior are somewhat included in that. But no, we cannot make a board for you two. Yet. It might also result in two people owning half of the remaining mint Third Gen population.

BTW, the Parts for Sale board now contains this in the description, "Please do not part cars that don't deserve it. Remember, don't crush them, restore them!" Better than nothing I guess, but I hope it makes people realize what they're doing a little when a car can easily be saved.

 

That's a great first step!

 

Awww c'mon...is there really anything wrong with Charlie and I buying 5 third gens in the past 24 months???

With that said, apparently I am not allowed to sell either of my TAs because Charlie will feel left out. Now, if Charlie wanted to BUY one of my TAs....well? I gotta prospect the sale...

Just tossing it out there...

 

I think the "Hoarders and Preservationist" board would have 3 memebers, you guys are missing t_owner... LOL

 

Don't worry. We'd let you hang out there too.

 

It's also about all we can do. We can't tell people what to do with their cars but we can make a suggestion.

 

Took the T-tops off for the first time and took it for a spin. Is it possible that this car has never been driven with the tops off? The straps look unused and weren't even attached. Huh. Anyway, it's sweet ride on a beautiful day, with the tops off. Still smells like I'm burning off some mouse poop/nesting in the muffler. The exhaust note seems to mellow as I drive.

I have noticed that the trans doesn't shift as expected at full throttle. 1st to 2nd might not come until over 6000 RPM. I've adjusted the the TV cable in the recommended manner several times. I'm not sure if it's a trans problem, or the right rear tire is just spinning??? I also noticed that on aggressive downshifts, the engine sort of freewheels for a second, almost like the trans is slipping. Again, could be spinning rear tire?

 

Definitely not tire spin. It does it now even at light throttle. It's like it doesn't want to upshift. Sounds like the same problem Cerberus had with his.

Also, the replacement fuel pump got very noisy today and I smell gas from back there. Not having a good day.

 

How's the fluid level? Did you ever find the source of the trans leak.

 

Fluid level is fine. There is no trans leak that I can detect. There is an oil pan gasket leak. Maybe the previous owner confused that for a trans leak?????

 

Could have a partially blocked or plugged return line(if it blocks off completely it will blow the pressure regulator on the rail in .000001 seconds) Could also have a blocked or plugged evap line to the canister. Do you get a whoosh when you open the fill cap? My IROC started giving me some occasional fuel vapor last summer and I still can't find where it is coming from. Both of us should probably throw a new fuel cap on it just for kicks...

For the trans, sounds like it's time for a T5 swap!

 

Yes! Yesterday, when I was looking for the gas smell, I took off the cap and got a big woosh.

 

TV valve could be sticking in the trans. It just takes a very small piece of dirt or metal shaving to restrict it's movement and cause late and inconstient shifting.

You should really drop the pan, clean the magentic, and put in a fresh filter. Also, I noticed the latest GM Dexron VI synthetic fluid can really improve shifting performance. I just upgraded to it in my Silverado and my IROC.

http://paceperformance.com/i-5131365...container.html

This is all just a guess without driving the car and looking in the pan. Can you youtube the shifting?

 

http://www.nttga.net/forums/showthre...read-with-pics!

 

Great write up and I think this is the problem Charlie is having based on the info he has provided. A sticky TV is a very common 700R4 trans issue. But can be hard to diagnose without an inspection in the trans. Again great pics also.

 

When I got my old 87' sport coupe it had awful shifts, hung, downshifts sucked. I ended up romping on it quite abit then one day it slammed a downshift, broke a tire loose on it and it was perfect ever since.

probably not recommended service, but it worked good for me.

 

Well your whoosh could be positive or negative pressure so bear that in mind.

My 91 TA would do a similar thing but it was pressure. It would build up so much pressure that you could hear the fuel tank "oil canning" as it expanded. I put a new cap and tank vent on it and I disconnected the vent line from the charcoal canister and blew air through it to make sure it was clear. I also put a used charcoal cannister and purge solenoid on it I had laying around and the problem went away.

If I were you the first things I'd do is replace the tank vent and put a fuel new cap on it and go from there. If the fuel odor is strongest inside the driver side rear wheel well you can guarantee the vent is bad. Try those simple things and let us know what happens.

As for the trans..... You know you want to put a T5 in it. It will be our little secret, I won't tell anyone over on the "Preservation and Hoarding" board.

 

How do fuel caps go bad????

 

The rubber swells or disintegrates causing blockage or fully open.
Common problem in our cars with original but aged parts.

Mine will do that sometimes and it it under pressure. Depends on outside temperature.

 

I've seen the o-ring in them crack and leak. Some are vented and some are non-vented as well. I'd say if you are getting the whoosh when you open the cap it's probably good, but they are normally only a few bux so I tried one. I'd put the tank vent higher on the priority list than the fuel cap though..

 

Where is the tank vent, exactly?

 

Charcoal canister on passenger side under hood

 

Okay, good, I thought that there might be something on the tank. I was under the car yesterday, and the canister did give me a whiff of gas smell.

