After:

 

Painted the rear lug nuts while I was at it.

 

What was used to clean the under carriage?

 

Full strength Simple Green, brushes, steel wool, green Scotchbrite pad and a garden hose, Brad.

 

I did some more fiddling with little things I won't bore you with, but I continued the undercarriage detailing by spraying down the rear undercarriage and exhaust with a product called IRON-X. This product dissolves rust and you can see it working as the iron oxide starts weeping purple. Expensive stuff, though.





I wish I had a lift, it would be so much easier to do this. This car will clean up fantastically. It could be the kind of "survivor" you could bring to a place like MACACN, if they had appreciation for cars like this - which they will one day.

 

The last picture has me intrigued - what do you suppose caused that paint shadow on the brace?

 

Good question, and then undercoating oversprayed over it.

 

Now I'm intrigued. My two '89's for comparison.

 

I am assuming the first pick is the white car. What's interesting to me the car with the least amount of miles has the most surface rust on the axle. Think it's the fact it was in Florida before you bought it?

 

Yes, the first one is my 7K mile white car and the second one is my 11K mile black car.

The white one has a GM 10 bolt rear end which left the factory in bare metal. The black one has a BW 9 bolt, which got a coat of black paint in order to make the boat ride from Australia to Van Nuys.



The white one only spent a couple of years in Florida. It spent most of it's life in central California, and then a collector had it in Wisconsin for about 9 years. He kept it as sort of a full scale die cast car in the display area of his garage. He only put about 28 miles on it during that time and claims he never even washed it, ie., water never touched it.


I may have to hit the white one with some IRON-X.

 

I don't feel so bad about my car now because the axle and sway bar look like they have the same type of surface rust. I finally freed up some garage space for my project, hopefully I can make some time to work on it this week. Waiting for parts sucks!

 

Time to start posting pics, Steve!

 

I'll start a thread soon.

 

The more I drive it, the more it likes being driven! With the HO air cleaner it's actually kind of fun. If I am at a speed where giving full throttle downshifts to 1st, it will break the right rear tire loose with a good bark.

 

Subscribed! Sweet Roc

 

Why is photobucket boning everyone on the internet?

I need this pic:

 

Thanks!

 

After a measuring a few times and mocking up, it looks like the bottom of the paper backing should line up with the top of the stripe for proper positioning.

Anyone disagree?

 

I heard PhotoBucket changed their hosting policy in that they are now charging $399 a year. Many people have commented that they lost access to their pictures and can't recover them from the site. Not sure why they would go from free to $400 without notice. Something's not right there, but you can't see their hosted pics without paying the ridiculous fee.

 

And there you have it.

 

Yeah, Imageshack screwed me over a couple of years ago and now photobucket.

Luckily we have image hosting on TGO.

 

Sure, until TGO pushes another update that nukes all the attachments. It happened before.

Photobucket was nice because you could upload the file once and post it wherever. My account took a week longer to get nuked than some others. I've been working on downloading my images, but it only lets you download 1 folder at a time. I can't really see uploading to another host and fixing old thread links. Kind of makes you not want to bother sharing photos at all... Between Cardomain, Photobucket, Tripod, Homestead, hard drive failures, and ransomware, etc it's a wonder any photos survive.

 

The photo bucket nonsense is a business failure of epic proportions. The $399 fee for 3rd party hosting customers was a deal breaker for pretty much everyone I've seen on the different boards I go to. They were going down hill, pop-up adds were becoming too cumbersome to navigate through, people weren't paying for the add-free version so they did this. I have to believe there is a wholesale exodus going on at PB now - and the problem is if they try to back pedal at this point they've already created so much bad faith with their customer base that there's no going back!

 

Yeah, this move by the bucket stinks. They certainly have a right to charge for their service, but jumping from free to $399.00 a year is just nuts. I'd have been perfectly willing to pay a modest fee to help cover costs, but with other options, it's just not worth it.

