Last member of the Silver Fleet: 1979 Trans Am WS6

In reply to 06HHR (Forum Supporter) :

Agreed. Engine-turned, woodgrain, or GTFO!

Unfortunately, no wrenching occurred to the Trans Am over the weekend. I was instead doing yard work, but it's also sort of Trans Am-related. I have a bunch of stuff in my garage that I want out, so we decided to get a ShelterLogic Shed-In-A-Box to use as storage for some of the stuff taking up space in there. I already had a small 6x6 one that was given to us, so in addition to that, we bought a 6ft wide x 12ft deep and 8ft tall one that will house our tractor, snowblower, and some other things (like car parts, etc) that take up space in the garage. 

The small one got hit by the same tree that took out my Saab 9-5 a few years ago, so I cleared everything out of it and repaired it over the weekend. And I forgot I had stashed some Trans Am parts in there, like a good driver's fender and this:





This is a TH200-4R that came out of a friend's 1988 Monte Carlo LS with the LG4 305. It was slipping when we pulled it, but it "should" be a good rebuildable core. Years ago, I snagged it from him, stuffed it in the tent, and kinda forgot about it.  This is an upgrade for the TH350 in the Trans Am, and if it's salvageable, I'll be swapping it in at some point along with some upgraded rear gears. I have another spare 8.5" 10-bolt posi rear with the large carrier to pilfer when the time comes, as mine has 2.73 rear gears. 3.73's and the TH200-4R would be amazing in this car. Only downside is I may have to lose the Hurst Dual Gate shifter. I do have a factory "Rally Shifter" (aka factory slap shifter!) that can be modded to work with the extra overdrive gear. There may be a chance I can do the same for the Dual Gate as well, but we'll have to see when I get that far. 

Bonus points for all of this yard work: I'll be able to park the Trans Am in the garage. This car has not lived inside for the entire time I've had it. It'll be good to get it out of the weather.  

Side note about shifters:

I just did some research, and neither the Rally Shifter or the Hurst Dual Gate are supported in the kits that convert the shifter for overdrive trans duty. That's a bummer. Either I'd have to make something to make it work (maybe 3D print something?) or just get a regular stock shifter. 

Other options are just keeping the TH350 or manual swapping it instead. In any event, I'm in no rush. 

I found myself with a few minutes after work yesterday, so I decided to start in on the header gasket replacement on the car. Last time I did this, I cheaped out and only did the driver's side, and I used Spectre paper gaskets. This time, I splurged for some Remflex gaskets and I'm doing both sides, as I never want to deal with this again. 

Since I was limited on time, I decided to start with the passenger side, as I didn't have to jack the car up or remove the wheel to access that side. To my surprise, most of the header bolts were pretty close to loose. Really though, should I be surprised? Probably not. 

With an array of stubby 7/16 wrenches, I got all the bolts out. I was greeted to this:



Hey, another exhaust leak! Why I used these flimsy paper gaskets, I have no idea. The Remflex ones are about 4x as thick and have a lot more material around the ports. This should help it seal better. That is, if I can get the bolts back in.

I was able to get the end ports bolted back in after some finagling with a pry bar and a floor jack under the collector, but the center ports are damn near impossible to access with the way these cheap Summit headers are designed. The tubes have an aggressive bend on the #6 and #5  ports that make it hard to get a box end wrench in there, and getting your fingers in there is even harder. As a result, getting the threads started was just not happening, and my hands/fingers were not up to the task last night, so I quit while I was ahead. Hoping to carve out a few minutes this weekend to get the rest of the job done on both sides. 

Tony Sestito said:

In reply to sevenracer :

Last tank was 6.9mpg. Not great. That said, most of the time it was running, it was idling or I was doing carb tuning. I've only tracked two tanks of gas with it so far since resurrecting it. The other tank got 10mpg on the nose. With the 2.73 rear gears, I'm guessing it is capable of mid-teens, which is probably better than an early carbed RX-7, strangely enough. 