 

no the tank vent is attached to the chassis of the car just inside the "frame rail" in the driver side rear wheel well. It is hanging on the same bracket that your rear axle to chassis brake hose attaches to. It is a white or gray plastic round thing(about 2" in dia) that will some slits at the bottom of it with a spring loaded diaphragm inside.

 

Okay, I see it. Just forward of the axle, with what I assume is a fuel line going through it.

 

yah its got a rubber vent line clamped to it. clean it off and you should be able to suck air in through it easily, but it should take a good bit of force to blow through it.

 

Think I could hook up my Mity-Vac to it?

 

OH just man up and blow or suck through it, thats what I did LOL.

 

Did you, really?


I will admit to blowing/sucking certain clogged lines. But it's one thing to get a mouth full of windshield wiper fluid and it's another to get a mouth full of what ever is in that line.

Maybe, I'll just squirt some Chemtool or Seafoam in there....

 

No I'm taking the valve off the car, unclamping it from the vent hose. cleaning it with brake parts cleaner and blowing it dry with compressed air. Then blowing or sucking through it. It takes longer to get under the car than it does to loosen the clamp and take the valve off.

 

Okay, remove and clean. That makes me feel better.

 

You know which guy I am? I'm the guy that spends a couple of hours trying to undo the 15 minutes I thought I would save.

The turn signal lamps. To get them clean, it's best to remove them, let them soak in soapy water, rinse/repeat, rince/repeat. Of course, I figured I'd save afew minutes, leave them on the car and squirt Simple Green into the drain holes, let it dwell and then rinse. It was working, but slowly. So, I thought, what if I sprayed just a little squirt of carb cleaner in that drain hole? Well, it sure didn't get anything cleaner. It simply fogged up a portion of the lamp, dripped out the bottom and discolored/melted my decal stripe. Damn. It.

So, I did end up removing both lamps, soaking them in the sink, like I should have in the first place. I still have a partially fogged up driver's lamp though. BTW, while everything was apart, I figured I'd change the light bulbs. Apparently, the bulbs need to be oriented in the sockets a certain way for the turn signals to work. I figured that one out AFTER I had every thing all buttoned up.

 

Damn Charlie that sucks to hear. Believe me if I had a second set of NOS parking lights Id practically give them to you wholesale. That car deserves new ones. Unless of course if you can get yours cleaned enough to your liking.

Now I know why you asked about the "stripe only" kit the other day.

 

Yup!


I think If I put that one in the oven and let the glue soften, I can take it apart and polish it out. I know it's easier to just get a new one, but I get a weird satisfaction if I can restore the old one.

 

I was gonna get new stripes anyway, but the one I ruined was, (as luck would have it), the only perfect one on the car. Duh.

I also noticed that the temp gauge needle is stuck again.

You know this car is not very appreciative of the TLC I've lavished on it. I might have to park it out in the rain for afew days, just so it can get an attitude readjustment.

 

So, anyways......


Yesterday this PDR guy comes to my house. He was highly recommended by a friend with many old and expensive cars. Took me forever to get an appointment with him. I figured, you know, he'd take out the dings on both my yellow IROC and my '83, while he's here. What a disappointment. He couldn't get access to anything on the '85 and didn't even try on the '83. I offered to remove the door panel, but he said it wouldn't make a difference.

I'm thinking, this is just ridiculous. I'm willing to pay professionals, money to do their magic on my cars, and no one can get it done. Four PDR guys have tried and failed on my '83. One guy said that if I delivered the car to him with the door panels and interior plastics removed, he'd do the '83 for $900. Come on. I mean, do I have to learn how to do it myself or something?

So I decide to look up the guy that Scott Moyer mentioned earlier in the thread. I called, but it was probably too late in the day, and I wouldn't have time to stop by there for several weeks. I perused his website and noticed that they also do glue pulling PDR. Huh, that's interesting. Interesting because I bought a cheap, glue pulling PDR kit off of ebay a couple of years ago, and after getting poor results, just figured the whole concept to be a bunch of BS. But after seeing pictures of Scott's highly recommended PDR fellow doing it, I figured I should do more research. I watched a whole bunch of Youtube videos on glue pulling PDR and really got a better feel for how it's done and decide, what the heck, I'd give it another try.

The driver's door of my IROC was pretty badly banged up with dings and a couple of pretty big dents. What do you know, after watching all those videos, I became one with the sheetmetal and pulled 90% of the dents/dings out with my glue puller tabs. I even made some headway on my '83. I have to get one of those plastic tap downs, because one or two of the repaired dings have small peaks now, and there are a couple of spots I want to work a little more. I would have easily paid that guy $250-$300 to get it to where it is right now, though.

 

If you get tired of dealing with all of the idiots you may want to stop by my brother's shop and see what he can do for you. He truly is a master of the craft. Just let me know if you are going to stop by ahead of time so I can tell him you are coming.

http://www.myabcspace.com/allautobody/

 

WHAT??? You attacked this yourself? You need to be very careful with this. The cheap tool you buy at the store uses a bridge technology. The problem with that is that it creates two pressure points while pulling the center up. The reason this tool works on TV is because most people don't see the impressions left in the metal by the two support locations. The other problem you have that you can over pull and create a high spot. Without the proper tools and techniques, you can quickly create a mess out of a small dent.

