I think the personalized plate that came in the mail today will answer your question:



Well, right now it is going to go back pretty much stock ... except the arm rests will be black. The PO had painted the original tan ones black, and the paint looked like crap but I liked the look of the black arm rests contrasting with the tan door panels, so I got a set of new black ones.

I have new carpet ready to go in, but the cloth seats are in fairly good shape, so I am going to put the original seats back in. I might eventually have them covered in Hampton Vinyl like I put in my convertible, but they are fine for now.

I figure I can work the interior a little at a time. I am lucky enough to have pulled a perfect dash pad and upper console off of a parts car a while back. All the plastics will be cleaned and repaired. What I'm stressing about more than anything (and I might just have it outsourced) is putting in the weather stripping. I would love to have some help from someone who has done it before. It's pretty intimidating since I can potentially cause my car to leak or get glue all over my new paint job.

Thanks for following the progress!!

i love the work uve done to it, wish i had time and money to strip my camaro down.

good job

Well, the car is home.

Let me just say that I am VERY impressed with this paint job for the money. There is one "light" spot on the spoiler, but they are going to repaint it for no extra charge. I highly recommend American Paint & Body in Lenoir, NC.

I only got this one pic today when I picked it up. We got busy putting the badges on and then I had to rush home to beat the imminent rain and to get back to work on time.

If it has quit raining this evening, I will pull it out and get more pics
.



P.S. Price of body work & paint = $1,400

how much was just to paint the KARR

Looks like they did an awesome job. I've done the weatherstripping on my own car and believe me it's not as hard as you think. Just take your time and don't go overboard with the adhesive. If you can find it use genuine GM weatherstripping which is what I did but the parts were available through the dealer when I did mine. Let me know if I can be of any help.

This guy and his knight rider references

Keep em comin, she looks great, will definitely add this to the gallery under the notchback section.

http://badassiroc.com

I don't suppose your looking to be rid of those runners are you? I've a set of some stock runners, and a set of some lingenfelters (on vehicle now) for trade.. i've always loved the SLP's ..

knight rider is the greatest show on the earth

The car looks AWESOME! are you going to paint the wheels gold again? That price is great too. I really want to get my car redone. White this time though, because I don't think the black is going to do too well in the 120+ degree desert im moving to. I want some pics with all the emblems and vents on. I bet it looks amazing.

Please wait until I get some better pics. No badges, no hood vents and a headliner falling down doesn't look too good.

Haha. No thanks. I love the SLP's too.

I actually think I am going to leave the wheels black for now. I think it looks nice, and it is different from the rest of the black GTA's with tan interior. I can go back to gold any time.

And you are going to "redo" that car why? It looks great in the pics I've seen. And don't worry about a black car in the desert vs. a white car. Anything over 95-degrees all feels the same to me.

I had plenty of time to go over the paint this evening with a fine-tooth comb and nit-pick everything. It has some imperfections for sure, but it is still awesome for the money in my book. And 99% of the imperfections will wet sand and buff out. They put 1.5 gallons of clear on it, so there is plenty of room for cutting and buffing.

I got the spoiler back off to take back down to the body shop for a repaint and I worked on getting the hood vents back in. I really need an inverted nut tool for two of the nuts on the front hood vent. I might have to fab something up.

Mongoose, I just noticed that you are in Monroe. If you would be willing to make a 1.5 hr. trip up here and help me with the weatherstripping, I would cover your gas money and give you mucho beer :-)

To be honest, one of the better parts of putting stuff in the gallery is showing how you got their rather than just "I got a hot ride", but if you'll PM when its good, i'll setup your own sub gallery on their so that you can upload all the photos you want of it and caption it. PM me when its good.

wow awesome work so far... keep the updates coming, im tearing into a black 89 formula now... but not nearly as deep as u have lol

I might be able to swing that even with my schedule. How soon you looking to do it?

Cool. I thought it was just a "I got a hot ride" gallery lol. Then feel free to use all of these progress pics. I like to show progress as much as possible, too.

Man, I honestly would feel a little bad asking someone to come up from Monroe to help with something like weatherstripping. But if you're up for it ...

If you were to bring it to them fully prepped I think it would be $750 for a B/C job.

Man, this is nice and you have done great clean up and body work. you are coming along with your GTA very well.

Cant wait to see more.

5*****

With my schedule the way it is it would be a few weeks before I could get time which is why I asked. When I did mine I did the t-tops and the window seals first and that took me roughly 4-5 hours start to finish and that included replacing the center bar and cleaning up some minor rust that had developed. The tedious part is being sure that the you get the new pieces into the channels correctly. I really didn't use that much adhesive on mine and I drove it a few more years as a DD with no leaks before I moved it to play car status. Just make double sure that it's CLEAN when you get ready to lay down the new stuff. Doing the doors is a no-brainer, just make sure the area is clean and line up the attaching pins to the proper holes and your done. These required no adhesive if I remember correctly.