Oof, that makes me feel slightly better about my 15ish. But it's a 13B Turbo now, not a carbed 12A, so at least it can hustle.

And I'm on Team Red!

Last Friday night, it was unseasonably warm out, so I found myself in shorts and a T-shirt wrenching on the car in my driveway.

In November.

In Massachusetts. 

While I don't understand how that is possible, I took advantage of the situation and kept wrenching on this header gasket fiasco. 



The good news: I was able to get the passenger side buttoned up. The center port rearward bolt fought me tooth and nail, but I was able to get it tight enough to call it good. These thicker Remflex gaskets should do a much better job at sealing things up. 

On the driver's side, I was able to get all the bolts out, save for the... you guessed it.... the center port rearward bolt. Not only does the header tube interfere with it so only an open-end wrench will fit, but the brake master cylinder and proportioning valve are also right there. You can't really access it from underneath the car, either, since the subframe is blocking the way, so you have to contort yourself through the brake lines and flip your wrist upside down to try and get a stubby wrench on it for a turn or two before the pain is unbearable. My wrists still hurt 3 days later. 

I ran out of time and had a packed weekend with other plans, so I'll try and get this job finished after work this week. 

I finally had some time to button up this header gasket replacement job today. I never want to do that again. 



This is all that's left of the driver's side gasket. The rest of it either blew out or crumbled to dust when I started removing it. Wow. The Remflex gaskets shouldn't do that. 

After fighting with the driver's side bolts for a few hours, I was able to get them all in except the dreaded rear center port bolt. I couldn't get it started in the hole with my fingers, so I would kinda have to jam it in the hole from the top, quickly crouch down, grab the stubby 7/16 wrench, and try to get a turn on it. It typically dropped out and sometimes went into the ether, along with the wrench. At one point, I really did lose the bolt, so I had to go get more. These were 3/4" bolts, and the parts store only had 1", but with the thicker gaskets, I ended up replacing a lot of the other bolts with those. The center port bolts had to be 3/4" to fit in the holes, which made things extra difficult. Eventually, after hours of fighting, I was able to get that last bolt in. 



Complicating matters was this. The exhaust test pipe off the collector slipped out as I was wiggling things around. This was an easy fix, but it reminded me that this exhaust system is kinda janky and should be replaced at some point. I had it custom made right after I bought the car in 2002, and the mufflers like to bottom out on everything, which is annoying. I do have most of a Flowmaster H-pipe system with a very rusty transverse muffler, but i don't think I have the tail pipes, and even if I did, they go straight out the back, which I really don't like the looks of. The ones on the car are slash cut and match right up with the body lines of the quarter panel, and that's how it should be. We'll see what happens there. 



Also... yeah. I really need to replace these. I've been looking at tires lately, but I don't know if I want to spend $208/tire plus installation on BFG Radial T/A's again. There aren't a ton of choices with the 255/60/15 size I run. The BFGs do look great, but they really aren't the best tires and you're basically paying for the looks. I'm leaning toward something cheaper this time around like the Hankook Kinergy S/T and just do blackwalls out, since the RWLs on the Hankooks look pretty lame:


Those are almost $300 cheaper. I could go ULTRA cheapo and go with something like the Tornel Direccional or some Venom Powers or something, but those are probably as scary as the dry rotted tires on the car. Either way, I'll have to find something sooner than later. 

Oh, and how does the car sound after the header gaskets? MUCH quieter up front! FINALLY. That high-compression V8 sound with long tubes is just the bee's knees. There's still a top end tick, but I'm pretty sure it's just the roller rockers. The car doesn't seem to care, and oil pressure is still 60psi most of the time. I'll have to check those soon, as I have to replace the valve cover gaskets anyway, since one has a very slight leak. 

