GTA Buildup

[MrMojoRisin681]

If you plan on making the roll cage yourself let me know. I can hook you up with some free pipe. My dad has a bunch just lying around.

[MattODoom]

If you plan on making the roll cage yourself let me know. I can hook you up with some free pipe. My dad has a bunch just lying around.

Might have a use for that, but for the main cage Jegs sells a kit premade for third gens for $150.

-Matt

[1bad83ta]

matt you should be able to just buy the hoop. Then you can make the other bars yourself with the stuff from jeremy.

[SS4Matt]

i dunno... $150 seems like not very much money for the amount of welding and bending and whatnot you'd have to do to "finish" a cage.... just my 2 cents lol

[1bad83ta]

lol matt. the 150 is just the bars and such. you still have to weld and after the main hoop you shouldn't have to bend anything on a 8pt cage.

[MattODoom]

I still dont even know if its worth it to buy the kit being as my buddy has a tubing bender in his machine shop. It would be about $225 to get it to my door.

For reference this is an 8 pt cage:

[phoenix_rising]

I would buy one made professionally because that way if something happens and the cage doesn't hold up you can sue somebody. If you built it you would be on your own.

[SS4Matt]

doesn't shaun have a cage like that?... speaking of.... did he ever re-surface?

[1bad83ta]

yes he does and yes I talked to him and hes fine, dunno why he isn't on the net anymore though.

[shawnc16]

lost my internet..... for some reason you gotta pay a bill or something! haha I'll get it back soon... til then I'll get on my buddies comp lol

[MattODoom]

4-2-06

Front bumper cover and drivers fender came off yesterday. Today I pulled the harness out as well as the blower motor and AC evaporator. I also pulled the coolant tank and front bump/crush thingy. After i get the rest of the engine bay taken apart (relays, cruise & brakes ill pull the carpet and dash from inside.












-Matt

[phoenix_rising]

Wow that looks liek one hell of an ordeal! You are defintely doing that car a favor!

[MattODoom]

Snyder you going to be free at all sometime in the next few weeks? I'd like to get the rest of the stuff pulled out of the gta and get it down off the trailer so I can start working on it / get it on the rotisarie if I can beat some sense into my dad.

[MrMojoRisin681]

Yeah I should be free after school. Weekends I might have to work.

[MattODoom]

Haven't updated in a while.

5-12-06

Pretty much everything inside the car is apart. The dash is still in the car, but its not together. All the fenders, hood, bumper, ground effects, tail lights, that kind of stuff is off.

I started bodyworking the front fenders. For all you third gen guys, do yourself a favor and NEVER jack that little sheetmetal protrusion under the sides of the car in the front. It's where the fender bolts on and will just bend over and throw your fender out of alignment. Every third gen I've seen has these fender tabs all bent up from being jacked on, even my good GTA was like that.

Unfortunately these fenders were jacked on, and more then just the little tab was bent. The whole entire bottoms of the front fenders, on both sides, were completely smashed up. Just takes a little while with the body hammer and dolly to get it semi-straight again.

Heres what they looked like from being jacked on:


After an hour or so of hammering, stretching and sanding:




And then attacking it with the slow grinder:


Also, in order to get at the insides of the fender on the bottom I had to cut out the support brace, which is where that little fender mounting tab is. When Im done Ill have to weld it back together and put it back in.

I found this pic of a white GTA with nice tinted windows, body color door handles, black GTA wheels and a fourth gen style wing, and im totally in love with it!

So badass.

Bodywork, go!

EDIT:
Any of you thirdgen guys got some fender scoops for a TA? These are the longer style (I think there was two styles of scoops?) I think these are 82-84 fenders. I have the scoops but they are missing some mounting tabs.

-Matt