Went to the body shop today...

Passenger side inner fenderwell - repaired


Spot on firewall / inside cowl - repaired


A/C box - painted


So far so good! I'll probably have some more progress pics tomorrow.

 

They got the 2 step floatable seem sealer done today before I got there. It looks 100% better than the original stuff did.



They said I should have paint in there on Monday if all goes as planned.

I also got my foam rubber sheet in the mail today to make my steering column firewall gasket. I just bought a gasket for the wiper motor as well.

 

Looking good man

glad you took the time to paint the engine bay now!

 

Thanks Jason! I'm glad too! It's going to look so much better once it's all back together

I got my steering column firewall gasket cut-out tonight. Here's a link to the thread with pics:
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/body...ml#post5256738

 

Do you have anymore pics of your car? ive also got a gta, ls1 swap, and have a 4th gen wing, im thinking about getting a ram air hood too.

 

I sure do. There is a pic of it in the very first post, but here are a few more.



I love the hood. It's just going to be kind of costly to make it "fit" the way I want it to on the car (gaps are too big for my taste). Other than that I have no complaints about it at all.

 

The car is coming home this evening! I went by this afternoon to look at it. It looks great. He said they had to put like 8 coats on because of the cheap paint I bought.



They even painted the cross rods and center brace for me. Yay!

 

Here's my cowl area restored back to new again



They actually touched up a few of the bad spots on my paint in a few places on the body. So that was real nice of them.

Here it sit ready to be loaded back on the trailer.

A nice little plug for D&G

 

Wow, that turned out great

did they put a couple layers of clear over it?

 

Yeah it did. I'm real happy with it. I can't wait to start putting it back together this weekend. I still need to get my rod bolts done too.

I didn't actually see him apply the clear coat, but he said he was going to. So I can only assume it's on there.

 

Oh, in case anyone wants to know. I bought PPG paint, but it's their cheapest stuff, apparently, called Shop-Line. I would recommend spending a little more on better paint. The painter guy said this stuff was real thin and took 8 coats to get everything covered properly. That's what I get for not doing my homework They had to modify the color too to get it closer to the color of my car. It's still a few shades darker, but I like it. When I repaint the exterior of the car I'm going to color match the engine bay.

 

Lookin good man

 

Thanks 88'!

 

i just found a local guy with a ram air 2 hood for 250, im debating on that and a 3" harwood cowl.

 

Man, that's more than half the price of a new one. I guess I have a Ram Air 2 hood as well. I don't think it was called that back when I bought mine. How much is the Harwood hood?

 

harwood is 550ish i think. yea they call them ram air II if they are the 98-02 style and they are called ram air I if they are the 93-97 style.

how much work did you have to do to yours to make it fit right on the car?

 

Oh, right. I gotcha.

What you see in the pics was actually no work at all. It was a complete bolt on. To make it "fit" the way I want it to though is going to take quite a bit of work. The gaps between my hood and fenders are larger than I like to see. Keep in mind though that I bought my hood back around the time they first came out. The hood you are looking at may fit better. It's hard to say. If I were you I would take some measurements between the fenders near the windshield & at the front near the headlights, then measure the hood in the same places. That should give you an idea of what your gaps would be. There's a chance though that the Harwood hood wouldn't be any better. I've heard that the fiberglass hoods often don't fit all that great. This is my first one though, so I'm no expert by any means.

 

I got quite a bit done yesterday. I'm working on getting everything back in the engine bay of course. I will post some pics once I'm done working on it this evening. I realized yesterday that they painted the bottom of the frame rails & the bottom of the radiator tray as well. So that made me happy.

Oh yeah, that new hood latch cable was a pain in the rear to get the firewall grommet back in & seated properly. That was about the only thing yesterday that made me say bad words!

 

FWIW, I am mostly test fitting everything so that I know where it all goes before I get the new engine in there. I forgot to label everything when I removed it all for the paint, so now I am having to pay for it!

I wanted to show you guys my heater valve idea. I think it turned out pretty good. It was loosely inspired by HP52TA. Thanks HP for the inspiration


The elbow hose at the heater valve was my old "question mark" looking hose that I replaced at the firewall. I just trimmed it up to my needs. Luckily it was still in good shape.


The two long hoses over on the right of the pic will go to the water pump once the engine is in of course I sure wish Top Down Solutions would have sent me the BLACK wonder bar that I ordered instead of that RED one! I'm going to have to put it on to see what it looks like. My girlfriend suggested I paint it the same color as the engine bay. We'll see.


I took more pics, but they came out blurry for some reason. I will retake them and get them on here for your viewing pleasure.

 

Stupid camera! It's still a little blurry.

Anyways... Here the hood latch cable firewall grommet fully seated. That thing was being a little biotch! It helped having the wiring harness bulkhead removed so that I could get my hand in there to turn grommet into place. It kind of screws in once you get the rubber lip started on the engine bay side of the firewall.


I used the fender bolts to nicely tuck away my hood latch cable. I dropped my horn when I was cleaning it up. And of course it had to land on the corner of it and chip it. And of course it had to be the one you could see and not the one that's hidden. Oh well. Once the battery is in, you won't be able to see it anyways.