Speaking of leaks, I also checked out the transmission fluid leak. It seems to be the pan gasket... again. Last time, I used a rubber gasket, but it looks like it's not sealing enough, especially toward the bellhousing. It's not the output shaft seal, which is good, since I replaced it when the engine was out and I don't want to do that again. I'll have to see if there's some sort of upgraded TH350 gasket out there that's thicker and seals better. 

Next up: getting a state inspection, and seeing how many things they fail me on. 

Cooper Cobra, $168 each at TR. Been a go-to for a long time for 70's and 80's cars.

Edit: They are also rated higher in nearly all categories than the Hankook or the BFGs.

Been running the Hankooks on my 91 C1500 for about 4 years now.  Definitely recommend.

In reply to Tony Sestito :

Cheap-ass PO of 3BABY9 put Hankook Kinergy GTs on the front. They don't suck. 

Sounds like the Hankooks are not as bad as I thought. I still don't know if I want to do RWL out. This is what that would look like:



Not the worst thing I've seen, and certainly better than slapping a set of Venom Power tires on the poor car. There are only about 4 tires that come in a 255/60/15 these days, and that makes me sad. I kinda wish I bought the 17x9 Snowflake repros when they were still cheap, because tires for those are cheap and plentiful. These Hankooks are around $150/tire. 

Also, I'm planning on getting an inspection tomorrow. We'll see how that goes. Looking forward to getting that over with either way. 

And we're good for another year, inspection-wise. Nice! Car ran great on the way there and back with no issues. 

Couple quick things I did today before my trip to the inspection station:

-Reinstalled my sun visors. Man, such a dumb thing that you don't think about until they are missing and the sun is in your eyes. 

-Checked on what's up with the blower/heat not working. Everything seems to be hooked up in the dash, save for one ground. Tried grounding that and it made no difference. Fuse is good, too. Thinking back, the only things I removed from underneath the dash were a vacuum canister that has to do with the AC and some of the ducting. I know I replaced the resistor too, and the blower motor did work when I installed it. But nothing works. Curiously, the rear defroster also doesn't work anymore. Not sure if those are related, but cold weather is coming and I want these to work in case I take it out for a drive. 

Other than that stuff, I'll have to get a closer look at the trans leak at some point. I'd love to get it on my friend's lift for that. Not really sure what is leaking, but it's annoying. 

You gotta do RWL out.

In reply to NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) :

There's probably a law on the books somewhere that prohibits RWL tires from being installed with the blackwalls out. I don't want to get in trouble! 

Not to sound xenophobic but I don't know about non-English words on RWL tires on a car made of as many freedom eagles as this. Blackwall side is fine of course

In reply to GCrites :

I am pretty sure that Hankook in Korean means "Do a burnout", so it's probably fine. 

GCrites said:

Not to sound xenophobic but I don't know about non-English words on RWL tires on a car made of as many freedom eagles as this. Blackwall side is fine of course

I gotta say I agree. Cooper cobras, Tiger Paws, BFGs - whites out but hankooks I don't know if I would have it as loud and proud.

Last weekend, I had a few minutes of tinkering time, so I decided to spend a few looking into the heater issue on the car. Last time I was under there, I noticed that the blower relay was completely missing, so I ordered one. When I went to go plug it in, I noticed this:



Something seems to be missing. I don't remember doing this, but someone (or something) did! 

I do remember cleaning up a lot of the wiring in this car when we swapped the engine in back in 2008, but I left this side of the engine bay alone. This is what I am dealing with:





After looking at a wiring diagram, I think that black wire that goes up to the screw on the firewall belongs on that broken-off part of the plug. The wiring diagram seems to have two black wires going into different poles on the relay. Next time I'm under there, I plan on cleaning all of this rat's nest up and making things make sense. I may need to source that pigtail as well, since this one is completely borked. I'll also check the circuit for power. 

After working on my Power Wagon with weirdo Mopar wiring, and somehow adapting EFI to that thing, none of this scares me.