gcgarner

After trying to buy this car last year and not having the cash, it came up for sale again this year and the timing couldn't have been better for me! I'm also posting this progress thread on another site. Mods, if it is in the wrong place, please let me know and I will move it ... of feel free to move it yourself.

**Disclaimer** - I apologize in advance for the crappy cell phone photos that will be used in the majority of this thread. I will be honest ... it is just easier to pull my phone out of my pocket than keep up with a camera. Also, I am a professional photographer by trade, and I really don't like to deal with that when I'm off work lol.

I'm starting this thread to show the progress on a car a lot of you know well. This is the '88 GTA Notchback that I bought from OneManArmy. A lot has already happened ... and there's a lot more in store. And so it begins ...

Day One

My Dad checking out the car just after we got to Greensboro


Josh signing the paperwork


Heading home down I-40 West


Day Two

After an oil change and rear diff oil flush and fill, I took the car to my local muffler shop to track down an exhaust leak. Get it up on the lift and notice that it doesn't have a converter So, I do the right (green) thing and have one put on. I don't think there's enough power gain in bypassing a catalytic converter to justify all the crap that's put into the air. Just for the record, I'm not a hippy ... I vote Republican haha. Here's the new converter going on:

gcgarner

The converter was put on by "Muffler Woman" at City Muffler here in Morganton.


After the trip to the muffler shop, I drove over to Monk's Tire to have them look at the front brakes. The car seems to pull to the left when the brakes are put on. They said everything "looks" good, so I'm going to drop it off with them later this week to have the problem diagnosed


After I picked up my daughter, ate supper and made a trip to TCBY with the family, I started tackling the super-dark window tint. I don't "dislike" window tint, but I'm not really a fan of looking like my local drug dealer, either. These windows were DARK. I personally liked the look, but the tint was starting to bubble in some places. The piece on top of the windshield was a breeze. The driver and passenger windows weren't too bad, either. Then came the back glass. This was a bear. The tint had to be scraped off a little at a time with a razor blade. I used some window tint remover spray to make the job easier, and it did help some. Here's the back glass about half done


And here's me scraping away


Pieces of window tint that consumed hours of my life

gcgarner

And here's the back glass all finished (minus a good cleaning). I started to take the Triad F-Body decal off, but decided to leave it for now


The next plans are a trip to the body shop to get the hood straightened and get the passenger-side fender pushed back in where it was bowed out by a floor jack in the wrong spot. Also going to get some carpet ordered. I'll keep updating throughout!

JT

iTrader: (1)

I moved it to the Members Firebirds section since that is probably the most fitting place.

By the way, I own an original 1988 GTA Notchback (actually a few of them), then I later bought my 1992 Trans AM Convertible. You have a 1992 Trans AM Convertible, then you bought this Notchback.

gcgarner

Very cool. Great minds think alike!! Thanks for the move! I've seen your cars on your GTA Notchback site. I can't wait to get this one in great shape. It will never be original again ... too late for that ... but it will be nice.

87_Injected

Nice car! I inquired about this car a few months ago when I was looking to trade my vette for it. Finally found someone who wanted it and got an 87 IROC instead.

BigBadGTA

Awesome man! I also own a 88 black GTA notchback, welcome to the club! Anyway it was a good decision to get that tint off of there. I like tint, but I don't like it that dark. When I first got mine the front brakes pulled all over the place too, and it turned out to be messed up brake lines. I bet that's what your problem is. Good luck!

razor

I am not sure but by the pics it looks like you have scraped off all the metal in the rear defrost lines and only the orange paint remains. I hope its not the case but if it is I would recommend you disconnect the rear defrost terminals or disable the system. Sometimes a short or broken grid line can lead to a window blowing up when the rear defrost is turned on. I bet those back windows are not fun to find anymore

Nice car BTW, I like a good notchback and if this comes out as clean as your 92 it will turn some heads!

gcgarner

Ahhhh crap!! You're right. I didn't realize I was doing this or doing any damage! I thought it was just some tint stuck on the grid lines. Is there any fixing it, or do I just scrap the rear defrost (I would never use it anyway). If I can't fix it, how do I disable it? Why do they use orange paint in the glass? I assumed it was copper lines.

