Bled the brakes today and took it for a romp up and down the street to test them out



Those LS1 brakes grab real nice! Didn't get the car above 25 mph but they locked the front wheels almost instantly when going hard on the big pedal.

Next up: 9 bolt swap.........

You guys are quiet... hopefully you're all silently reading! lol.

Cleaned and painted the 9 bolt today with chassis saver, before:



After:



I plan on painting the diff cover and caliper mounting plates either gray or gold, probably gold though. Just ordered tubular control arms and new rear calipers too

Started to remove the old 10 bolt too... hopefully this will be the last we'll see of this ugly thing!

That will be different!

Are you planning on going through the 9 bolt before you put it in the car? I had a questionable bearing in mine when I went through it. Is it a posi?

Haha thanks, I thought it would go well with the gold wheels. And yes I did, I took it apart for paint anyway. I just plan on possibly throwing a shim or two into the posi to keep it tight.

Nice progress man keep the updates coming

Thanks! Speaking of updates... just got the 10 bolt out! Still gotta remove the panhard and torque arm; the bolts holding the torque arm onto the pumpkin are rusted pretty bad and will probably need to get cut out so I removed it all as one unit. Pretty happy that I'm this far seeing that a rear end swap was one of the main things I wanted to do to this car since I got it almost four years ago.

Goodbye you rusty piece!



Also picked up brand new brake calipers for the 9 bolt today....



Definitely gotta paint them before I install em!

Man yesterday was a long day! Started working on the car around 1 pm or so and didn't stop till about 3 am. Had to cut some bolts off of the old 10 bolt to get the sway bar and torque arm off, and then I treated some surface rust underneath. Then I took the carrier apart from the 9 bolt and shimmed the posi, put that back together, and started reassembling the 9 bolt. I also got it partially bolted to the car. All that's left are the brakes, parking brakes, I need to paint and install the cover, and I just gotta finish bolting up the control arms, panhard bar, springs, and shocks. The car should be drivable again by Wednesday I'd say. After that all I'll have left is body work, paint, and maybe other odds and ends.



Found a little rust spot at the bottom corner of the wheel well... one more thing to add to the list. Oh well, not tragic.

9 bolt swap is nearing completion

All that's left are the brake lines; inlinetube sent me the wrong axle brake lines so I called them this morning and the proper ones should be in soon hopefully. I also just have to bolt up the sway bar, install the panhard bar, and throw the springs in, then all that's left is body work and paint. I even called the painter yesterday, he said he'll be ready to take my car in 2-3 weeks, which should be perfect considering the amount of work left. Can't wait, the end of Project OCD is very near and the days of me cruising in my pride and joy are just around the corner.

Ironically, she's just a few hundred miles shy of rolling over 123,456.7 on the odometer haha.

It's goooooollllllllddddddd!


on a serious note it looks good so far man. keep it up

Haha! Thanks. I figured the gold parts on the rear end would go nicely with the gold cross lace wheels. Initially I was afraid it might come out looking a bit tacky but looking at it coming together now, I'm pretty pleased with it!

9 bolt is done minus the brake lines, still waiting on inlinetube to send me the right ones and it'll be back on the ground after. I like how it came out!



However I discovered some rust in the drive's side wheel well at least it looks easily manageable; looks concentrated in just this one spot. I'll see if the paint shop will be able to handle it.

Not a big update but I have cleared a milestone today....

For starters, while waiting for the rear brake lines I figured it would be wise to paint the new rear brake calipers. It would be a shame to see them start rusting as soon as I start driving the car; especially with the rest of the rear end painted nicely.



But what I'm most proud of is finishing the body work on the hood I'll have the painter go over it to fix anything I might've missed, but I am DONE with it! So sick of working on it!



With that said, bodywork is about 90% done. I'm gonna call the painter tomorrow to see if he'll be able to take my stuff over the coming weekend. The plan is for him to paint the jambs (factory green) of the passenger side door, front fenders, and hood. I'll then bring the parts back, bolt them back onto the car along with the bumpers, and then I'll bring the whole car over so he can blend the new paint with the existing paint. After that it'll be time for final reassembly

Sooooo here's the final to-do list (for me) before this car is driving again:

*Finish the rear brakes (still waiting on the proper lines from inlinetube) and fix e-brake mechanism.
*Sand all of the old paint off of the ground effects, bumpers, and fender vents.
*Touch up the passenger side door and POSSIBLY fenders, assuming I missed a spot on those.
*Reassembly

Finally completed the rear brakes the other day! Or so I thought... spent quite some time tackling some obnoxious leak. Looks good being back on the ground! Also took it for a spin around the neighborhood. Man I love how those 3.45 gears feel compared to the old 2.73s!





