Success!

I was able the get my T/A running. I still need to adjust the carb but the car is running with everything plugged in and no check engine light. Yah!

To briefly recap, there were two issues. One, it would not rev above 1500 RPM without backfiring and two, it would not run at all with the distributor 4-pin connector plugged in.

For the issue of not going above 1500 RPM, the problem was a dislodged seal in the brake booster that was causing a large vacuum leak. Once fixed it would rev without backfiring.

For the issue with car not running with the distributor 4-pin connector plugged in, the fix was simple, frustrating, costly, time consuming and traversing many rabbit holes. The TLDR is that the pickup coil in the distributor had the black connector, my car needed the pickup coil with the yellow connector. There are two version of pickup coils for the SBC and the only difference is the polarity of the magnetic field and the color of plug. There are also two different polarity ignition coils. One with a yellow lead and one with a white lead and they need to match. A yellow connector pickup coil needs be paired with a yellow lead ignition coil. My where miss-matched.

And now the story how this happened and a tail of crappy “new” parts. I broke my original distributor at some point over the 17 years it was out of the car. I need a new one. I wanted an original look and operation. I ended up going with a reman GM complete unit. I was a bit more, but it was GM, it was listed for my car so that is what I got.

That is so true

The part I got from first appearance seemed fine but there were red flags I did see at the time. The wires where a bit dirty and there were some silicon “repairs” to some of the wire boots and the capacitor was not new looking. It also came with the wrong pickup coil, which I did not know at time. Durning the troubleshooting process I replaced various parts, took ohm reading and many other tests. When I learned about the pickup coil color issues, I bought a cheap pickup coil with the yellow connector from the parts store. The process for installing the coil means the removing the main shaft.

And that is when I found this


The shaft is pitted. They did clean it I guess but I was not happy. This GM remanufactured distributor is [expletive deleted]. It had a pitted main shaft, incorrect coil, dirty looking capacitor and dirty and frayed wiring. And it was one of the more expensive options.

Oh well, lesson learned. I found a NOS part number correct distributor on a popular internet auction site and I will be replacing it with soon since this one is a hodge podge of parts. For now the car is running and I can continue the project.

I have a few more thing to do under the hood. I want to replace the radiator hose clamps with period correct clamps. I also need to replace the rubber fuel lines with period correct parts and touch up some paint work. and the AIR pump started making noise, so I need to look into that.

 

Awesome !

thanks for the link from facebook.

Im not as close as you are, since yours is now running...

maybe next month mine will be too

 

GM & ACDelco reman parts for the most part are f*cking junk. You might as well light your money on fire. Their quality is about on par with a rattle can spray bomb SBC 350 rebuilt engine off Facebook Marketplace.

 

It's unfortunate so many pwople are unaware that AC/Delco has not been made by General motors for many years now, and the quality is not what is was 30 or more years ago...

 

The T/A is on its wheels!

The

The mechanical work is “done”. There are a few adjustments I need to make to the carb but the systems that make the car go and stop are finished. The hood is on and its sitting on the wheels. I’m ready to start body work. It can technical drive now but without a windshield it would be mighty cold.

Over the last year I’ve been looking for somewhere to have the car painted to no avail. Body shops around me only want to do collision work and restoration shops only want to do high end show cars. And no one wants to paint in single stage. I did talk to Maaco but their quote was suspiciously low. I heard they can do good work or not good work. I’ll be reaching out to a few more shops but I want to get started with the body work next month. When this project started, I was not expecting to have difficulty finding a painter.

My fallback option is to do the body work and paint myself. I found a place that rents paint booths, but I could probably build a basic one in my garage for the same price.

I have most of the interior and other parts ready to go, once painted, its ready to go back together.

 

The car is coming along nicely. I had a really hard time finding someone to do my 82. I found that everyone wanted collision only. I eventually found the right guy and it came out awesome. It's weird, all the at guys I asked and shops I stopped into were dead ends. I went to a guitar builder I know for some stuff and we were talking about his Z06 and he was like"I know a guy who does great paint work. It was quite the surprise and worked out awesome.

You'll find some one.

