I've been resto-modding my T/A over the last couple months and figured I'd start a thread showing some of the process. Mainly as a reference for myself but to also get input/advice on it. I'm no mechanic and have never taken on an endeavor this in depth which means I'm 'winging it' most of the time.

I've owned this car since around '90. It has helped me through some very tough times so it has sentimental value as well as being a fun car for what I like to do(drifting, canyon racing, road trips...). It has always been very reliable and 'usually' easier to work on than say my nissan pickup or my E36(BMW).

My goal with it is to fix it up(with in my limited budget):
1. make it super easy to work on
2. keep it handling the way I like
3. add more horsepower/torque
4. make it track capable but also a super reliable daily driver
5. get it looking nice again inside and out

It is originally a WS6 car and far out handled most in its class in its day. But years of street racing, some rally, canyon racing, and years of neglect it is in dire need of alot of attention.
To not get overwhelmed I'm taking it slow and and working on it piece by piece.

It originally came with the computer carb'd 305 which I swapped out for a non-computer controlled 350 back in 93'ish. Since then I've slowly removed more and more obsolete electronics and upgraded where possible.

Several years ago:
















More current:



I'll be posting some of the mods I'm currently undertaking in follow up threads.

 

well, looks like you have fun with it.

 

After three trips to the closest parts store (40 minute drive each way) and being sold the wrong battery each time only to find they didn't stock the correct one I decided to build a battery tray that would accomodate a wider selection of batteries while still allowing me to use the factory tray if I wanted in the future.

I wanted it itself to be easy to add/remove as well as easy to add/remove the battery.


Started with wire-wheeling and using rust converter on the existing tray



Used an old bedframe and some tent spikes as my building materials.








Worked very well and is really secure and easy to work with.

 

That's not going anywhere!

 

A few month ago while starting the arduous task of removing the ECM and related wiring I decided to add a TV cable corrector to my Edelbrock carb which lead to it not lining up correctly. After much searching I couldn't find a suitable aftermarket replacement and went about fabbing my own.
I used old scrap metal from some radio mounts and a non-threaded section of a bolt to use as a dowel pin.

Works great. Has enough flex that I shouldn't have to worry about sheering off my throttling linkage when mashing the pedal and its totally adjustable. Another reason I wanted to go the carb mounted route so that when I swap manifolds I don't have to worry about height alignment issues.








I later added some reinforcement to the throttle and TV plates as I felt there was a little too much flex.



While I was at it I decided I better rebuild the carb. Glad I did as the ethanol mix gas I had last used in it had left behind a nasty residue.

 

Next I moved on to welding in my subframe connectors. This proved quite challenging as I'm totally new to mig welding and started off with an old craftsman 110 welder. I later broke down and bought a Horror Fright Titanium 140 (110volt) inverter mig welder - quite impressed for likely being a Chy-na piece.

 

SFC's look good! Nice work welding upside down there too!

 

Thanks Dave. I had a couple blunders including blowing thru on the passenger side a couple times which resulted in some cinnamon bun welds and about a half spool of wire to cover up my mistake. ;-)

You can kinda see my abomination of a weld in this photo...

 

Having to drop the exhaust to put in the subframe connectors I figured I might as well (finally) make the upgrade to headers. That proved to be challenging as it snowballed into a litany of other things I had to do including relocating my fuel line, getting different plugs and wires, fabbing brackets to route said wires, and reworking the front half of my exhaust.
Due to the fact the collector for the 2460 hooker headers Y-pipe was 2.5" and my exhaust is 3" I had to ovalize some pipe and cut back the Y collector to match it. Its still a work in progess as I assume my motor mounts are probably shot and will have to rework the exhaust to clear the subframe connector after the new poly mounts are in.

