The 14 Car Performance Therapy Project Rushforths, Baers, Yokohamas, and more

[carbuff]

Ditto all of the above. A lot of work's gone in that. Nice progress!

[NOT A TA]

Thanks guys!

Ron, I'd like to discuss my brake system with you. Will send a PM.


Meanwhile, I'm making progress, need to remove interior to finish the last sections. Found a little rust on the passengers rear seat pan I'll take care of and need access to the bolt heads for the sway bar supports that attach to the floor pan.

[Jay Hilliard]

You are doing excellent work John. Keep the pics coming.

[NOT A TA]

A couple years ago I had trouble logging on to the forum and didn't bring this thread up to date once I got the issue figured out. Then as time went by I got farther and farther ahead of where I'd stopped posting updates so I'm going to do some catch up and bring the thread up to date over the next few days starting with this. Some of you may have seen updates on the Trans Am forum or others but since this forum is where I learned of the contest I won that started this project I want to follow through here till the car's back on track.

Finished up the floor pan and moved on to the cowl and firewall area. Had a small rust spot on the drivers side of the cowl so I made a patch piece for it. Since it's not visible once the fender is on it just has to be functional. Once the sides were in primer I moved on to stripping the firewall and cowl after removing all the wiring, windshield wiper system, steering column and pretty much everything under the dash. Will be smoothing the firewall a bit.

I'm eliminating the heat/AC under dash parts to save some weight. I'd removed the under hood part of the AC system and switched to heater functions only when I lived in New England but being in FL now there's no need for heat either so out it all goes!

I'm sooo tempted to leave the bottom in white, ya know, because race car!

[NOT A TA]

2nd gen F bodies are known for poor cowl drainage. They suffer more if the car sits out in the weather for extended periods without moving like mine did. Puddles form on the top of the cowl by the ends and GM made a nice place for a little pond to form inside the cowl right above the brake pedal. About 10 years ago I fixed the inside pond part and on the top I had cleaned what I could get to (with the fenders still on the car)and used rust converter followed by some bondo to fill pits and semi gloss black paint. Since the car doesn't get wet it's been fine but this time I can do a better repair since the fenders are off.

Although both ends on top of the cowl had pitting and some rust through the drivers side was worse due to the cowl tag holding water under it so I'm showing the repair on that side but I did make a similar panel for the pass side. Since they rust from the top down due to the puddling we're seeing the worst of it. Replacing the entire top of the cowl can be done however in this case I didn't feel it was justified. The center of the top of the cowl is in great condition and this is more of a track car that is street driven so strength and fire protection are my goals on the cowl/firewall area. I could cut and weld new metal in the ends but I felt this would be stronger and easier.

The top of the cowl had already been wire wheeled and the center section primed to prevent rust. The raised area around the fender mount was thin so I cut it out around the fender mount then wire wheeled the area to clean metal.



Made a pattern out of paper, transferred to sheet metal and started bending, hammer/dolly, etc. into shape. Made the raised area for the fender mount with a big impact socket and a die handle with a BFH. It's humid here in So FL so everything rusts as you can tell by the sheet metal. Not to worry though it gets cleaned up well on both sides before final install.







Once the panel is shaped the edges are finished and it gets cleaned. Then it gets marked where the soft areas are in the original panel and screwed into place staying out of the soft areas. Then the screws are removed.



Next a thin layer of panel bond is spread on the area where the panel will go. Bonding the panel onto the existing panel is much stronger than replacing the original metal with a single layer regardless of whether it was bonded or welded in place. The panel bond over such a wide area is stronger than mig or spot welding without the warping problems. For those who avoid panel bond because they don't want to buy the expensive double barrel caulk gun you can push the 2 parts out evenly (without a mixing tip on) with a piece of pipe if you remove the back of the label so you can evenly move the plungers so you have equal parts. Then mix like bondo and spread where you need it with a plastic bondo spreader.





Once the panel is in place install the fender mount bolt with wide washer on it and screw the panel on, then do a finger smear around the edges with the panel bond that squishes out which will seal it so no water can get under. Make sure the drain hole is open and that the panel bond will keep water from getting between the panels there also. Because the fender mount is high there's no need to have that bolt hole sheet metal sealed (and you do not want a washer bonded there!)unless you're gonna throw the car outside for 10-20 years.



Once the panel bond has set remove screws and fill the little screw holes with panel bond. A piece of tape underneath will keep it from dropping through till it sets. After the panel bond is fully cured (24 hours) sand the panel bond and apply a little plastic filler then sand. With the repaired area done prep the whole area surrounding the repair and prime. Before priming I used a large drift and a BFH to make some spot weld looking dimples along the cowl lip so it'd resemble the original part in the center.

[NOT A TA]

With no heat/AC anymore I want to close up the firewall openings to slow a fire should one ever occur in the engine compartment. So I made up a couple panels for the large openings, spot welded them in place, sealed edges with panel bond, and smoothed the larger area. Also made a small panel to cover some extra holes I'd made previously for wiring, gauge senders etc. .

[NOT A TA]

Prepped the underside and firewall areas with 320 grit paper and red Scotch Brite pads then shot it with PPG Delstar single stage acrylic enamel.

[NOT A TA]

While I was waiting for the paint to fully cure so I could mask it off to keep the daily dust from other projects off it I did the Adams Mod by modifying the front rear spring mounting pockets and installed spherical spring eye bushings.

A while back I had the opportunity to chat with Harry Quackenboss. While the name may not be familiar to many, he was one of the young engineers who worked with Herb Adams building the SCCA 64 Tempest Grey Ghost car and continued as Adams SCCA chassis engineer through the Firebird days then as chassis engineer on the Adams NASCAR team when they fielded a Pontiac Grand Am at Daytona. Harry then became Chief engineer at Delorean when John left GM and started the Delorean Motor Company. Anyway, I've digressed. I told Harry about my car sent pics and explained my plans for it. Including, (as some of you may have guessed) the Adams Mod (raising the front mounting hole for the of F body leaf springs) which he was involved in coming up with back in the day during the SCCA Trans Am series. I wanted to know if this was still considered a good idea and would it work well with a spherical front leaf spring which I'd considered. His answer was yes both work and they will work well together for my use of the car. So I thought what better recommendation could I possibly get? So that was my project this past week.

The Adams mod required windowing the spring pocket and the spherical bushing requires a little bigger window because the spring eye can pivot. I decided to reinforce the spring pocket by doubling/tripling up the sheet metal on the sides and across the rear by making some pieces I panel bonded to the pocket. I'll epoxy prime the pockets and paint red before installing in the car.

[NOT A TA]

I took the drivers door off a couple weeks ago and it's been raining so frequently here during our south FL rainy season that I haven't had time to set up my makeshift outdoor sandblast booth which usually allows me to reclaim about 1/2 the blast media. I really wanted to get the drivers door edges done and in primer so I just blasted it with some previously reclaimed media and accepted the loss to keep things moving along. Outside of door was sanded to bare metal previously like the rest of the body exterior. I don't use the blaster on large sheetmetal that might warp. Then I did some rust pit repair on the bottom of the door, stripped the door jambs, got both in primer & rehung the door just to get it out of my way.

[NOT A TA]

A while back I straightened & smoothed the fuel tank and once in epoxy primer I tucked it away. Normally I'm not a body color fuel tank kind of guy but I have a plan of using the fuel tank as the roof of the diffuser and if my plan works out hopefully it'll look pretty cool, if not I'll paint it black or tank tone. So I gave it a coat of high build primer, sanded smooth and shot it.

Since I've gotten carried away with the underside I figured I might as well make the rear spring pockets I modified look pretty too!