[lawless]

Sounds aggressive! Great work

 

[TransAmer99]

New shoes for Gray Ghost

BFG Radial TA's in 275-60-15 on 15 x 8 Chromed Rallye II's from Wheel Vintiques:

New Lug Nuts from Year One:

And some decisions to make regarding the valve stem caps. I have plain chrome caps on the stems now, but I also have these to choose from:

 

[cwi inspector]

I have the black ones with the birds on mine. They go great with my black paint and gold snowflakes. Just wish they made them with the gold birds. When I had the tires mounted and balanced on the snowflakes I also had them put the balancing weights on the backs of the wheels. They also threw in some chrome sleeves for the valve stems which made a world of difference with the valve stem caps.

 

[TransAmer99]

Same here, Bill - adheasive weights on the hoop of the rim, out of sight. No way I'd have clip-on weights on those chromed beauties. In the 2nd picture, you can see 3/4 oz. of weight at about the 2 o'clock position of the rim showing its backside. Overall, I am very impressed with the Wheel Vintiques quality. When they balanced the rim/tire combos, I ended up with 1/4 oz., 1/2 oz., 3/4 oz., and 1-1/4 oz. The heavy one originally indicated 3-1/2 oz, so the tire tech dismounted the tire to inspect it for flaws, then remounted it 180* opposite to split the difference.

I elected to go blackwall-out as that is what I've always done. Just never been a fan of raised white lettering on my own cars.

 

[cwi inspector]

It's all about personal taste Jim. I myself like the raised white letters on my TA but I don't think they would look right on my third gen camaro so it has blackwalls like it came from the factory.

 

[js292]

Very nice wheels

 

[TransAmer99]

Okay, class, what's wrong with these pictures?

LOL - 13 days and counting...

 

[txvintage]

A cloaking device. Excellent!

 

[cwi inspector]

WOW Grey Ghost is a real ghost!!!! She looks great. LOL

 

[TransAmer99]

A cloaking device. Excellent!

Note to Simon - I'd like you to get started on this right away, okay? That was great, Tony!

 

[TransAmer99]

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I have a lot to be thankful for. After almost two years to the day, Gray Ghost is finally back home where she belongs. There is a lot that is right and righteous about her but (there's always a "but", isn't there?) alas, she is not ready for show.

She arrived absolutely filthy on the outside and incomplete inside and under the hood. After thrashing on her for about 3 hours on the driveway yesterday, it became evident that she wasn't going to make the show.

18 months ago, I ordered a set of ProCar seats and brackets from Jegs and had them drop shipped to the shop. Instead of verifying the proper order, my builder stored them until just two days ago. It was then that he realized that Jegs sent 4th Gen brackets instead of the 2nd Gen ones I specifically told the jegs guy I needed and he agreed were available. So no installed seats. I got on the phone to Summit and told them what was up and that this was their opportunity to best Jegs. They have the correct parts and they should arrive on Monday. But the show ends Sunday.

Kevin sent over an ugly seat from one of his spare cars to bolt in to drive the car, the thought being that once in place we could remove it and just set the ProCar seats in place. But I knew that wouldn't be fooling anybody at the show.

The real deal killer, though, was that I don't have a shaker mounting base. Not sure what happened to my old one, but what arrived was a nice, shiney 403 base that won't clear the choke on my Pontiac quadrajet. So, the search begins for the right part. I also noticed that the aluminum Edlebrock intake places the QJ way forward on the engine when viewed from the hole in the hood. So I believe I'll be ordering a Crosswind or Tomahawk intake to fix that. Anyway, there was no way I'm about to drive the car with a brand new '72 Pontiac 400 across town with no functional air filter

The good news is that the underside is cleaned up, painted and detailed to the point that you could literally eat off of it. The engine is a little cold-natured until she gets warmed up, telling me that the choke isn't hooked up properly. Once she gets warmed up, she's a killer beast! And the 4-core aluminum radiator with electric fans ensures that she'll never run in the red, temperature-wise.