 

if you have any local car clubs try checking with them for painter recommendations. there's someone out there. good painters are always backed-up so be prepare to wait to get in. getting a car painted also takes longer than you assume - probably double or triple whatever you have in mind. if you're really in a pince, i've also heard of people working with a local high school or college trade program to get a car painted. the kids are learning but they have a teacher that oversees the project and won't let them mess it up (hopefully).
in either route, get references and look at examples of their work.

 

That is all so true! He told me he was 8 months out and is was about a year. He told me about 3 months to paint and it was 5. But the car came out great and in the process I had to get more little things for the car. The painter had a great interior guy who made new door panels that were identical to my stock ones. I couldn't find comparable reproduction panels so they were made. In the end it was a longer time and maybe 10% more than the estimate. That said, I have zero complaints and respect the time. There's a reason these guys are backed up. There's a reason they take a long time. No one wants the fast paint job from the guy that isn't busy!

 

I just wanted to say that you will have one beautiful Trans am. 1982's and 1983's are my favorite third gens and ans black and gold is the best color combo in my opinion. I want to get another 1982 one day

 

I love the detail you are putting into your car. Cannot wait to see it finished!

 

Excellent write up. Your experiences are helping me with my 83 Camaro build.

Where did you find the rivets and the material for the rubber hangers? I bought four exhaust hangers for my 69 Camaro and within 2 years they had all torn at the rivet holes. I'd like to rebuild the factory hangers along with the hangers for the 83.

Thank you so much!

 

I got the material from a Walker 35245 Exhaust Hanger that i bought and dissembled just to get the strap. The rivets came from a local hardware store that has a lot of odd hardware. I cleaned up the metal pieces and used my 10 ton press on the rivets to put it back together. I assume there is a tool for the rivets but my press worked well.

 

I still haven’t found someone to paint my car. Well, that’s not quite true. I have found a few places they only do high end show car work or commodity work like Maaco. All the high-end shops I talked to only want to work in base/clear and most don’t work on 80’s or new cars and I want single stage paint. I understand base/clear is a superior finish, its just not what I want for this project.

I have on more call with a restoration shop next week and we'll see what happens. They usually don’t work on post-70’s cars and are more of a full-service restoration shop but the owner is a car guy and liked my project.

In the meantime, I’m going to assume I’m going to be painting my car myself. I have the equipment already, but I need to figure out the logistic. There is a place that rents spray booth time by the day but they are a ways away and moving the car, parts and supplies around is more of a challenge then it's worth. I’ve seen those inflatable booths but I’m more inclined to build a booth. It’s not hard just takes time.

In the mean time, here are the none body items that need to be painted

The bumpers need to be black upper and gold lower



These are the gold GFX bits.



These are the other body bits that need to be black.


And the wheels, the car is currently sitting on the wheels. I've been looking for a set to steel wheels to use temperately but i havn't found anything yet at a price i want to pay. aka cheap.

 

bring it to me in phx.
ill spray it with whatever you want.
but, yes, most 'high end' shops suck at old stuff, and true restorations of old cars need single stage paint.

 

I wish i could, that is about a 2000 mile trip.I did talk with a few Maaco’s and the experience was… interesting. With the Maaco closest to me, I talked the manager, outlined my project and he said he would email me a quote that day. I hadn’t heard anything so go back the next day, and he says he didn’t talk to me and I have the wrong Maaco. I pointed to paperwork I filled out that was still on the counter and he looks at it for about 5 min and asked me what I wanted. So I left. I also went to another local Maaco and the staff was nice and we looked at some projects there where working on but the quality was not quite what I was looking for, I mean it was fine but it has more dirt in the paint then i was expecting to see.

I've pretty much decided to paint it myself. I've been watching some online videos on building a paint booth. I don't need anything fancy. I'm also looking at the inflatable booths. I hope to have the car painted by the end of the month but i think that is a bit aggressive.

 

I would never let Macco paint any of my cars...