Tucked away hood latch cable

 

Driver's side overview. I replaced the fasteners on my tanks with stainless bolts & nylock nuts. I need to get the steering column & brake booster/master cylinder in next. Then my intermediate shaft and steering box.


Here's a pic of my reworked charcoal canister. I removed the bracket that it used to attach to since the air cleaner is no longer going to be there and just bolted it directly to the battery tray. All of the hoses were replaced with new as well.


I ordered a NEW windshield wiper motor from NAPA today as well among other things. My wipers were getting pretty slow.
Edit: my buddy over at NAPA said that they no longer carry the new wiper motors ever though the computer said they had them in stock at their warehouse. I did find a few on Ebay though. I just don't like using reman. items if I can help it.

 

Question: Does it matter if I go with the ugly brown 3rd gen check valve or the nice black 4th gen valve? I thought I read somewhere that the 4th gen valve had to be used, but I could be wrong.

 

Looking clean man. I think most people use the 4th gen valve, that way you can use the 4th gen booster hose. I used the thirdgen valve and had to put in a coupler to splice a different size hose to fit the valve.

 

Thanks Rich. Yeah, I did notice that they used different size hoses. That's good though because I'd rather use the nice black one anyways

 

Here are some rough pics of my steam hose idea.

I bought one of those 3/4" heater hoses with the 90 degree elbow on one end. I might put the hose up on top of those plastic "shelves" instead of wedging it between the plastic bracket & the radiator. We'll have to see how it works once I start putting it all together.

Then I added a 3/4x3/4x3/8 tee & cap. I stretched some 5/16" hose over the 3/8 end of the tee so that it would fit the steam line a little better. The 5/16" hose was still a little loose on the steam line, but was much better than the 3/8" hose. The steam line must be 1/4" or something. I plan on running the 5/16" steam hose under my intake tubing so that it's out of sight.

I also looked at the Spectre catalog while I was at the parts store today. It looks like they have everything I need to build my custom ram-air intake set-up.

 

Hey man car is looking good I like thAt blue

 

Thanks Krzyz! Me too

I did an edit above about the new wiper motor NAPA was supposed to be getting in for my car. Well since they ended up not being able to find a new one for me I opted to get a new battery instead. Let me just say, if you need a new battery, go to NAPA. Autozone's battery prices for junk batteries, IMO, are WAY overpriced. Like $150 for the average battery. Advance Auto's prices aren't quite as bad. But I got a nice AC Delco 7 year battery with 4 year free replacement for $89 from NAPA. I was expecting him to say at least $150 for it. I was shocked & pleasantly surprised.

 

I got a few items taken care of last night. First off I put felt on the backside of the washer fluid tank & radiator overflow tank where they were already starting to rub my new paint off. Luckily it just scuffed the paint in a few places, so no big deal. Hopefully the felt will prevent it from getting worse. I also bolted them both down so that there won't be any movement on the paint.

I mostly worked in this corner of the engine bay.

As you can see, among other things, I got the steering column back in place & painted. The gasket that I made for it worked great. I wish that I would have made the center hole a little smaller to seal against the shaft, but no big deal. I'll probably seal it up with some Dum Dum. I also painted the brake booster. I'm going to put another coat on it though before I put it back on.

I also installed the Wonder Bar

I'm not sure if I like it red or not. Some input from the peanut gallery would be appreciated

 

man, that is one clean bay..... makes me want to go get mine painted! lol

"I" prefer the wonder bar black to match the sway bars......

btw, kudos on the BMR STB!

 

Thanks Jason. Haha. It's a LOT of work!

Yeah, I was leaning toward the black wonder bar as well. I think the red bar is just too much with the blue engine bay.

I think we talked about the BMR STB that day I stopped by. It's a real nice piece. I'm glad I bought it.

 

Well, there was too much going on this weekend to really make any real progress on my car. My son totalled my 2000 Grand Prix Friday night. So that sucked, but at least no one was hurt. I know him and I both are going to miss that car. It was still in pretty decent shape for it's age. I'm glad he was driving that car though since it had air bags. I'll post a pic once I get one of it.

I did end up spending a little time putting my brake booster & master cylinder together. I wasn't sure how I was going to get that line farthest from the booster down to where it needed to be. I was going to try to use my tubing bender, but there wasn't enough area to get it on there.


So I just worked on tweaking the lines to fit. I got the one closest to the booster to work. I spent quite a bit of time on the other one & got it close, but it's not quite there yet.


I'm assuming my four wheel disc propotioner is still correct to use since it's still going to have four wheel disc brakes. The front brakes will probably just not be stock any more.

 

I got the brake booster & master cylinder all together and installed

Here's the pic of my wrecked 2000 Grand Prix GT. RIP

My son did a number on it. Luckily no one was injured. That was my very first brand new car. Makes me sad.

 

Glad your son wasn't hurt in the accident....

it actually looks repairable

 

Yeah, me too! And no other cars were involved, so that was good.

Yeah, it probably could be repaired, but you know how insurance companies are. They estimated around $6k to repair it so they totalled it. Oh well.