I will rebuild my cars thread here, and one of another vehicle on another forum, but that's as far as I'll be able to go. A decade + of photos posted on forums, gone.

 

Looks great! Eventually you might end up being the Mark Worman of 3rd gen decals where you'll just eyeball everything....LOL

 

Or......Mark Worman can be the chazman of Mopars!

 

THERE YOU GO!!!

Much better Charlie -

 

What a huge difference! I can now look at the car without trying to move the decal through my screen to put it in the right location.

 

The things I do for you guys.

 

Excellent car Chaz.... I love 87's.

 

Thanks CPC!

Just judging by some of your posts, sounds like the car you're working on will be very excellent!

 

So I had a slight defect in the passenger side door decal. Phoenix is shipping me out a replacement, no sweat.

 

Gee, I wonder if Phoenix Graphics will charge you a restocking fee for the defective decal!

 

Haha!

 

Chaz,

You are right. I am getting ready to install NOS and the original template and backing is marked for door edge.

 

If you look at post 28 in this thread there appears to be an alignment guide provided to the factory assembly era NOS vs the later post production NOS

 

Can't wait to see your car when you're done! Sounds like everything will be factory correct.

 

Nice NOS parts! Save the packaging!

 

Phil, please use those decals as a placement template only! The original decal glue shelf life is around 5-7 years. The decals will install perfectly, but in a day or two, the edges will start to peel up. I did the same thing with NOS windshield banner from a Pace Car. Within days, it was peeling.

Howard Kirchenbauer told me years ago about the factory shelf life of the decals because he was involved with the Indy 500/Brickyard 400 festival cars.

 

It's amazing how comfortable a 3rd gen convertible is with the top down. Even at 75 or 80 mph. You can't even drive a modern vehicle at 45 mph with the window down without getting bizarre buffeting.

Also, the more I drive it, the better it runs. The HO air cleaner really helps.

Removed and polished the IP lens. It was amazingly scratched up for such low miles. Probably a result of having the top down for 30 years. Nice and clear now. It's all the little things!

 

That looks real good. What did you use as a polish and how did you polish it?

Car looks stunning.

 

Makes a huge difference, doesn't it? It's like when you get a new windshield, makes it feel like a new car.

I did mine with Meguiar's PlastX. Before and after photos here.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/memb...ml#post5912933

 

Yup, Megs PlastX. Except Dave took better pics than I did.

 

Me parked next to my good buddy's '86 GT at Lombard last night. It was packed! Even at 10:00 there were a few cars still there.







Apparently lost another center cap last night. Just ordered two.

 

All cleaned up and ready to go to my parents garage, where it'll change places with my yellow '85.

 

I think I know now, Chris. As per CPC Norwood during our conversation at MCACN about his last IROC-Z, that was masked off on the assembly at Norwood prior to installing the bolts.

 

That is correct. To expand on the process just a bit... the specification for bolt torque values was a safety significant item, therefore there was concern that the build rate of the paint from the Rainsburg Turbo bells electrostatic Hi Solids enamel paint system could actually cause a false torque later then the bolts were installed in chassis.

The Rainsburg Turbo Bell paint system was exclusive to "F" production at Norwood.

 

I used to think one of something was enough... then I had four.

Four of the same car... why? I wasn't driving two of them much. Sold one, diversified, and have been happier. But do what you want and interests you.

Just had three of a car recently. Again, too many.
Decided to sell one and with the money, buying 3 or 4 vehicles I really want instead. Your results may vary.

 

I've got my eye on a 2nd gen Trans Am. Space-wise, something would have to go if I were to move forward on that.

With that said, I can't wait for the weather to get better so I can drop the top and drive it again. If I want to keep all four here, a lift is definitely on my mind as well.

 

Storage space is always a consideration, too. No point in owning nice stuff, if it sits outside or in a bad location.
Lifts help, but cars on top rarely get moved. That's been my experience, at least.

Good luck w the 2nd gen. I just sold a 60s muscle car, figuring I could get 4 cars from the 80s for the same money. The struggle is real.