 

If you have a garage you can just staple some plastic up over the car and over anything important. Close the door down on a cheap 20" box fan to blow out and you'll be 99% what you'd get from maaco. Couple years ago I had to repair a bunch of rust on the leading edge of the roof on my kids Vibe, and just painted it in the garage with zero concern. Put a fan blowing out and shimmied in and out so I didn't have to move the garage door. It's been three years now and you can't even tell it was repainted. Not sure id want to do a whole car but...

 

And wet the floor down before painting. That'll keep the overspray that settles to the floor from, 1. sticking, and 2. flying back up and 'dusting' the car as you walk around it painting. I've seen several nice jobs done from a garage.

 

That is basically my plan, I'll be building a "paint booth" and taking my time.

 

In preparation for body work and paint I have been collecting supplies and starting to look at what I need to build a paint booth. Nothing fancy but something that will work for me.

One of the tasks that took way more time than I thought it would be was finding an old set of wheels. I need to take the original wheels off so I can restore them, and I needed a set of cheap wheels so I can still move the car around. I have been looking for the last 6 months to no avail. NOTE to reader, i wanted a cheap set of crap wheels that will hold the car up. Wrecking yards around me didn’t have any in the right size or bolt pattern, I’d see some on Facebook from time to time but they were either be to far away or more then I wanted to spend. But I finally got a set and was able to get my original wheels dismounted

Wheels fresh off the car



after a little cleaning. one clean and one dirty


Two of the wheels clean. i still need to do some light polishing and I'll be painting them but they cleaned up better then i expected.



While I have my paint booth built, I plan to paint the interior plastic as well. My interior plastics are in good physical shape but there is fading in places. I plan to use SEM Color Coat, however, I found the spray can colors are not the right shade of tan. Fortunately, SEM Color Coat can be mixed at my local Wesco. I gave them one of my plastic pieces and the match came out great. If anyone needs to touch up their 1983 Camel Tan (code 64) interior plastic the codes are in the picture. I don’t know if this is the same color for 82 or 84. I suspect it is since they have the same color code but I don’t have any 82 or 84 plastic to compare.

The space between the blue tape is where i put a dab of paint to test the color match. its a great match.

 

Body work and painting has started. I spent the last month building a paint booth and collecting supplies… and the process has started. I’ve painted the mirrors, front support and rear wing. Up next will be to paint the gold parts, like aero and wheels. Then the black parts not on the car and finally the car itself. I have the prep work for the parts off the done and I hope to have them done in a week or two. Then I can start the body work and paint on the car. the body is in good shape, there isn’t much body work to do other than the usual sanding.

Here are the first set of parts that are painted. The mirrors, rear spoiler, t-top bar and front brace. I had to repaint the spoiler 3 times due to having trouble with the paint not laying down right or in one case me touching the paint when it was wet and messing it up. But oh well its done now.








Next up, the gold parts

 

Continue to paint, I have been working on the gold parts and I have discovered I’m not very good with painting metallics. I get stripes, which according to the internet is common with metallics. I’ve reviewed a few videos but if anyone has any tips on how to paint single stage metallics, I’m open to suggestions.

I also painted a few black parts but they did not turn out very well. I just need a bit more practice.

I was able to get the wheels painted and tires mounted. They turned out nice. now i just need some grey valve stem caps...apparently

 

Those wheels look great...

 

I cant wait to get them on the car

 

The last few months have been spent setting up and painting parts. The car is going to be black with gold accents. I’ve been having trouble with the gold because its gold metallic and I’m not a professional. I kept getting stripes, I think I was spraying it on to thick. It took three tries to get a good color. I don’t know if this is the correct way to spray metallic but I ended up spraying 6 light coats so the flakes wouldn’t move around and settle weird. The color turned out great but there is some orange peel. The internet says that metallic paint is tricky to color sand, so I plan to clear coat the metallic parts, then I sand and polish.

Never mind the lighting but you can see the streaks I was getting on the second attempt. My first try was the same results as my second try. I finally got a good color on my third try.








I also got the body shell painted with the gold accent.

The black was easier to lay down but I got some dirt in the paint and a bit of orange peel in places. I sprayed three coats with the intention of color sanding, I sanded and polished a few test areas and it once I do the rest of the car, it will look great. I still need to paint the bumper covers and interior plastic parts which i hope to do in the next few weeks.