 

I got a bunch of stuff done today. Here's a pic of my steering column Dum Dum seal. It took quite a bit more Dum Dum to seal it than I expected

I also used some Dum Dum to seal the hole for the cruise control harness. I got my light harness back in along with my gas pedal & accelerator cable among other things.

 

and where can I find some of that foam seal stuff?

I think I know of a couple of places I need to use it

 

It's Closed Cell Sponge Rubber Sheet with skin on 1-side only. Dark Gray. 5" wide X 7" long X 1/8" thick from Metro Moulded Parts (PN: SR 18-0507) is what I used. Here's a link http://www.metrommp.com/. Click on Universal Parts on the left of the page, then click on rubber sheets. There is more information in the link on post #304 in case you missed it before.

 

hey bud sorry to hear about ur grand prix and glad ur son was ok, I actully just bought a 4dr grand prix my self this week for the wife to drive around since the malibu needs frt end work and the tahoe is too big for her to get in and out at 8 months prego lol, your T/A is coming along very well you have done a very nice job cleaning up under the hood, Im actully goin to mod my spare k-member for the f-body oil pan and have it powder coated urs turn out very nice, cant wait to see the motor dropped in place.

 

Wow, I have missed a lot and you have been a busy guy. Love the color you painted the engine bay!

Glad to hear your son wasn't hurt in his accident, looks like it was a pretty big impact.

Make sure you bench bleed your new master cylinder before you complete your brakes, it will make for a much more solid pedal. The other bleed option is to raise the rear of the vehicle to level the master cylinder while bleeding.

Keep up the awesome work, looking great man!

 

Thanks Krzyz. I loved mine. It was a great car. Congrats on the new baby on its way! Will this be your first kid?

Thanks! It's been A LOT of work cleaning everything up in there! Yeah, that will be nice. I can't wait to see that too! I'm still waiting on my harness to come back from Pocket though. So it won't happen until then. I still have plenty to do though before then, so no big deal.

 

Welcome back HP! Yes, I have been quite busy. Thanks, I'm glad you like it. You probably noticed a few things in my engine bay that you inspired me on.

Thanks. I can only assume he hit the wall at at least 40mph since he was on the interstate.

Thanks for the master cylinder tip. I guess I'll bleed it with the rear wheels off the ground since I don't want to take a chance on the brake fluid getting on my new paint. That wouldn't make me very happy. Seems like bench bleeding would make quite a mess. I've been working on cars for over 25 years, but oddly enough I've never replaced a master cylinder before.

 

Well, I finally got the red GTA running again this weekend. Looks like my son now wants this car. So I am going to work on fixing it up for him.

Turns out that the "high performance" module failed that I installed in the distributor when I built the engine. It had quite a bit less than 1000 miles on it!

Needless to say, I won't ever advise anyone to buy this part. So irritating. It was quite a PITA to R&R it too. Many bad words!

I got more done on the blue GTA as well. I'll give an update in the morning.

 

I got the gear box in last night at about 1am. What a pain to try to install alone!

Here's a comparison pic just for fun

I didn't realize how ugly my engine bay was before

Next on the agenda:
Paint the wonderbar & sway bar and get them installed.
Install my ARP rod bolts along with the transmission hard lines while the engine is off of the K-member. (I forgot that before)
Install the trany cooler
I still have a little bit of wiring left to do as well

 

In Atlanta atm for the G16 F-Body Gathering. Can't wait.

 

I finally got a Photobucket account today. Yay. It took me a little while to figure out how to get the photos to show on here. Now I can show more than three pics at a time hopefully.

Got my trany cooler installed today. That was a pain. My straps to secure it were basically new and still in the original B&M package, but they were probably at least 10 years old. Two of them snapped in half in the process & one of the click-type fasteners that go on the straps broke too. One of them was missing as well.


So I had to improvise. I figured out that a regular tie strap would work with a little coaxing & some muscle.


Finished product


Installed on the car. No problems.


I also got my new fuel filter installed & my wonderbar painted black. Hopefully I can get my rod bolts done tomorrow.

I think I am going to contact Pocket about getting my harness back and maybe check into having Speartech do it for me. I'm getting close to the point that I am going to need it.

 

Update:
I just got off the phone with Speartech and Pocket. Speartech doesn't combine LS1 harnesses & engine harnesses on anything earlier than 1990. Of course, mine is an '89, but no worries, Jon (Pocket) is back in town this weekend and said that he is hoping to work on my harness and have it done here within the next week or so.

I may screw around and have this engine back in the car before July if I'm not careful!

 

then how does my 84 t/a have a speartech harness?

 

Well, the guy said they make stand alone harnesses for $800, but won't combine the engine harness and LS1 harness together on anything older than 1990. I'm not sure, that's just what they told me on the phone today.

Don't shoot the messenger! lol

 

i could try to dig up the old receipt, but i believe it was around 500 for my harness from them, engine is an 02 ls1, car is an 84.

 

Yeah, I think it says something like $450 or $500 on their website to combine the harnesses. Maybe they recently stopped doing it. The guy said there were just too many variations in the older harnesses.