I put a deposit down on another F-body!

[Xelerator]

Just because I was curious, I decided to tear down the top of the original 455. I knew it was not going to be pretty. However, the LH cylinder banks actually looked good but, the RH headers were so rotted that a mouse ended up using the rotted headers as an entry way into the two of the cylinders, obviously when the car was parked one of the exhaust valves was open which allowed mouse to enter and this is what we have! Horrible corrosion on the two cylinder walls. I did "Mic" the good cylinder and noticed they are within spec for the original bore thus maybe I can machine out some material to get rid of the rust! YAY, More rust!
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[MP81]

Wow - that's actually pretty disgusting. I would not want to open up an engine and find it looking like...that.

Hopefully it's machinable.

[Xelerator]

Since I was disappointed by the engine findings, I thought I would clean off the transmission in order to see how it looks. To my surprise, after cleaning off all the gunk and oil, I found a neat stamping. "FC", this is the transmission code for this car. Kind of neat. These pics show the cleaning process half ways through, it looks a lot better after I was done. All I used was "Super Clean", good stuff!
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[mtc717]

theres a guy i met and got parts from on craigs list who has a 73 sd,he has lots of parts and trades parts to,lists under farminton for location,my dealing were very good with him and will again,i can find number for him if u cant find it

[Xelerator]

Fast forward to now, during my "Vacation" I have been working on preparing the shell for rust repair. The next photos are just a compilation of progress in the past couple of weeks.
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[Xelerator]

theres a guy i met and got parts from on craigs list who has a 73 sd,he has lots of parts and trades parts to,lists under farminton for location,my dealing were very good with him and will again,i can find number for him if u cant find it

Cool, I think I found him, is this his number? 248 701-4778

Unfortunately, I am in WI, he is in MI. But I will keep an eye out for his posts. Thanks!

[Xelerator]

These show the removal of the Dash assembly
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These two show the removal of the firewall mounted components
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[meissen]

Cool! I <3 pictures of progress - those cylinder walls are amazing!

[ITSSLOW]

Wow, I have not posted an update since January 2010, I am sorry guys.

However, until recently, not much restoration has taken place. I recently left my current employer for a much better offer (note, a competitor of my current company recruited me) well to make a long story short, I left my current company, and after much begging and pleading to keep me, they walked me out the door. Shortly after that day, I got a nasty letter from current company's lawyer likewise so did my new company. After a couple of days of deciding how to handle these nasty letters, the company that recruited me just dropped me!! Now I am job less and have had some time to work on my 73 TA. I will say, the company that I left has been gracious enough to take me back, I think I may just do it just to keep a job.

Anyways, I will post up some progress pics here soon.

Might be a bit awkward at first but I'd jump on their offer!!!

[esoteric18]

was thewre a crushed mouse inside the one cylinder i know you said it was living there but looks like i see blood. Pretty gross either way but im sure its machinable

[Xelerator]

Might be a bit awkward at first but I'd jump on their offer!!!

I did have an interview with another company and it looks like they are going to throw me an offer, the problem with this offer is that it's contract and may not be permanent but... it will pay another 30K more than I make now! So... the question is go back to my former employer where I know I will have a job or take this offer and make some money but may not have a job down the road. uggggg

[Xelerator]

was thewre a crushed mouse inside the one cylinder i know you said it was living there but looks like i see blood. Pretty gross either way but im sure its machinable

I think the "blood" you see are fibers from the car's red carpet. I think the mouse that lived in that nest is long gone and if he was dead, it would have been dried out. I never turned that engine over before I took it apart, I don't think it would have turned over anyways.

[Xelerator]

As of a couple of days ago, except for the doors, fuel lines, front stub and rear-end, I have the shell completely disassembled and have started to fix the rust repair. The first fix is going to be the lower corners of the "A" pillars. If you recall or go back to the beginning of this project, I bought a solid 72 firebird roller to help fix this 73 trans am. I will be using the 72 roller's "A" pillars skins to rehab the 73 T/As "A" pillars.

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[Xelerator]

I started to dissect the RH "A" pillar in order to get to good sheetmetal. The beauty of this RH Side is that I only had to remove the outer skin and the cowl/dash area in order to reveal good metal. This is progress.
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[Xelerator]

Here is the LH "A" pillar, this side is pretty bad. Once I removed the outer skin of the pillar, I noticed that the substructure is gone too, I will need to do some major surgery here. I have also decided that I am going to replace the whole cowl/dash area, this means I have to transfer the cowl tag and the VIN tag over to the new cowl. Doing a cowl and VIN tag transfer usually creates some controversy but since the body is going to be mostly original and the hidden VIN will be correct, I assume there shouldn't be any problems. Along with good documentation (this thread) it should prove to anyone that I did not swap VIN tags to another solid body.
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