 

The body shell paint is “done” and the windshield is installed. it took 3 days to color sand and polish. The paint turned out really nice. I was worried when it first rolled out of the booth because of the orange peel and dirt in the paint but it sounded out nice. I will still need to detail polish once the car is done.
The bumpers are also painted and ready to be reassembled and put back on the car.



The driver side B pillar before and after color sanding. I wasn’t sure how deep the dirt nibs where. Fortunately, they were just on the surface and sanded out easily.

 

Nice! It's amazing how a little wet sanding can turn an "OK" paint job into a show quality one. That's the only way I can produce a nice finish.

Did you have to wet sand the bumpers?

 

Yes, I'll need to wet sand the bumpers but I'm going to wait until they are on the car. It's easier to work on them when they are on the car. The bumpers where painted last and turned out really well. there isn't much orange peel. I definitely got better at painting but there is still some dirt in the bumper paint. I anticipated my lack of painting skills and sprayed 3 coats so i would have room to sand and polish. I also used a good quality paint.

I had an issue with sanding. I started sanding with a random orbital sander but i kept getting small 1/2 inch cork screw marks in the paint. Like the paper had a piece of dirt in it but i didn't see anything on the paper. I was using a Velcro backed paper, maybe the Velcro was poking through, I'm not sure. I couldn't figure it out so i ended up sanding by hand then using a machine for compound and polish.

 

Looking good!

 

I'm concerned about orange peel on my bumpers too. Since they are not as flat as sheet metal can be, I'm scared as hell about sanding through the clear. I also spray 3 clear coats. I am going to pull the trigger on a higher quality gun to help with the orange peel.

A 1/2" sanding pattern sounds like the sander was too coarse of a stroke. I did a quick search and it sounds like a 2-3mm stroke is what is best for fine sanding. I always have hand sanded my finishes but machine sanding is intriguing. Might try it.

Your car is gonna look great!

 

While i have a place to paint i have been working on the interior plastic. They are in good shape but there is some fading . I used SEM plastic paint and it turned out really well. They don't make a match to the Tan color in the 82-84 cars so i had to get it mixed at my local Wesco. they did a great job matching the original color.

 

I saved your build for reference to help me with my 83 Z28 build. I was hoping you wouldn't mind me picking your brain a little...

I didn't see anywhere on how you refinished the gold cad plating on the brake parts. Did yours just clean up to look like they do now? Mine look pretty bad, I don't see them cleaning up to the original finish. I am debating to try those paint kits that emulate the cad finish. I can deal with them not being perfectly correct as long as the the finish is durable.

Larry

 

This is interesting. My car appears to have been dipped in black. The interior was completely covered in blue, along with pretty much any surface that was more or less horizontal in the engine bay. The top of the frame rails were also blue with overspray on the vertical surfaces. I removed the front seat outer seat belt mounts and there was black where the mount and body were bolted together. The undercarriage, like yours, has exterior overspray.

Is your interior the same color as the undercarriage? Your pics look almost a gold color. Maybe that's just the monitor. It looks like they didn't try to paint your interior with the exterior color like mine. And, your firewall is black like mine. I assume mine is the same dipped primer. Your firewall would be gray in your case so I wonder if they painted it with the same exterior color.

I also didn't see if you mentioned if the original color of your car was black.

My 83 is a Van Nuys car. Where was yours built? I'm curious as to why the different colors and coverage.

 

My clad parts where pretty bad too. they where structurally sound but the finish was gone. when i cleaned them up they just looked like bare unfinished metal.

When i first got my car in 2007, one of the first things i did was to get the brake booster rebuilt and the other gold parts re-plated. I live in the Pacific Northwest and with Boeing building there plains here, there used to be a lot of shops in the area that did plating for Boeing and would do random customer jobs for a good price. Fast forward to 2023 when i started putting my car back together, i discovered some of the part i plated had some small corrosion issues. nothing bad but there were some areas that needed to be fixed. I was looking at getting them re-plated again but the places that do plating in my area now charge a lot. Since my parts where mostly still good i ended up buying the Eastwood 16160Z | Golden CAD Complete Kit and using it as a touch up. This kits is basically a 3 color spray paint system that is suppose to mimic the look of gold clad. it worked for me because i was able to use it to touch up a few spots and blend it with the real gold cladding. However, if used to paint an entire part, it mimics the color of gold cladding but it doesn't mimic the luster. It just looks like a gold painted part.

