Gerald’s GTO Restoration

Today the coil springs, lower control arms, spindles, and shocks were installed on the subframe.  Front coil springs are Eibach 3852-120 1.0″-2.0″ drop, purchased from Summit.  The rear leaf springs had settled more than the original stock coil springs which caused the front to sit higher than the rear.  Hopefully the drop springs will atleast level the car and maybe give the car slightly aggressive stance.  The KYB gas-a-just shocks were scuffed and painted black then installed.  The shocks are stock length which I read would work with the Eibach shocks.

After the top ball joints were bolted in and there was so much trouble pressing the lower ball joint in I got a tip that the ball joints that I got from NAPA were actually their budget models which sometimes don’t take grease that well.  The top two ball joints were removed along with the lower ball joint that wasn’t fully pressed anyway.  The cheap ones were exchanged for the better kind.  Unfortunately they were almost double the price but the quality difference could be spotted from a mile away.  So be sure to insist on NAPA’s premium ball joints when replacing if you don’t mind paying a little more.  After the ball joints were finally pressed in, the control arms were scuffed with a scotch-brite then the bushings taped and a second coat of a paint applied.

Since I’m upgrading to a Tremec 5 speed, the Classic Chevy 5-speed kit comes with all of the necessary parts to do the changeover.  The first of these parts to go one was the clutch bar frame bracket.  Even the cars equipped with automatic transmissions like mine came with the holes pre-drilled for this bracket.  To fasten the bracket to the frame I tapped these holes with a 5/16-24 tap.  The holes were the correct size for this tap and did not have to be drilled first.  Three 5/16-24 x 1″ stainless steel screws with a small bead of Loc-Tite fastened the two together.  The last project of the day was to begin installing the stainless brake/fuel lines to the subframe that were purchased from National Parts Depot.

All of the steering components, fuel/brake line clips, and motor mounts have been blasted and painted.  The small brake/fuel line clips and bolts were too small to spray so they were dipped to ensure good coverage.  The front KYB gas-a-just shocks were scuffed with a scotch-brite and painted black to match the other suspension components.

Today’s work began with pressing the Prothane polyurethane bushings back into the control arms.  A piece of exhaust pipe was cut slightly off center on a bandsaw (a wood bandsaw modified now for metal).  The semi-circular tube was cut to where the piece would just barely fit between the two bushing holes on the control arm.  An old piece of small diamter hose was sliced on one side such that it was slip over each of the bare pipe ends to minimize scratches to the paint.   This tool kept the control arm form bending while pressing the bushings in place.  A bushing was pressed into one side then the cross bar was pressed into that bushing.  The control arm was flipped around to press the second bushing in.  The minor scratches will be touched up when the ball joints are fastened in place.

Today all of the front steering componenets on the Trans Am were done with blasting except for the spindles.  It’s taken about six 100 pound bags of sand to do the majority of the blasting.  After all the parts were down to bare metal, they were thorougly wiped down with wax and grease remover to get rid of any oil or other contaminants that would affect paint adhesion.  Each part was caoted with self etching primer and left to dry for about 20 minutes before SEM’s Rust Shield semi-gloss paint was applied.

Today was dissapointing.  Last week the two part Rust Converter/Encapsulator was applied just as the directions say.  “Apply part A and wait overnight.  If more protection is desired apply part B, or else scuff and apply topcoat.”  I took this to mean if you are applying part B you don’t have to scuff.  Evidently this is incorrect or there is something wrong with the part B Encapsulator.  When it came time to scuff the part B in order to paint, much of it easily flaked off.  Especially at corners and edges.  I didn’t want this to bite me in the rear later so I made the hard desicion to blast it all off.  This time I didn’t mess with the Eastwood stuff and used a self etching primer under a top coat of SEM’s black semi-gloss Rust Shield paint.  Fortunately blasting was a breeze this time around and it didn’t take long.  The self etch primer only takes a few minutes to dry and was able to paint the sub frame today after all.  I’ll keep researching what went wrong with the Eastwood rust encapsulator and post when I get a response.  The sand, primer, and paint ran out so the control arms will have to wait until next week.

Today the sub-frame was brought out of the garage for sandblasting.  It had been completely dis-assembled the week before.  A small 20lb pressurized sand blaster was purchased from Harbor Freight.  It works really well.  I would’ve bought the 40lb for about $20 more but it was out of stock.  The only problem is that sand blasting drains the compressor so fast it takes a good amount of time to build back up.  I did come up with a decent solution for this.  Two compressors were connected together in order to allow a good amount of continuous air.   I bought two check valves from Grainger (part # 6D914)  for about $9 a piece that coupled to a Tee fitting.  The two compressors fed into each check valve and into each side of the Tee fitting.   The single Tee outlet went to the blaster.  This allowed a continous supply of air without each compressor working against each other.  The blaster ran out of sand long before I ran out of air.  Blasting all of that grease and undercoating easily swallowed up most of the day.  There was still a little time left to wipe the sub-frame down with degreaser and put the first coat of Eastwood’s Rust Converter.  Tomorrow I’ll apply the second part Rust Encapsulator so that it can be painted next week.