[edit]I just looked up a thread on fixing rear window defrosters. Forget that. They make aftermarket kits that are pretty nice.[/edit]

razor

Well your window will never defrost again I am afraid, but thats okay since you live in North Carolina

Remove the power source that feeds the relay/switch from the fuse panel rather than just unplugging the two terminal leads on the back window will ensure no shorts will ever occur in the system. Its not a biggie as long as you disconnect the system. I have changed too many back windows over the years because they had a short in the grid lines and somebody turned the defrost on creating a hotspot on the tempered glass. With the right combination of factors you *could* potentially cause the back glass to blow. Its a long shot considering your climate but as I said before it might not be too fun trying to find a back window!

gcgarner

By "remove the power source" do you mean simply pull the fuse? Or do I need to cut some wires? Thanks for the info! I definitely don't want to blow that glass up! Good news is that aftermarket kits are cheap if I ever decide to put it back the way it was.

razor

I am not sure if the rear defrost is on a seperate fuse. If it is you are golden!

gcgarner

Minor updates:

First, I think the car is wanting to pull left when braking due to the rubber brake hose on the right side going bad. This happens over time. So, I got two new brake hoses. If it doesn't work, it was only $25 for both ... and they probably need to be replaced anyway



And then I got a HUGE and NICE surprise! I called one of my local junk yards to inquire about some parts. The guy said they didn't keep anything older than 2000. But, he said to call Eddie Hightower. Eddie used to have a junk yard here in town. So, I call Eddie ... and he has a shop just a few miles from me now. Sitting outside his shop are 3 Third Gen T/A's, 1 Third Gen Firebird, 2 Third Gen Camaros and 2 Fourth Gen Firebirds!! I found Third Gen heaven just a few miles down the road! Never new it existed before! He said he's always got some different cars coming in and out of there ... and he's building an '85 Camaro himself. If you guys need anything, I can get you in touch with him.

Anyway, I picked up a complete front bumper with a bumper cover in nearly perfect shape, and I am also eyeing a perfect hood if the body shop can't get this one straight.

Here's the front bumper:



And here's the potential new hood:



You can also see behind the white one there is a green '91 Firebird that someone put a 305 TPI in, and behind it is a red late-90's Formula that a dude committed suicide in. The interior was pretty much blood-soaked. Gross.

1Aauto

I'm laughing at the "Muffler Woman Pic" lol, nice car by the way.

gcgarner

I wish I could have gotten one of her welding the converter on with no safety glasses and a cigarette hanging from her lips.

strc09

iTrader: (5)

Good stuff. I've met Josh before a couple of different times and sold him my leather t-handle when I had my 700R4 swapped to a T56. I'm glad that it went to a good home.

gcgarner

The Notch got dropped off at the body shop yesterday to get the hood and fender straightened. I stopped by this afternoon to take some "before" pics, but I was only able to get "before" of the fender, because the hood was already being worked on! I like the speed at which this project is moving. Here are some "before" pics of the fender and some "in progress" pics of the hood.

gcgarner

Well, it's all fixed. Here are some "after" pics:







Now, time to get down to work. Carpet is on its way, so I'm going to start dismantling the interior so it will be ready to go in when it arrives.

Also, I decided to scrap the weatherstipping and just ordered new aftermarket stuff. I looked at it very closely, and there are lots of cracks and bad spots, so I decided it would be better to replace it. Plus, it POURED rain here today, and the back of the seat got wet while it was sitting outside at the body shop waiting on me to pick it up.

gcgarner

OK ... LOTS of progress made this evening, so buckle your seatbelts:

Last night, I started looking at the car without the T-Tops in. It was obvious that there had been some serious leakage there at some point. Josh or the owner before him sealed up the leaky weatherstripping with some goop. Apparently it helped the leaking, but it wasn't easy on the eyes.



So, after I got home from work today, I decided I would start taking off the weatherstripping. I started at the T-Bar and as soon as I lifted it up, I found exactly what I thought I would find:



Well, I started pulling off the weatherstripping a little at a time. The stuff around the T-Tops was fairly easy to remove. The weatherstripping on the doors was another story! That old GM glue combined with brittle rubber made for a tough job! I'm still nowhere near finished with it ... just got it started. When I pulled the piece up in the photo below, water POURED out.