Fuel line before:


And after(I'm not using the return line so it wasn't of concern at this point):














Had a little surprise helper show up:


Decided to cut up my AC/powersteering bracket to make things easier and a little nicer under the hood:


Pro Tip: If you bought the cheaper double flare tool and its allowing the pipe to slip, try welding on a reinforcement bracket over the larger clamping hole:


While I had the exhaust off I decided to toss in an Astro van shaft in hopes of tightening up the steering and removed the remnants of my old cruise control vacuum line and wiring:

 

Damn! Nice welds!

 

Tackled my rear suspension the last couple days. Started with soaking bolts with Blaster and attempting to clean some of the rust.
Then moved on to applying some rust convertor - both rustoleam spray on and CRC brush on.



After getting everything out and having broken one of the panhard bar bolts I spent the next day researching where to find a replacement. Ended up ordering from Hawks and to my surprise it showed up a couple days later!





I'm still trying to identify what weight my rear springs are. The tag appears to show NNM. I'm putting in UMI's 200lb/1.5" drop springs in the rear.


Its my understanding that there was supposed to be a spring perch at the top but I didn't find anything other than an indexed metal(?) mounting point.


The PHB brace was pretty rusted. I will likely replace it in the future but for now I soaked it in rust convertor.


I have to fix the posi diff in the near future so it'll be coming out again but for now this will have to suffice.


All reassembled and torqued to spec.


Was a little disappointed about my LCA angle and it looks like I may have to get some relocation brackets for it at some point. Hopefully its okay drive on for the time being?
Question: if I get LCA relocation brackets do I also need to get ones for the PHB?

 

Took a day off from working on the car due to the heat and bugzzz. Decided to update the RPO lookup app I wrote a few months ago and added another list to it:

http://www.mbmania.com/rpo

Hopefully someone finds it as useful as I did!

 

You are making some real progress, that thing will really handle with the work you put in. I'm curious what your opinion of the steering shaft upgrade will be, I've seen ppl go both ways with some complaining of extra noise etc.

 

Thanks RedDragon! I'm hoping it all works as planned - spent alot of money I didn't necessarily have to spend on the parts. I'm hoping the astro-shaft will work well, if not I've been thinking of ways to modify my rag joint such that it can still articulate but won't flex when turning.

 

My steering was very loose, I had to replace the Pittman arm, idler arm and center link and that really helped out a lot.

 

I have a full front-end steering rebuild kit from proforged that I'll be putting in as well UMI control arms, kona struts, UMI springs, UMI wonderbar, UMI caster/camber plates. So it'll be hard to tell what effect the astro shaft itself has. ;-)

 

Spent yesterday removing my front end





Discovered my steering gearbox is leaking so I pulled it and the pump. Rebuilding it looks challenging and I haven't decided if I want to do it myself or send it out to be done. Anyone have experience with it or suggestions?



While I have the a-arms out I'm going to 'attempt' to replace the motor mounts with prothane poly's. Also considering tack welding the nuts so they're easier to remove/install next time but I'm concerned I may need the wiggle room to line up the through bolt. What's your guys input on it?

I'm getting excited to finally see these on the car...I hope it goes smoothly.

 

What the hell kind of little helper is this? where you located? little helpers and rust I'm out I avoid rusty cars now one good benefit of living in Texas

 

zman, it was a baby rattlesnake that thought my dremel box was a nice place to sleep. ;-)
The rust issue has proved to be challenging for sure!

 

so what do you do with a baby rattlesnake, get a shovel? I don't mind snakes but if you don't know if poisonous or not then ...
I was in a junkyard near Abilene one day almost found a scorpion I didn't want know - snakes worry me when sliding under a car on the ground

 

If they're really pissy I'll shoot them or use the shovel. But generally speaking I put them in a bucket and relocate them to a 'safer' location on the property...I'm kinda fond of the Gadsden flag and its description of the rattlesnake. ;-)

 

We're pretty fond of that flag as well. When we find rattlesnakes, we do the same thing.
DR.K.

 

Speaking of snakes, this guy has decided to be my 'helper' today while working on the car. ;-)
He wandered in and looked and sniffed me (with its tongue) then explored through all my stuff laying about.

