hey everyone....i convince my friend to get a thirdgen, he just picked up a 1984 trans am very cheap with perfect body.
but here are the problems one it that the person lost the keys for the car includeing to egnition key i was hopeing u guys could tell me how to change the egnition and is it easy or should he get a shop to do this? is it hard to replace?
another thing is that the car has a blowen head gasket>>car over heats and a $hit load of white smoke comes out the exhaust. the car has been sitting for over a year with the blowen head gasket. to replace the gasket is just to much so we went and talked to a shop and the dude was saying because the car has been sitting so long with the blowen gasket that the antifreez prob leaked into the engine to by now and because it has been sitting so long that the engine it prob garbage. anyway i was hopeing u guys could tell me what the chances r of this happening?

 

I hope he got it REAL cheap! it sounds like a pretty wasted car.

Some friend you are, you could have let him buy a perfectly good running anything for $500, but no....had to be a junkbox thirdgen....

well, not a good start for your friend, but a start is a start.

Just drop the whole steering column and replace it with one that has a key. You might be able to get the other one apart with some crude methods....but just leave it on a shelf for now. Change the locks too...or just set the locks to remain unlocked...I don't think anyone will want to steal that car. You can unlock the hatch by the power release....or climb in the trunk, undo the paneling and flip the latch from inside.

I don't know why you're asking this guy at the shop whats wrong with the car. Just take those heads off and see for yourself. If the car is running, then it is salvagable, but the engine might not exactly be a gem. Just fix it and drive it.
Flush and fill the coolant and Change the oil with Marvel mystery oil mixed in.


'84 is a good year, I hope he enjoys it. I have several engine parts from my '84 if you need anything.

If you two don't have the expertise and tools to do it, you'd be better off having a shop drop in a new/used 350

don't spend more than $150 for a column, most people sell them for $50....

 

Do a search for the cylinder lock...been posted alot with pic's/drawing as well, by Vader.

I'd say drain the oil and buy a gasket set and get to learning...you've really nohting to lose bt your time and about a 100bucks...if the engine has to come out later on, so be it.

An '84 is probably carb'ed or TBI...either one is easy to get to the gaskets as opposed to TPI, so there's nothing really intimidating about putting it back together if it's your guys first time at doing this.

Plus, you'll be a step ahead if the engine does need to comeout, most liekly you'll want to "pep" it up some, and you can sve some bucks by putting the topend on (that you gained experience with doing the headgaskets) yourself.

 

Mike is right, you the two of you have nothing to lose...

the worst case scenario is that it is not just th gasket, but a cracked head too. You can usually eyeball a crack if you soak the inside of the head with WD-40, you can see the outline of a crack.

It's not as hard as some people make it out to be, just lots of work and attention to what you are doing.

 

I agree with these guys, if you're going to jhave to take it to the shop, you might as well try to fix it yourself, if you do, you saved some bucks, if you don't, it was already on it;s way to the shop, so you didn;t lose anything, but time.
I hope you and your firend are close, I'd kick my buddies @$$ if he talked me in to buyg that...lol, only kidding. Seriously though, this is the best time to learn what you can about the engine. Get a good manual and print off some good info off the internet and tear into it. I got brave one weekend and tore the whole top end off my IROC, aside from the intake runners, it was a good experience and I saved a bunch of money. Good luck guys.

 

Dont listen to these guys, if the body/interior and transmission are in good shape it was well worth ?cheap? if cheap were under a grand. Cheap means he saved enough money on this car to buy another engine. I'd persoanlly look into a good running used 350, somtimes you can find them in the classified adds in a local paper cheap some still in running in the truck or car. As far as the keys go hit the bone yards and nab another column and get the locks from that car too since most have keys and removing them from a pick en pull is good practice.

 

I never said there was anything worng with buying a fixer-upper as long as you know what you are getting into. At this point noone knows exactly how much they picked it up for, so we're just giving them a hard time

Sometimes the locks at a dealer are just as affordable as at the yards. Maybee not, but it's worth looking into, you might as well have new locks if you are going through the trouble. Plus, you won't find keys with most thirdgens in the yards...it's rare in my experience.

 

ya we know it needs alot of tlc he got the car for 50$ and like i said everything is in very good shape other then the engine. when i told him about the car i told him that we can work on it over time like a project type thing. but now that he destroyed his z24 and stuck driveing a 83 4 door volvo he wants this car fixed asap lol (for spring). he went and talked to the dealer about them haveing a copy of the key on record so he is gunna do all the paper work and order the key for the car and just hope to *** no one chaged the egnition. we do have a spare 305 engine and tranny with all the parts and they worked great when taken out of car. but who wants to put another 305 in, he was thinking while the other 305 engine is out he can buy some performance parts and put them on while the engine it out. but at this point we dont know the real shape of the engine but before it sat the car would start no problem but like i said alot of smoke would come out of the exhaust. oh well i will keep u guys posted and get some pics up. thanks

 

Well crap for $50 he saved enough to drop in a new crate 350 and make the car reliable.

 

^ what he said.............and if he doesnt want to fix it, put it on ebay. or you could part it out .

 

Dude!!! Is that the same car we looked at way back?

 

ill take the front bumper GFX for my 84... send me an email.

 

AZ sells a keylock set for about 20 bucks....rent the tool to remove the steering wheel and the one to pull the lockplate. Shell out 12 bucks for a Haynes manual. Its' about a 20 minute project.

Been there more than once!

The hatch...you're on your own!LOL If it doesn't have a power release, its' a PITA!

50 dollars for a running thirdgen?! You can't lose with that! Non-running parts cars with no title are 6 to 8 hundred around here!:hail:

Head gaskets are cheap....so are SB heads(although...I must admit....they'll cost you more than the car did!!!!LOL). Spend a weekend and "yank 'em". Bolt it back together(using the manual I mentioned above) and have fun!

 

if your gonna part it drop me a line at jaybroncos30@hotmail.com.
Honostly i would not part it though. 82-84's are hard to come by especially with good bodies. Id see it as a blessing if my 305 took a crap and i had no choice but to get another motor (350 ). I paid 1500 for mine with a bad tranny, but the rest of it was very good. So id say if he got of for 1000 or less he didnt overpay.