So, for those hoping to see Ghost at this year's AutoRama, I offer my apologies. The plan was simply too ambitious. LadyHawk is there, however, along with a nice display of some of my diecast. Stop by this weekend and check them out. And for those who can't wait till next year's AutoRama to see Ghost, drop me a PM and I'll invite you out to the house so you can see her here. Ought to have her roadworthy on a local basis in another week or two.

Finally, I'd like to offer a BIG SHOUTOUT to Ewin of E&A's Garage - one of our FBN site sponsors. The custom door panels look absolutely fantastic. As soon as I get the armrests and handles installed, along with the seats, I intend to do a photo layout of those as well. For those who don't know, I ordered a set of door panels from Erwin that would normally go in an '81 Pace Car with the red and black Recaro interior. But instead of the red map pockets, I ordered them with black to match the rest of my interior. The special embroidered Firebird logos on these panels just make the entire car!

 

[cwi inspector]

Jim I may have what you need for a shaker. I have a a base and shaker for a 4.9 that i'm not using if thats what your looking for.

 

[Brownie1981]

Just found this thread. Great mods and great looking car man! Sorry to hear you didn't make your deadline. Sucks!!!

 

[Formula71]

Sorry you didn't make the show, but from what I can see, the car looks great. I'm anxious to see your new door panels too.

 

[TransAmer99]

Seats are in! Well, almost. I have to take the passenger seat back out and modify the mounting tabs like I did on the driver's seat.

The Procar seats come with tabs that offer three mounting heights. Unfortunately, due to how low the mounts are on the floor of a 2nd Gen, you can only get it down to the middle setting. And, being a 6-footer, that left my head brushing against the T-top; an undesireable situation.

So, I (wishing I owned a cut-off wheel) got out my trusty hacksaw and cut down the tabs so I can access the lowest mounts on the driver's seat. Mission accomplished. It still sits higher than the factory seats, but at least I can live with them. If you want to do anything similar, I would not recommend these seats in a hardtop.

Passenger seat mounted using middle mounting slots:

Modifying the driver's seat prior to installation:

Base mocked in:

Driver's seat in place. Note how much lower it sits than the passenger seat:

 

[TransAmer99]

Making progress:

In case you're curious as to how this went together, let's deconstruct the assembly.

I began with both 14" and a 9-7/8" aftermarket air cleaner kits. I carefully cut the base of the 14" unit to accomodate the vent tube on the Quadrajet. Then I anchored it using the carb stud, filter, hat and nut from the 9-7/8" kit.

With this assembly secured, it is time to figure out how to mount the shaker. If you do it just right, you can use the rubber weatherstripping around the top edge of the shaker to mate tightly to the hood and keep it in place. The base of the 14" air cleaner kit just happens to fit perfectly into the bottom of the base, but that sits too low. Ideally, there should be something that both cushions the shaker and elevates it to the perfect height. My solution was to use some foam pipe insulation and give it some substance by running some 9/16" diameter rope throught the center of it.

Note how I also added a band of strip aluminum, pop-riveted and painted black to extend the lip under the shaker. It fits perfectly, as the top pictures show, and is easier to remove for servicing than having to unscrew the chrome ring that came from the factory. Not only that, but the engine will only draw cooler, denser air from the outside through the cut-outs I made previously in the shaker.

 

[jeffsy88]

Dont know how i missed this thread. grey ghost looks pretty darn amazing. how does it feel to have her almost finished!

 

[96TA]

Great progress, you are on the final stretch. Great fab work also..

 

[TransAmer99]

Special thanks to Erwin (Erwin78ta) of E&A's Garage - a sponsoring vendor here on FBN. I asked him for a set of door panels that were similar to the '81 Recaro Pace Car edition, but instead of the red map pockets, could they be done in all black to match the rest of Gray Ghost's interior. Here are the results - passenger side done. They come uncut, so the installer (me, in this case) has to make the cuts for the door handle, armrest upper screw and the remote mirror on the drivers side. Took me a while to screw in enough courage to slice into such a pristine panel, but my first effort turned out better than I could have hoped for.

 

[Erwin78ta]

Glad to see it is finally coming together. Excellent looking T/A.