4
At this point I have done as much work to the body of the car as I can. The body shop will need to align the fenders, doors, hood, bumpers, and rear hatch exactly as I have done the best I can do. Also, I will have them put a clear coat sealer on the newly aquired 15" Turbo-Cast Aluminum Rims I bought off of ebay. Note that I said Turbo-Cast and NOT Turbo-Finned, the Turbo-Finned rims will not accept the "bowling ball"hubcaps that will be added later as I have not located them at this point. I've also asked the body shop to install the new T-Top weather-stripping kit I bought through Classic Industries. I have already replaced the weather-stripping around the doors, the outer door glass weather-stripping, and the weather-stripping for the rear hatch from Classic Industries.
However, before going to the body shop, the car goes to a couple of car shops as the car needs transmisson work done. The shifter is somewhat difficult to shift into gear, and I discovered this when I replaced the T-Handle shifter with the correct vertical push-button shifter from an '82 T/A. Also, when I did this I simply removed the pivot pin at the junkyard car, which allowed me to take the shifter arm as well as the shifter button and handle. I did this b/c the shifter arm on my '83 T/A would not accept the shifter button from the '82 T/A. So, to change the shifter in my car all I had to do was to remove the pivot pin holding the shifter arm in my car, and replace it with the shifter arm from the '82 T/A.
In addition, the car's tires will need to be re-aligned as I replaced the gas springs/struts with new Gabriel struts and I replaced the stock front and rear end links with new polyurethane front and rear end link kits. Also, the car's air conditioner is not working, and after pricing what it would cost to recharge this old system I'm having the shop upgrade the car to a current a/c system. The car's timing is a little off, so it too will be adjusted at the shop.
In the interim I've ordered several sheets of sound deadoning material from J.C. Whitney, and a sound deadoning kit from Classic Industries. In addition, I ordered a new Medium Doeskin molded carpet kit (for the front and rear hatch areas), Sail Panel/Sunvisor/T-top Headliner Covering kit in Doeskin, power window swtiches, power mirror remote switch bezel, and inner door glass weather-stripping (which is attached to the plastic trim that attaches to the door panels) from Classic Industries. I was also able to order an ABS plastic replacement headliner through a local car repair shop as the old headliner was worn out. As the door panels in the car were warped from having gotten damp over the years, and from general wear and tear, I decided to replace them as well. A friend of mine, Todd Graham, was selling ABS plastic replacement door panels (that would need to be covered), and I ordered a set of door panels from him.
Next, I cleaned all of the interior pieces with a mild soap (Dawn Dish Soap) and warm water and allowed them to dry. Then I sprayed all of the pieces with plastic prep that I bought from a local Car Quest Auto Parts store. I also had Car Quest look up the paint number for Doeskin Tan, but they were no longer able to get the products to mix it. So instead we went through their paint books and found a color as close to Doeskin as we could find and settled on DBI25230, of which I had them mix up a quart of paint. I also bought the necessary reducer as I applied the paint and reducer in a 50/50 ratio. I used a Preval Sprayer Gun, which I also bought at Car Quest (I have also seen them at Lowe's and Ace Hardware stores), to apply the paint to the pieces. I used a scrub brush to work the paint into the existing carpeting on the interior pieces.
Once I had this done I went around to several different salvage yards looking for a set of PMD (Pontiac Motor Divison) seats. It took a while but I found a pair in fairly good shape, but would need recovering as they had a good bit of wear and were black. So, I took my PMD seats, rear seats, the new door panels, and ABS plastic T-Top headliner and the T-Top recovering kit from Classic Industries to a local upholstery shop (Don's Trim Shop). While waiting on these and the car to be completed I set about looking for tan seatbelts and the "bowling ball" hubcaps to fit 15" inch rims. I managed to find these and won the auctions for them on ebay. I also bought two spare "bowling ball" hubcaps from an outfit on the west coast specializing in hubcaps.
After getting the car back from the body shop I was disappointed with the way they went about installing the T-Top weather-stripping as they did not use any adhesive. After consulting with Scott Edmondson on how to go about installing new T-Top weather-stripping I set out to re-install it. However, I first I had to remove the weather-stripping the shop just set in place, remove and clean the T-Top center guide, and scrape/clean the entire area the weather-stripping will go. Next I used several of tubes of 3M Black weather-stripping adhesive on the T-top center guide, reinstalled it, then used more adhesive to make sure I had it sealed down well. Then I used several more tubes of adhesive to go around and install the new T-Top weather stripping. I believe I used around a dozen tubes of adhesive on this project, but it was worth it because after I finished and put in the T-Tops no water leaked in. I did go back and adjust the T-Tops after they had set in place for two weeks or so to make sure that I kept a good seal.