Back in 2007 I sent my brake booster to https://www.brakeboosters.com/ and they plated and rebuilt it. It looks like they will plate other parts too.

 

My car was built in Norwood. Here are some picture of the interior right after disassembly. They did not try to paint the interior. The interior primer color on my car is the same gray color on the undercarriage but there is black over spay all over the interior. My engine bay and firewall was black. When i painted the car, I taped off the interior to keep it original. All the interior over-spray is GM factory original

I also have a red 82 Trans Am from Van Nuys, i looked at the spare tire compartment and its painted red. Seems cars build in Van Nuys got there interiors painted body color and cars built in Norwood did not.

 

Cool. That's what I was hoping for: to see if each factory's painting process was different. However, it does look like someone spent some additional time in the cargo area with the black.

 

I have a 82 trans am that was red when I got it. The whole car was red, like everywhere. The underside is almost all red. The underside of the trans tunnel isn't but that's it. The car is from the northeast and has black undercoating on most of the bottom. If you pull it off, it's red underneath. Under all of the carpet, everywhere is red. I had a black and gold 82 TA, and it was all gray under the carpet as well as the whole underside.

I have to say, I've been watching both of your builds and they're great. I went the opposite way w my car and it's really built up, like nothing is original. But the restorations you guys are doing are amazing and beyond cool. The details you both are putting into these cars is awesome. I feel like it's relatively easy to make something fast. But the eye for detail you both have is really impressive.

I'm always psyched to see updates on both of your cars.

 

Thanks!

So, do you know if the red TA is a Van Nuys car and the black TA a Norwood car? Based on Jeff's and my examples, I would say yes.

 

According to the vin the red one w paint all over is a Norwood car. the black one is long gone.

 

Hmmm... So much for my theory of Van Nuys cars' interiors being painted with the exterior color. Do you know what color the primer is?

 

As my stock paint was striped this is how it looked as it was sanded. But the trans tunnel underside is gray paint. Up behind the dash/floors is red. The car was all original when I got it.

 

Maybe I am reading this wrong, but I see what looks like a tan color under the red, followed by black and then maybe metal? If the tunnel underneath is gray, I would expect gray under the red too.

The core support looks red, as I would expect, but the strut towers are black. Did you paint the engine bay black?

This is getting confusing.

 

Yes you are correct w the assessment of the layers. Yeah, I painted the engine bay black when I did the engine. It was red like everything else.
There are other parts of unibody that are gray also. It's kind of weird. And I've had the car since 96 and it was all untouched as far as paint in these areas.

 

If you look here w the glass out, the area between the black wiper cowl area and the dash pad was gray also, obviously it's covered in dust. And you can see the red on the inside of the A pillar.

 

Yeah, I wondered if this gray area would be an issue. I don't think it's visible anyway when the windshield is installed. Do you remember how the firewall looked originally? Both areas would have already been gray or blacked out later. My car, being black primer, eliminated that concern.

Wildjeff, how did yours look previously? It looks like the same as the exterior color now.

 

The firewall was initially red, the wiper area was black but red under the black. The gray under the windshield cannot be seen except around the vin.

 

Interesting... I never have paid any attention the engine bay colors of other cars, especially the firewall. It looks like the factories' painting procedure could be all over the place. With yours being an 82, that throws another possibility into the picture.

This is getting too complicated!

 

Yeah, the 82s are weird! Lots of differences between late and early production. 83s are a little less weird!

 

Norwood factory got the robotic Turbo Bell painting system near the start of 3rd-gen production that greatly
reduced paint usage and overspray. Van Nuys still used old fashioned mechanical track sprayers and most
of the painting was done by hand. That's why there is much more coverage and overspray on early Van Nuys
cars. They didn't get the Turbo Bell system until the mid-1980s.

 

Thanks for the info!