 

Worked on replacing my motor mounts today. A bit of a PIA doing it alone. Got late and the mosquitos came out so I'll finish the install tomorrow.
I will say that having the front end out probably helped immensely!

I hope leaving the motor jacked up via the oil pan over night doesn't destroy my pan gasket?!

 

Finished the engine mounts and tranny mounts and have the torque arm mount ready for installation but discovered my output shaft seal was leaking. So I held off on reinstalling the new torque arm mount as having it disassembled may give me more room for addressing the seal.

The engine mounts went fairly smooth except for the driver side for which the through bolt didn't line up correctly - it was about 3/16" off center so I decided to drive a tapered punch in the front of it and let it sit with the weight of the motor on it over night. The next day the height was pretty spot on but it was still about an 1/8" off laterally. I drove the punch into the back side of the mount and waited a few hours after which it was close enough to tap the bolt through and torque it to spec(I couldn't find consistent specs for it so opted for 58 ft/lbs).
The trans mount went smooth but took some time due to years of crud encrusting the cross member.

I went with all Prothane poly mounts except for the torque arm which is Energy Suspension.



Driver side


Passenger side


Trans mount


Old mounts

 

Oh, yeah! That will make a big difference in the way the car feels!
DR.K.

 

Was going to just replace seal on extension case but wiggling the driveshaft I found too much play and decided to pull the extension case and replace the sleeve bearing as well.

An assortment of sockets and other items worked quite well for pounding the sleeve out and in as well as the new seal.







Then I moved on to replacing the leaky pan gasket and installing a new filter. Having never serviced a trans myself I learned, after using a pick to remove the old seal, you have to carefully tap the new filter in until it seats correctly.





I chose hi-temp silver paint as my pan was scraped up pretty bad and being that my DG drift course has some rougher sections I expect the pan to get pretty scraped up again. Since the paint is pretty close to the raw metal color maybe it'll not look as bad as the original black down the road.

 

Between the heat and work slowly picking back up progress has been slow on the car.
Instead of doing a full tear down of my steering gear box I opted to just replace the input shaft seal. Won't know if the fix worked until I start the car but hopefully that will suffice for now.
Not sure if I got the thrust bearing preload correct. Marked where everything was before I took it apart but upon reassembly I found I had to turn it in a good 1.75" farther to reduce the play.
I turned it in until there was substantial resistance rotating the input shaft and then gradually backed it off until it was smooth turning from lock to lock by hand. Once I put it in the car and connected the steering shaft I notice there is still some play and it appears the input shaft moves in and out slightly when I rock the shaft back and forth - is that normal?




Then I moved on to applying a little rust converter to the a-arm mounting points on the k-member and cleaning 2 shovel loads of greasy dirt/sand out of it.




Then I disassembled my spindles, cleaned and applied rust converter, then installed new Powerstop rotor and Timken wheel bearings(set6 and set34) and seals. Couldn't decide which bearing grease I wanted to use so settled on Lucas Xtra, the green'ish stuff. I even remembered to put the dust cover on BEFORE the rotor on the second one ;-).
Question: I used channel locks to tighten the bearing nut fairly firm and then backed it off to 'just loose' and then firmly hand tightened then backed off to the first castle nut slot/hole. The first one required about an 1/8" turn to line up, the second one was pretty much lined up after hand tightening. Spinning both theres a noticable difference in sound in the tighter one, is this going to be too tight?






Moved on to caster/camber plates. Noticed that if both the factory caster adjustment and c/c adjustment are in their most rearward position the strut will impact the tower.
Has me wondering why I bought c/c plates if I can't utilize their full adjustability anyways?!






I decided to run the plate in the forward most position in the factory slot and then use only the caster adjustment on the new plates. This seems to allow me the most positive caster without risk of hitting the tower under full compression. I'm thinking of putting a bolt/nut in the open part of the caster slot so that it can't be moved rearward as a safe guard so it can't be moved back far enough to cause problems.