"And you are going to "redo" that car why? It looks great in the pics I've seen. And don't worry about a black car in the desert vs. a white car. Anything over 95-degrees all feels the same to me."


I know, the car looks absolutely perfect in pictures but actually it has some problems. Of course you cant see ANY of them unless you are really looking for them. But of course, I am really looking for them. After I move I will look into getting it done. Untill then, your paint is a lot nicer and I am extreamly jelous of it lol. OMG a GTA with brand new black paint with no swirl marks, scratches or dings has got to be an absolute cargasim.

If I was you I would get those windows professionally tinted with quality non purple turning tint this time to. I think 25% would be cool. not too dark, but still looks good. I got quoted $109 to have my two sides and my notchback done at one of the best tint shops around here. So it is not that much, but looks oh so good...

That's all I'm replacing. Door weather stripping is in good shape. I think I'm going to give it a shot. If I run into problems, I'll post up.

I'm probably going to go that route eventually.

Here's some more fun for ya' ...

Has anybody ever tried to remove or install the front hood vents? Well, if you have, then you know that on each side, one hole is big enough to get a socket in, but the other is NOT ... just barely big enough to fit the little nut that screws onto the plastic tab. Well, after a long time of fiddling with it with a pair of needle-nose pliers, I made a trip to the hardware store and for $2.15 I made my own "inverted nut" tool for those boogers.



It is a 5/8" coupler nut (about 2 inches long) with an allen-head bolt screwed into one side. The coupler nut seats inside the nut that goes to the bottom of the vent, therefore it goes in the access hole no problem. Then I just got an allen wrench and tightened it down. The only drawback is that this may not work so well for REMOVING the nuts ... unless you glued the allen bolt into the coupler nut maybe. Or welded it ... but that's just ridiculous.

I went home for lunch today and got a few more quick photos of the paint job. Enjoy!



Remember what this looked like before?


If not, let me refresh your memory:


And another more ...



Does anybody know if there is supposed to be some sort of trim or gasket that goes around the outside of the back glass on these Notchbacks? It looks kinda "nekked".

I don't think there is any kind of trim ring that goes around the glass. At least mine is exactly the same as yours.

Thanks, dude. Even JT (TGO administrator and owner of gtanotchback.com is unsure if they had any kind of trim on them or not).

Well, weatherstripping is not that difficult to install. Just time-consuming.

All I have left to do are the outer flaps on the T-Tops. Took me about 4 hours today. No guarantee they won't leak, but I won't be driving this one much in the rain anyway.



BTW this is the aftermarket stuff from Hawk's and it fits like a glove! I love having a nice-looking T-Bar, too.

Told ya. It's not glamourous like a new intake or wheels but important just the same. Double check your rear section at the roof, that gap could be a potential leak.

Are you talking about where the weatherstripping is a little bit "bowed" on the rear of the passenger side? Yeah, if you'll notice, it is bowed the opposite way closer to the T-Bar. The flaps are in the channels perfectly. Those bows are from where the weatherstripping was folded in the box. I expect they will eventually go away ... esp. with the T-Tops on for a while in warm weather.

Starting to look like a car again. I got the console in at least.



Here is my trouble area with the carpet around the drive shaft hump. It's really not that bad ... just loose. The photos make it look better than it actually is. I'm anxious to see what it looks like with the seats in.

looks nice dude

Here are some quick snapshots of the "finished" product. I say "finished" because there are still a few odds and ends to complete. But I have been driving it! Again, just snapshots, but at least this time it wasn't with my camera phone.

And some more ...

And one more ...

Thats a good lookin car man!!!!!!!!!!! I would paint the wheels gold myself. Still very beautiful. I see you are in NC so am I

Very nice outcome.

Excellent results there. Later.

awesome job dude

That car looks great. Looked like an exact copy of my car before I got the hatch switched around. except mine had the gold crosslace and leather seats. Looks amazing

Looks sick. Great work. You really got down to work as soon as you got it. Your work really did pay off! Looks CLEAN!!!

Thanks for the props, guys.

I might eventually go back to the gold. For now, the black sets it apart.

Where are you in NC?

Its awesome man! How much do you want for it?

I've been tinkering with the idea of selling.

Not sure what I would take for it.

The Notchback has one more day of bidding left on Ebay. We'll see if it sells. If not, I'm fine with keeping it, but if my reserve of $6,650 is met, it's out the door. That is way less than what I have invested in the car. My time is free. It was fun.

dude why are you selling your 1988 GTA?

Is this your third relist on Ebay?

Yep. Know anyone that might want it?

why the hell would u sell that amazing car??? O_o lol..

No room. The vert is parked outside for now and I absolutely DO NOT like that. If you know anyone that wants a great deal on a great car, get them in touch with me.

The Notchback got a new owner today. Joe from PA said he would take good care of it!

And believe me...I will! Thanks for a great ride...and rest assured it'll remain in great hands.