You can see how much rust was on the T-Bar. I don't think this thing can be salvaged. I'm going to start looking around for a good deal on a used one.





If it were just surface rust, it wouldn't bother me too bad, but the channel where the weatherstripping seats is eaten away pretty badly in spots.

gcgarner

The structural part of the T-Top is in perfect shape. The rust you see in this photo is just what has fallen off of the T-Bar. It's still wet and nasty.



Here's some of the old weatherstripping.



So then I decided to stop on the weatherstripping for the evening and move on to getting the carpet out of the car. First, I removed the front seats, then the rears. Then any plastic trim that was covering the edge of the carpet. I found all kinds of goodies! A Junior Mints box (also the remnants of some Junior Mints melted into the carpet under the passenger seat ... yum!), a $25 poker chip, $1.69 in change, a small Cheeto, a AAA battery, a PINK phillips screwdriver (c'mon Josh ... PINK!), a Hypertech installation manual, a toothpick, an Auto Fair refrigerator magnet, and a totally awesome Metallica hat that I will wash and proudly wear.



Here are the front seats and plastic trim gone:



And out with the back carpet:

gcgarner

Should I mess with taking out the console tonight or wait until tomorrow?



Nah, I'm in the mood to tear stuff apart (gently). Out with the console! Here's my stopping-point for the night. Front carpet is out, too



When I removed the lower portion of the console, it was obvious that it had been removed before (possibly replaced at some point?) And when I removed the upper part of the console that houses the radio and AC controls, I found out that this car has been hacked a little more than I previously thought. There is some CRAZY wiring up under there. It's going to take some time to figure it all out. But, now that the carpet is gone, I can access everything much easier. Looking forward to tackling that tomorrow (after a trip to get some 3M adhesive remover to help me with the weatherstripping.

luvofjah

iTrader: (2)

I remember first seeing an OEM Notchback on here & was like, "Damm, that's tight" So I had to get one too

Raf

gcgarner

Tonight I removed the door panels. They were a pain. They are in terrible shape and need restoring. I thought they were OK, but they need some major work.

Here is the driver's side door without the panel. I need to replace the inside door handle, so this will be the chance.



And here is the passenger door. This confirms my suspicions that this car was T-boned in the passenger side at some point in its life. The door was originally red and came off either a Camaro or an older-model T/A. It has a lot of differences from the original driver's side door.



And I can't believe I didn't run across this somewhere in this car sooner, but here it is. The ultimate repair tool ... Duct Tape!



That's all for tonight. I'm going to look into restoring the panels rather than paying out the wazoo for new ones.

gcgarner

Well, I spent some time in the junk yard today in a '92 Firebird. I paid the JY owner $250 a year ago to pull any parts I wanted to off of this car. It has saved me a lot of money in the long run. Today I got the plastics that run across the top of the door panels. The ones in the GTA were messed up pretty bad. I also went ahead and got the sail panel speaker covers, arm rests, a couple of dash trim pieces and a few other interior plastics. I'll probably ebay a lot of it to help pay for some more parts :wink: .

My new weatherstripping came today, along with my new window sweeps. Thanks to Hawk's for the super-fast shipping.

I missed a great deal on a T-Bar today on Ebay. Got busy and didn't get a bid in time.

The big news of the day is that I broke down and got the hood off of the white T/A at the scrap yard. The more I looked at this one that has been repaired, the more I wasn't happy with it. If I'm going to put a paint job on this car, I want it to be as close to perfect as it can be. So, out with the old hood, in with the new.

KITT1983

iTrader: (3)

awesome progress dude keep up the restoration work

gcgarner

Thanks!

Tonight's progress: Figured out the crazy brake light/turn signal issue.

Here was the whole problem. This was underneath the lock box.



The PO before Josh decided (for completely unknown reasons) to splice the left tail light wire and the center brake light wire together with this blue connector. Took the connector off, wrapped the wires in electrical tape to keep them from shorting, and voila! Lights work as they should.