Decided to test fit one of my new a-arms. The front end is pretty much ready to be reassembled but I need to rebuild my calipers and put on my new steel braided brake lines. Debating on whether to do that after I have the front end assembled or before. I suspect I'll have brake fluid dripping everywhere and I'm about 92.5% sure the factory steel line will break when I attempt to take off the hoses. Having the extra room to work in there would be nice, but I'm anxious to get the front end back together.

 

Reassembling the front end this weekend....what a PIA! After fighting with the driver side spring all day long I tried using a pair of vicegrips clamped in the spring bucket to hold the base of the spring in the correct position. It worked until the vicegrips slid off. So I welded on a shark-fin and tried again and it worked beautifully!












My torque wrench only goes up to 150 ft/lbs so I hit the strut to spindle bolts a couple time with the impact, hopefully that puts it close to the 195 ft/lb torque spec.

But now I'm trying to figure out why the UMI strut mount bearing isn't rotating when turning the wheels left/right. The lower strut body turns but the shaft doesn't.
I haven't been able to torque the top strut nut as the hex end on the koni starts to strip. Anyone happen to have any tips on these two issues?

 

Steering is in! All Proforged components. The idler arm aligned just fine with room to spare in either direction - for those that read the thread on idler arm geometry issues.
However, the steering now has ALOT of resistance, I'm hoping it will loosen up a bit once I get it on the road.

 

Front suspension is finished, however there are some issues.
1. Driver side sits an inch lower than passenger side. Yes, I indexed the springs correctly and they appear to be sitting in the k member pocket correctly.
2. As I feared it appears the bump stops on the UMI control arms are too tall. The suspension is literally resting on the bump stops with the UMI's springs. From my experience this creates an exponential increase in front spring rate resulting in understeer.

 

 

I spent the entire day swapping the front springs left to right to see if there was something going on in that regard. Noticed the ball joint on the driver side threads down about an 1/8" past the top of the stud and the passenger side a full 1/4" or more. Measured the ball stud, spindle hole, and each spring height and found very little difference....which could be attributed to my analog caliper measurer-thingy. Anyway, after swapping the springs and isolators left to right the driver side sits only a 1/4" lower than the passenger side now. Though the issue with the ball joint threads remained the same - I even torqued the one showing less threads an extra 10 ft/lbs(100). At this point I think I'm going to finish welding up my exhaust and take it for some hot laps and see if everything settles in. If not then I'm contemplating either adding an extra spring pad on the driver side or replacing the passenger side spindle(in case the ball-joint hole is somehow larger) or spending money I don't currently have on some UMI front weight jacks/springs.
Any thoughts on how I should proceed?

 

I struggled to find a resource on wheel bearing torque as well, I read between 12-24 inch pounds. I usually turn the wheel in the direction of tightening, the tighten the nut - back off then retention the nut “palming” the wrench (slip joint pliers for me) to the first notch past good and snug. Check for looseness in the bearings, pack the cap with grease and call it good.

Never has an issue.

 

Anyone have any suggestions regarding the leaning issue I now have(post #33 above)? After sitting for a week its now leaning a half inch lower on the driver side.

 

Still haven't figured out leaning issue, but I finished exhaust and installed headers and welded in final subframe connector piece.
Welds came out atrocious on the exhaust...didn't find the optimum settings until my final weld but it'll have to do for now.








The third piece of the SFC required bridging, at times, a good 3/8 inch gap. Making a horseshoe pattern seem to work well in accomplishing that. They don't look great but they're solid and only had one burn through on the chassis.








First time starting it in almost two years...filled carb float bowls with Marvel Mystery Oil in hopes that it would lubricate the top end, pumped throttle a handful of times, and it started on the second try!
I let it run for a good ten minutes then shut it down and let it cool in hopes of re-tempering the valve springs after they'd sat compressed for so long.

