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I've been looking a while for a survivor black and gold 1984 TA to complement the fully custom pro-tour 1984 TA I've been building (link HERE). Last fall I found one listed for sale in Indiana on Facebook Marketplace.
The car is a t-top, LG4 with automatic. The interior is almost all stock. The radio has been replaced and the seats were redone in upholstery that looks nothing like the original. Mechanically the car was pretty much all original (except battery and exhaust) so I believe the 63K miles on the odometer are accurate. It has had one pretty well done repaint, but there were some blemishes. The ground effects and aftermarket lower stripes / hood decal were all different shades of gold and do not match the original color. The rear Trans Am lettering wasn't even installed in the correct location. Purchase price was $7K.
I just got the PHS VIN packet for this car. I've owned at least seven 83-84 Trans Ams and this is the first one I've had that was built at Van Nuys. Car was sold in Battle Creek, MI and had quite a few options.
Anyone have a picture of what the UU7 radio looks like?
This past spring we did a tune up on the car. Almost everything in the engine bay was original. We had to install new plugs, wires, rotor, battery, water pump, canister purge valve, shocks and struts. A friend of mine abandoned a 1987 TA build and sold me her brand new KYB shocks and struts for $400. We also fixed a broken A/C line and recharged the system. A/C works mint now. After all this I had another $1K invested.
Next I wanted to fix some smudges that were on the hood. I thought I could buff them out but no luck. I had my friend who painted my pro-tour car look at this one to see if he could fix it. He ended up looking over the whole car and found a bunch of small dings, scratches and other imperfections in the paint - like no paint in the hatch channel, overspray of the ground effects on the bottom of the car, etc... We decided to sand down the whole car and repaint it correctly.
The big issue I wasn't sure how to handle was how to have the ground effects and graphics be the correct gold color since the aftermarket reproductions are not accurate. My friend suggested we just paint all the ground effects and graphics. Only problem was we would need stencils to mask off the graphics and these aren't available anywhere. Being an architect, I used AutoCAD to draw all of the graphics using measurements I took from a 1984 TA parts car I have. It took a whole weekend, but I managed to draw everything up and then found a local vinyl shop to make the stencils for me. The gray areas are the stencil and the white areas will be painted gold.
Luckily I have an original 1984 Pontiac dealer brochure that contains paint chips. We were able to have Sherwin Williams scan and match the correct 55 Gold Metallic for the ground effects.
Next up was taping off all the graphics. Doing the gradient stripes took over 10 hours to lay out. That was really tough - tougher than we both thought!
Everything painted now. The lines don't 100% match the factory graphics, but I think it turned out great. Still need to do the hood - haven't started bodywork on that yet. I also have a spare set of N78 wheels that I'll be painting to match the ground effects as well.
While all this was going on I sent out my steering wheel, knee bolster, shifter handle and e-brake handle to get restored since this car was equipped with the NP5 Leather Appointment Group option.
That's all the updates I have for now. I'm hoping to get the car back around the end of the month and then I'll have to put all the interior back in.
Hi
May I ask where you sent the wheel?
I have one that could use recovering.
Thanks
Shawn
I would like to know, as well. I have a GTA 3-spoke that needs recovering, and your pieces look like they were done perfectly.
That car looks great! Love the painted graphics!
DR.K.
The guy who restored my pieces is Alex Babineau.
I got his information from another member here on TGO that had work done.
His email address is alexbabineau@gmail.com
He will send you a price sheet that outlines all of the different options for recovering.
The guy who restored my pieces is Alex Babineau.
I got his information from another member here on TGO that had work done.
His email address is alexbabineau@gmail.com
He will send you a price sheet that outlines all of the different options for recovering.
Been working on the underside of the car now since it's up on jackstands. We cleaned up the underside and repainted the floors. Now the exhaust looks just awful! After searching on TGO for info on stock looking exhaust pieces, I found this thread which was super helpful.
I just ordered a Walker 18375 SoundFX muffler, AP Exhaust mandrel bent tail pipes (X3000 and X3001) and a Walker 47638 intermediate pipe.
I bought some cast paint for the calipers and drums
Didn't like the look of the red KYBs so those got painted black too. Not the best picture, but now these don't stick out so much.
Wheels etched and ready for paint. These will be gold to match the ground effects
T-tops back on. Really sucks trying to line these and the door windows up. The door handles, lock cylinder and radio antenna base all got restored and are more of a flat / matte black finish
Hatch glass back in. Rear lip of the hatch now lines up perfect with the rear quarters. Cleaned up the tail lights and repainted the silver on the P O N T I A C lettering.
Wheels painted now. I had to put one on the car just to see how it would look.
Turning out awesome. We’ll be repainting the original center caps and lug nut caps so they look as good as the wheels. Starting work on the hood next.