However I was still experiencing a crappy brake pedal feel; decided to buy a new master cylinder since I had to bench bleed the old one, but for the money I just decided to get a new one and bench bleed that one. Hopefully this helps!



Also, the painter WAS supposed to start on the car tomorrow, however I called him today to double check and apparently he's a week behind schedule. I'll have to wait until next Monday for that oh well.

These freakin rear calipers are driving me insane. I'm on my second set from Autozone and they're no good either. The first set I bought leaked and now these are jamming up. My friend bought the same calipers from Napa without issues so I'm gonna pick those up on Tuesday, when they'll be in stock. The painter is supposed to start on the fenders, hood, and door tomorrow by the way. Fingers crossed he won't be delayed again.

I posted up a question on the convertibles forum by the way, any help would be appreciated! I'm not sure if it's safe for me to take the passenger side door off while the rear end is jacked up.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/conv...ml#post5578109

Dont freak out about the caliper man, as I said, sometimes these cars fight us when we are working on them. I know there have been many instances I wanted to push mine off a cliff.

I have nothing to back it up, but I almost exclusively try to get my parts from napa, I really have not had any problems with any napa part not working correctly the first time. I have heard of storys of autozone parks failing, so thats probably whats happening with you.

The only thing I can think of is that you do have the correct banjo bolts right?

Haha thanks man, I think I finally rectified the brake caliper issue. I traded the autozone durashit units for Napa calipers and those are MUCH better; they came painted too! I also bought longer banjo bolts so more threads can grab for a tighter fit. So far, so good.

Anyway, started to put some parts back on the car. It's got headlights for the first time in 10 months! Lol



Also, the painter WAS supposed to start painting the jambs yesterday but he postponed me.....again. Needless to say I got a little impatient....

Sweet its coming along nice man, getting the dirty work done lol

Soooooo... you're gonna attempt to paint the car yourself, huh? Can't wait to see the end results.

Oh lol no not the whole car... only the jambs. The painter will do the pretty exterior stuff haha.

Well I ended up finding a different painter to paint the jambs in the body panels. I wanted to do them myself but time restraints with work and what not wouldn't allow for that. He should be done with them by tomorrow or Tuesday! Then I'll put the car back together and send it off for final paint

In the meantime, I pressure washed the engine bay, fixed my ebrake (all it needed was some WD40 to free up the self-adjust mechanism, *doh*), and reassembled most of the interior. However I did discover a leaking heater core that's something that'll wait until the paint is done. Explains where all my coolant's been going all these years though.





Fingers crossed for the car to be ready by Independence Day!

Decided to do the heater core now rather than later; definitely easier getting to it without the door!

Old one looked even worse in person



Discovered a small swap of coolant and gunk where the heater core sat... glad this is taken care of!



And the interior is mostly back together. I want to buy a new head unit soon...



Also got my parts back from getting jambed. Came out pretty decent! I think I'll stick with the same shop to paint the whole car. It should be going in for paint this Monday, I'm gonna call the shop tomorrow just to double check.



Getting closer and closer to the finish.

Replaced the driver's side door pin/bushings... feels much better! Also got the hood and fenders back on for good. Should be seeing the paint shop Saturday morning, give or take.

Got some great news guys, got the car legally insured yesterday so I took it for a 20 mile test drive yesterday. Everything worked great! Brakes still feel a little on the spongy side but bleeding them ought to help. The LS1 brakes and new 3.45 rear end feel terrific.

She's ugly, but she worked



AND THE BEST PART.... dropped her off at the paint shop this morning! AND I'll be having the whole car repainted rather than just the panels I've been working on!



Oh and I thought you guys would appreciate this, saw this lovely GTA parked inside of the paint shop. Apparently it's getting some imperfections repaired, judging by the chalk marks. I was told it's only got about 60k original miles on the clock too.

Lookin' good!

Is that the citgo by my house?

Feels good to be back in a 3rd gen dont it. Only thing that would be better is if you had the 5spd in it!

What's goin' on with the hood?

Sorry, didn't see these comments sooner lol, but no that's the one next to Home Depot on the pike.

It was missing the vents lol, here are some pictures of the car 95% complete at a car show yesterday. Missing a few odds and ends like the fender liners, a fender vent, AC, and a couple others. Looks good though! I put close to 1000 miles on it already haha.





You guys might recognize the orange Trans Am as WhileDevil's Project PITA from this forum.

A couple more, I got several compliments so I'm happy!





It was firebird night at our local car show too

Your car looks fantastic. Congratulations!

Man I am just seeing this now. I was gone for a bit. glad to see its back together man. I have 91 black vert with a tan interior and top that needs paint desperately...I may be starting a thread soon lol

Lots of good work. The car looks great.

Beautiful car! Well done!