Ran good but when pressing the brake pedal the idle raises and/or gets rough. I assume the booster is shot and leaking vacuum?!? Also appears the front trans seal is leaking (ugh). But otherwise it appears to be ready for a quick maiden voyage.

 

First drive in two years...took it up over a local pass and on some twisties - keeping it slow of course until I get familiar with the new setup and sort out any issues.





Issues after the drive:
1. Appears oil came up and out of the dipstick tube and spilt onto the headers.
2. Smell burning rubber smell on pass side of motor and a little smoke.
3. Kinda feels like it has a miss but don't know if it was just the new poly motor mounts and other chassis stiffening I've done. I can't really do the power brake test effectively due to problem number 4.
4. Pressing brake pedal causes engine to stumble/die when in gear at a stop(I assume the booster or check valve is shot).
5. Was low on power. Felt like timing was retarded but I didn't touch the timing - its still set where I had it when I last power-brake timed it(I don't have timing marks so I have to set it by ear, feel, and throttle response).
6. I need to wire in a pressure switch to the fourth gear port on the trans and run it to the TCC to activate lockup in overdrive.
7. Its still leaning on the driver side.
8. Front calipers are sticking. Need to rebuild them. Rear brakes don't feel like they're working at all.
9. Power windows stopped working for some reason.
10. Turn signals not working.


Handling wise it was pretty good. I didn't push it hard, but late apexed some slower turns (~50mph/asphault) and back end let loose smoothly and equally turning left and right under steady throttle. I still need to fine tune my backyard alignment but its getting there.
Not sure I like how it rides on the front bump stops but I hit some pretty substantial dips on our typical imperfect back country roads and it wasn't what I'd call harsh but definitely firmer. I feel I could use a higher spring rate all the way around though.

UPDATES: I totally forgot to reset my idle mixture screws on my carb after I rebuilt it. After correctly adjusting them the car no longer stalls when coming to a complete stop so hopefully I can put off replacing the brake booster for a little bit.
Leaning issue is much less after a few test drives. Now its only a 1/4" lower on the front driver side. Rear is within a 16th.

 

Definitely a list of to-do's after the maiden voyage, but hey at least she made it home! Did you drive it with the rear end looking like that too?

 

Also what's the story with that driver side quarter? Pardon my ignorance if you already explained it in here

 

RKeats, yes I drove it without the tail lights and rear bumper cover. ;-)
The rear quarter was crushed from a tree branch that fell on it over a year ago. I pounded it out and have a quarter skin sitting here but I've never done body work so I'm putting that off till I sort out some of the other issues.

 

Aw man that's a bummer. At least it just caught the corner instead of caving in the roof

 

I am slowly getting back to work on the car. Gubbermint shutdowns destroyed my business so I've been busy learning a new trade.
Anyways, I've done several little things on the car including more heat wrap for fuel lines and other areas affected by the headers..


The car is filthy. Something you can't avoid when you live out in the country.

After rewiring my fuel system and adding a relay I figured I'd put in some new switches that blend in better. One is for my TCC and the other is a cut off for my fuel pump - I did this for both safety and to run the carb dry if it's going to sit for a while.


And I added a temporary tach until I can get around to fixing the one in the dash which suffered the common resister issue causing an incorrect reading.



Then I scavenged around the ranch looking for scrap metal that could be used to bridge the rocker panel to my subframe connectors. This 1/2" square steel should work nicely when cut into three 4" sections(per side) and welded in.


Found that my new control arm bushing was getting pretty warm from the new headers/y-pipe so I fashioned a little heat shield. Probably wouldn't have been an issue but I'm not sure how well Delrin bushings hold up to repeated high heat exposure.

 

Hey y'all, I haven't abandoned this project, but it's been on hold for the last year or so due to a career change and having over-estimated my ability/progress in said career. When I achieve some profitability I'll be back to work on the T/A.
Hope everyone is doing well!

 

I just read through your thread.....nice work. I just drug out my MSE Trans Am to start refurbishing it.