Car still coming along. Went to help with the hood this past weekend. The stencil I had made worked great.
Need to install the hood and rear spoiler and then buff the whole car. Hoping to get it to my house in a couple weeks so I can start putting the interior back in. Running out of time before winter.
Hood back on the car now. In the homestretch doing buffing, polishing and then putting a ceramic coating on it.
Hope to have it back at my house next weekend and then need to put all the interior back in. Might have it all back together just in time to put it away for winter. Lol
Thanks for the kind words guys. I’m very humbled. This isn’t a perfect restoration but it’s the best me & my friend network can do. LOL.
It’s funny - I never really appreciated stock original cars until I got older. You just don’t see many original, unmodified cars anymore. They really stand out now. It’s kind of cool to restore a car back to original condition. It’s also a lot easier (and cheaper) than a custom build. I’ve always modified the cars I’ve owned. This car should be a really nice reliable driver since I haven’t messed with anything.
Went to check out the car this past weekend. It’s pretty much done. Had to swap out the windshield wiper arms cause they were bent and hit the hood. Luckily I had some spares laying around. Dropped the car off today to get the exhaust replaced. Should be able to bring it back home in a couple days - weather permitting.
My friend detailed the engine bay as best he could. We also replaced the washer and coolant bottles with new ones. Sometime in the future I’ll have to pull the engine and paint the engine bay. I didn’t want to deal with all that right now.
Here’s a couple shots the painter took. He said he has over 500 hours in this car. I couldn’t be happier. This thing looks awesome. I’m hoping to get the interior in soon and then take a bunch more pictures so I can change my insurance coverage to reflect all the upgrades.
Car is back at my house now. New exhaust pieces look good.
Started cleaning the inside hatch area today cause it was all dusty from having the interior out for 6 months. Everything looks pretty clean. Spare tire has never been used - still has all the little nubs on it. I thought about installing an inflatable spare I had laying around but decided to keep all the original parts with the car.
Only got one interior panel installed so far. It’s the one on the underside of the hatch. Had to clean two pieces to see which was better and then dig through all my stuff to find the hardware. This is going to take awhile.
Here’s a few pics of all my thirdgens together. They’re all 1984 Trans Ams. The red / orange one is the custom one I’ve been building for years. The faded black & gold one is an original L69 car that had a blown engine. I bought it for parts but can’t bring myself to rob stuff from it. I’ve just been using it as a reference car to put the other ones back together.
Got the carpet installed over the weekend. I bought this carpet 10 years ago so it has some creases in it. Only real noticeable spot is on the hump between the rear seats. I’m gonna use a steamer at some point to try & get them out. Took forever to get the carpet in. I didn’t want to cut the holes wrong so I cut a little at a time until it fit right. Also installed the middle console. We repainted it with SEM satin black. Looks good with the newly recovered knee bolster, e-brake and shifter handles. I need to find a way to put the missing overdrive text on the shifter plate.
Got the instrument cluster brightened up. I tried just installing new LEDs but the lighting looked more pink than orange. I ended up painting the inside of the cluster with fluorescent orange spray paint and it turned out great. There's some pics below, but you can check out this thread for more information.
Here’s a few pics of all my thirdgens together. They’re all 1984 Trans Ams. The red / orange one is the custom one I’ve been building for years. The faded black & gold one is an original L69 car that had a blown engine. I bought it for parts but can’t bring myself to rob stuff from it. I’ve just been using it as a reference car to put the other ones back together.
Very cool! I agree, the parts car looks too nice to part.
i first tried ordering replacement sub foam surround from Speakerworks.com but the product i needed was out of stock with no estimated restock date. the correct foam is SWK45
i ended up finding and ordering a similar product at Midwestspeakerrepair.com. it was product F4-10
DynoDave43's thread really helped walk through the steps for the refoam. it wasn't as hard as i thought it would be. one thing i found helpful was to use pencils to hold the cone up and glue the foam to the cone first. once that was dry i then glued the foam to the basket.
once everything was glued back into place, i recovered with new speaker grille cloth. i also replaced the fiberfill in the sub boxes with new non mouse pee stained fiberfill.
Nice job on those speakers. I would never do it, though.
I hear ya. I would’ve just bought new ones but I know this system is a mix match of 4ohm and 10ohm speakers. Didn’t know which is which. With my luck I’ll get everything installed and the factory UQ7 amp or dash switch won’t work.
Question on the hood decal. I'm noticing some of the decals not going over the end piece of the power bulge. Do you know why this is or if Phoenix Graphics just has it wrong?
Is the end piece you’re asking about the insert piece at the top of the hood?
If so, that piece didn’t have a decal on it from the factory
I just looked at your photo again. You are correct. At quick glance it looked as thought it was over the end piece as well. Thanks for the quick reply.
08-17-2020, 10:40 AM
