Did some suspension upgrades recently. I installed a Lares 974 quick ratio steering box (2-1/2 turns). Got it from rockauto to replace the original 3+turn, over-boosted box. It also comes with the new steering coupler. It was a direct swap and uses the same original-style flare fittings for the hoses. It now has a very tight feel to the steering instead of the heavily-sedated original steering feel. It took several fluid bleedings over a week to get all the residual air bubbles out. One of the symptoms of air still present is reduced assist at idle. After a week or so the assist at idle is good again.

Today I swapped out the original 1" front sway bar and 9/16" rear sway bar for the WS-6 optional 1-1/4" front and 3/4" rear bars that I got of ebay for around $110 for the set. (Shipping was a killer though - that front bar sure is heavy!) I also installed new Prothane bushings as well. Total time for the sway bar swap was a leisurely 3 hours.


New Lares 974:

https://i599.photobucket.com/albums/...c/IMG_6551.jpg

Old 1" bar:

https://i599.photobucket.com/albums/...c/IMG_3032.jpg


New 1-1/4" sway bar:

https://i599.photobucket.com/albums/...c/IMG_6552.jpg

And the rear bars, comparison

9/16" bar:

https://i599.photobucket.com/albums/...c/IMG_6555.jpg

3/4" bar:

https://i599.photobucket.com/albums/...%20bar%202.jpg

Steve,

Any pics of your exhaust hangers for the muffler? I'm curious to see how yours was done. Took your advice...........RA manifolds and Pypes on the way.

Thanks,
Tim

I will take a look at the archive. Pypes themselves did the install in PA. They employed a hanger bracket that uses the factory slip-in rubber bushing at the top, near the gas tank hangers.

You can just barely see the edge of them but they are the u-shaped brackets that slip under the top exhaust clamp and also slide into the bulkhead rubber grommet bracket above the muffler. Pypes sells the brackets. I think they are an extra cost items not included in the kit. (of course)

Here's the old video of the sound:

https://youtu.be/ptAubfuN8N4

and the installation:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XsgWVUQ48s

This is such a cool car, Steve. Although I’d have gotten Phoenix Graphis to make you a custom shaker decal: 455 -NJS. See, you could drum up a story at cruise-ins to further confuse the masses and spread rumors! “Oh, this is a special order car limited to one per county sold in New Jersey only. See, there was this executive at Pontiac named Steve, and he lived in New Jersey. He had an idea to amass all these cool parts that weren’t available in 1975 and make a “what if” car. He forgot that the sales orders for 1975 didn’t include the ordering option for the 455-NJS and apparently, didn’t tell anybody that they were for sale. So the “What if?” answer to that question is, one. This one.”:biggthumpup:

Nice work on this!!!! Love the Shaker!!!:3gears:

Cheers:beers:
Dave

Thanks Dave!

It's fun to have a car that you can do whatever the heck you want to, to it and it doesn't hurt the value because it wasn't a valuable car to begin with (other than to our family).
I think this is the third or fourth iteration of this heirloom in the 45 years we've owned her.

Now if I could ever find a stable, dependable painter within a reasonable distance, I would love to have her repainted. The current paint is around 28 years old and could use a refresh. Or I could just send her down to you to paint, after you finish my purple 'Cuda.

Hmmm....I don’t know, Steve. Being highly accomplished, multi-award winning, and having the incredulous and unscrupulous industry reputation that I do, you may not want me to do the paint. At $7.95/hr, and a turn around time of a week (including delivery), I make Earl Scheib look like Foose!:worship:!

You coming to MCACN this year? :dunno:

Cheers:beers:
Dave

A week? What am I paying you for anyway? What the heck you gonna be doing the other 5 days you have the car? I am writing down the mileage, I'll have you know!

:haha::haha:3gears.gif

More tinkering since we are sitting around on cootievirus lockdown.

I decided to update the speedometer in Gramma's car.

In 1975 the Federal Government frowned on the blatant braggadocio of the automakers producing cars with speedometers that encouraged their drivers to irresponsibly drive 160 mph simply because their gauges encouraged them to.

So they made cars with 80 and 100 mph speedometers to appease the powers that be.

The 1974 and prior Trans AM speedos bolt right in place with no other parts needed. I had one sitting in my parts stash in the garage but made the mistake of trying to wipe the dust off the dial and proceeded to wipe the silkscreened ink off during the process AHHHHHHH!

I did some searching on the internets and found a guy in North Carolina - Daniel at GaugeMarks who sells the silkscreened dial numerals in a kit for Camaros and Trans Ams and other cars. He was willing to sell me just the speedometer face and it worked out great. He actually has a video on youtube which shows how easy it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKHmxl0Ljs0

Anyway, here is the bad dial after removal from the speedometer. I then wiped off the rest of the numbers with rubbing alcohol and painted the face with semigloss black. After that it was easy to place the new "decal" on the face and peel away the backing.

Another youtube video helped me set the spare speedometer's odometer to the exact number that the car has for mileage in its present speedometer. It took a few headscratching moments to understand, since most of the videos only show you how to wind it back to zero. But after several minutes of Rubiks cube wrassling I was able get it to 81,884. I then reassembled the whole thing. Next step is taking apart the dash to put it in.

Swapped out the speedometers today. Not too bad of a job, just tedious getting to the two speedo screws and unhooking the speedometer cable. To do it you gotta remove the lower dash panel, the A/C ducting, unbolt the inner reinforcement brackets for the dash, drop the column, before you can even attempt to remove the gauge woodgrain panel and its associated hardware. An hour of labor to do a one minute gauge swap from the pod.

Now it looks like a respectable pre-smog, top speed, gauge cluster. And as an added bonus, it even works and it's reading the same exact mileage on the odometer as before!