I have no idea why he did this. Well, one more thing down. I don't think I'll have any more progress until at least Sunday night. Tomorrow is church-league softball and then I'm camping with the family for the weekend

Aviator857

My car had the same faded purple tent on it when I bought it. Atleast the notchback is a smaller window, the big hatch glass is a PIA to get the tent off. I spent hours with a hairdryer windex and a razor blade in the trunk.

Great find.

Someone jacked the car up on the fender bolts I see and bulked the fenders.

80schild

iTrader: (5)

Mine had that tint too. I took my hatch off and layed it upside down on the ground, then I got on my hands and knees to remove the tint. It was a job alright. lol

gcgarner

Killed a little time on the car this evening. Took the bumper apart from the bumper cover on the spare blue one. Took the outside window sweep off of the passenger door (man, those little screws are hard to get to!) and tried to get the passenger door handle off. I'm going to have to do some research on that. The nuts came off easy enough, but I can't figure out how to get the rod that pulls the latch off of the handle. I also took the spoiler off of the hatch. It looks strange without the spoiler:

Mongoose

iTrader: (2)

Glad to see this car went to a good home. I had considered buying it the first time it was for sale but a divorce prevented me. Keep up the good work, I look forward to seeing it finished.

gcgarner

I'm never happy to hear about someone getting a divorce, but in this case, I'm a little less unhappy than usual .

I made it out to the junk yard this afternoon after work and pulled a few more pieces from my '92 parts car. I got the little triangle pieces in the front corners of the windows since the ones on the Notchback are were just painted along with the rest of the weatherstipping . They are different from the '88 ones ... these don't have a separate piece of weatherstripping. But, hey, they're free. And this car will never be a completely original car anyway. And I'm guessing they are different because they made some improvements in the '91 and '92s. So these will be cleaned up and put on the Notchback.

Mongoose

iTrader: (2)

Didn't happen to see a '91-92 aero tail out there did you? Understand completely, at least I kept my house and the Formie.

gcgarner

There's only a base '92 Firebird in this yard. It had the pedestal spoiler on it, and I got that already. There's another one close to me with lots of F-body's, but not a 91-92 with an aerowing ... only another base Firebird with a pedestal spoiler.

Justin89Formy

iTrader: (26)

Church League softball fistfight!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6lq0alwcxU

ERICSCHEVY

My fender on the drivers side looks just like these before pics, what did you have done to fix the problem ?

Twin_Turbo

iTrader: (25)

This isn't your handywork is it?

http://newhaven.craigslist.org/cto/1165941247.html


I have the exact same fender problem, what's up with that? The sied sticks out but the brackets look fine, the bottom too.. how do I fix this?

gcgarner

The fender was an easy fix for the body shop. Someone has jacked it on the pinch weld more than likely, which bends it and causes the fender to flare. Some people fix this at home with the right tools. I left mine up to the pros. $40. Done.

DrewsCam

iTrader: (2)

I fixed my fenders from doing this... Trust me not soo easy as it sounds. You gotta use body shims which you can get from Autozone and also straighten out the bent pinch weld and release the bolt just to work the fender into the right place.. Even when I did this I still had to fill in bents that I caused by the adjusting...Turns out my front end isnt original to the car and when I got the fender skirts loose you wouldn't believe the amount of dirt, Leaves and trash that came out from behind them... I would leave it up to the pros if you can get it done for 40 bucks like he did... I have a side shot of my car after I fixed the fenders on my profile if you care to look...

Twin_Turbo

iTrader: (25)

I'll have to do it myself, I live in the Netherlands, no one has any experience with these cars here and most shops are crappy and charge and arm and a leg....oh well

gcgarner

No pics today, but I did a little engineering on the panel below the steering column. There was a tab broken off where an important screw goes, so I made a trip to the hardware store and got a corner bracket and some small bolts and screws and made a new (and better) tab. Looking back, I wish I had taken some pics, but there is no way I'm taking that panel back off.

I also finished getting the outside door handle off the passenger door (took 10 seconds since I got good instruction on how to do it) and drilled the rivet and removed the interior door handle from the driver's door.

I'm anxious to get this thing to the body shop.

gcgarner

Got the old hood off today. Unless you saw it when Josh had it, this is what it looks like under the hood.