It's very discouraging that these guys can't do the dents on the doors. I have done them on my car and others. They aren't the easiest to access because of the center brace, but they are doable. Please be very careful tapping these down. A very light tap is all you need. Start at the highest point and very lightly tap it down. The problem you have is that you don't have a reflection board. The reflection board has a fogged line on it that you align the edge of the line to the dented area. You need to look at the metal, not the board. The line allows you to see the depth of the dent or the height of it.

DO NOT STICK ANYTHING DOWN THE WINDOW CHANNEL TO PUSH DENTS OUT! You can easily break the window, you WILL scratch the glass, and any pushing you do on the dent can, and more than likely, will make the damage worse and possibly require a body shop to fix. The glue puller is less damaging as it pulls a larger area. If you try to push a dent yourself with incorrect tools, you can crack the paint and will cause high spots that can't be removed.

Sorry Charlie! I drove through the Chicago area with my tools a few weeks ago. If I remembered this issue with the car, I would have stopped in to fix them. Let me do some digging and see if I can locate some people in your area that can do the cars.

 

Okay, new rule. Any 3rd genner, with special talents, coming through Chicago, should always PM me!

This is NOT one of those bridge ones. All the pressure is on the tab. It has sort of a plastic cage where you apply pressure with a threaded wing nut. I think it would have been easier with a better dent lifter or slide hammer though. And it's not very effective on very small, creased dings.

Thanks for the tips on the tap down. I may practice on my wife's 140K mile Durango.

 

Part of the problem with the dent pullers is that they don't take into account a sharp dent. If you try pulling on a sharp dent, you'll lift the entire area except the very middle or the deepest part. By doing this, you have now tightened up the center of the dent to the point where it can't easily be repaired. I've reached out to some people and I'm waiting on a response. Send me your contact info and I'll provide it to the techs that contact me. I will also need to know where you are so I can tell them. Also, can you send me the side angle shot of the 83 you sent me before that shows the dents? Thanks

 

Spoke to the original owner yesterday as I try to piece together the car's history. Nice lady from Minnesota. Her family was big into circle track racing, with her dad owning a track and being a former racer. They would attend IROC races, and that's where she and her husband decided to get a yellow IROC.

The car wasn't ordered, but was located from a dealer some distance from her with the exact options she wanted - that being T-tops and tan interior. She drove it in nice weather until about 1990/91, when she traded it in on a Lincoln.

She told me that whatever she finds on the car she'll send to me. It's kind of funny, that all of the former owners know each other. She called me back to ask if the car still has the Minnesota Collector Car plates which were put on when new. They are. How does that work in Minnesota? Can you do that on a new car?

 

Wow very interesting. Hopefully she has some documentation on the car. That would be cool.

 

She says that she has a yellow car model from the dealer.

 

That would be very cool to have hope you can get it.

 

I power washed (again) the undercarriage of my apparent dirt road IROC. I'm starting to see some isolated clean spots under there.

Today I noticed that my driver's side rear shock is black and my passenger side is yellow. It seems that most early IROCs had yellow Bilsteins and later ones had black Bilsteins. I've never seen one with one of each. I have no reason to believe that one or the other has ever been replaced - but you never know.


Any thoughts?

 

That thing looks sweet , i love the color

 

You have a good selection of nice stock thirdgens in your collection. I was wondering if you could tell us your driving impressions for all 3 of your cars?

I'd really be intrested in knowing the comparision between your '85 and '89 IROC's. I know the '89 should be faster with the better exhaust and cam. But your '85 has the highest power LB9 that GM ever bolted to the 700r4. At least stock anyway.

I've just always been curious about those '85 LB9's. Most people that I've seen that have had them (that were in proper running and working order) have said they had very good performance.

I've also been watching what '85 IROC's have been going for on ebay and other sites. Sometimes it's a toss up between an '85 LB9/auto car or an '85 L69/5-speed car on what some people think is better or more valuable stock for stock.

 

Hmm, that's odd...I just went through the process of getting collector plates for mine here in MN and the law as it stands is that any car 20 model years or older can have collector plates as long as you have proof that you have another vehicle registered in your name with regular plates. AFAIK 20 years has always been the law, not sure why they would give you collector plates for a brand new car. My guess is her memory is foggy.

I've never known any other state to issue collector plates before 25 years besides MN, which is kind of nice. Unfortunately though ours are now el-cheapo screen printed rather than stamped like they used to be.

 

Yeah, I have the stamped Minnesota Collector plate. Too bad I can't use it in FL. Florida requires a car to be 30 before it gets a collector/antique plate. They used to have collector status, but got rid of it a few years ago. Maybe I should register the car in MN again and put my collector plate on it.

 

30? That's rough.

Ours also changed from 6 numbers with a hyphen to just six numbers:



Looks a bit cheap and doesn't have the "collector" feel like the stamped ones, but still better than the ugly regular plates we have. More than anything I'm just glad I can legally run no front plate now, probably the biggest benefit.