It's not nice and clean like my convertible's engine bay, but I don't ever plan on it being that way. Keeping one engine bay nice is enough work. This will be the "all go and no show" bay. I love the SLP runners and 1-3/4" headers.



I've got the white hood outside ready to prime/paint the underside. I am going to rattle bomb the underside with high-temp primer and then black engine enamel. It looks so nice and shiny white now that I've cleaned it up, it's almost a shame that I have to paint it. But since this pic I've already sanded the whole thing with 600 grit to get it ready for primer.



I am almost ready to go to the body shop, but before it goes there it is going to have to make a trip to the mechanic. There is about half a quart of tranny fluid on the garage floor.

gcgarner

Just slight progress this evening. I primed the hood before my softball game and then painted it afterward.





It's not too bad for a rattle-can job. I also painted the inside of the fuel door off of my parts car. It will replace the original fuel door because the original one didn't fit quite right.

It's going to the mechanic tomorrow to get the tranny leak fixed. Hopefully I'll have it back before the end of next week. I want to get it to the body shop before I leave for the beach next Saturday.

gcgarner

Can't go to the mechanic until Friday. Their shop is full and this car can't sit outside without weatherstripping.

I couldn't resist, I had to wash the engine bay this evening. It looks much better:

gcgarner

Well, I know you guys are probably getting tired of my endless posts on this car's progress, but one more ...

Tonight I got the new hood on. It fits really weird. There is a HUGE gap between the tip of the hood and the plastic bumper cover. I feel sure the body shop can fix it up right with the new nose. I have new structure for the bumper, too, if needed.

**Joe ... this is what the body shop started with as far as nose alignment. This is what they had to do the most work to, as I was telling you. You can see in the "after-paint" pics how nice it lines up. Also note the headlight sitting a little low. This is the headlight alignment issue I was talking about.



It looks weird with the white (dirty) hood.



I finally got the new interior driver's-side door handle on. You should have seen my trying to work the little lock nut inside the door. I was contorted all sorts of ways to keep it from falling in the door. I probably looked like Gumby on crack. Now I know why the factory riveted them on.



And finally, I installed the nice fugly '86 Trans Am seat to drive it to the mechanic. Got my new seat bolt in and it works great. So, I'll post up again when I get it back. Next stop is the body shop!



'Til next time!

gcgarner

The Notchback is at the body shop!! They are really slow right now and it should be finished by the time I get back from the beach next weekend!!

The guys at the shop got a big kick out of the PO before Josh painting right over the weatherstipping.

The shop is in Lenoir ... about 30 mins. from me ... but I'm going to try to get down there toward the end of this week to get some progress pics.

**Joe ... the name of the body shop is American Paint And Body in Lenoir, NC. You can contact them if you ever needed to about this paint and body work.

JeremyNYR

iTrader: (2)

The converter should be mounted so that the tail end is angles inward towards the driveshaft. Judging by the mock-up picture, it looks like "muffler woman" had it pointed straight back and followed it up with two 90 degree turns. I hope that isn't the case. I noticed one big difference with your doors... the passenger door that was replaced still has the bracket for the standard door armrest/ handle and you have the deluxe door panels in the car. that passenger side armrest/handle can't be mounted too securely with the incorrect mount.

3.1EyeCandy

iTrader: (3)

Thanks for sharing. I've always loved the 88 notches.

gcgarner

It follows the same route as any Hooker wye pipe to Hooker catback. The converter was simply bypassed with a piece of pipe. Muffler Woman simply put a converter where it was supposed to be. No other parts of the exhaust were fabbed or messed with.

You're right on this. But the PO at least had enough sense to use non-original hardware to mount the arm rests to the standard door. It holds nicely. I would have never known it was not the original door if I had not pulled the door panel. If I run across a deluxe door somewhere I might pull that piece and bolt it on this door if that is possible.

I am picking the car up from the body shop tomorrow. Here are some progress pics from June 5.

JeremyNYR

iTrader: (2)

you just have to drill out the original rivits and rivet or bolt in the new mount. I did this when I installed deluxe panels in mine. The progress pics look good. That'll be an awesome looking notchback when it's done!

gon8go

hey, I'm really enjoying your posts. are you going to paint the car black again?
what are your plans for the interior?