Re: Wrecked 1970 TA on ebay
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I understand your point Steve. What parts on this car are different from a standard Firebird or Formula? Couldn't a guy find a dry 70 Firebird and use many of the parts off of it? Are Trans-Am parts that specific? I know the fenders have the cut outs but couldn't they be grafted from the original fenders? Is the core support different between a Trans-Am and standard Firebird? What about the quarters? Dash? It seems like a guy could find a nice original 70 Firebird and have most of the parts he needed since the Trans-Am specific stuff is there. Unfortunately, because of this Matt may be right. It could be a rebody waiting to happen. It just seems to me that door skins are not necessary if you can find clean doors, etc.
Jason
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Oh, yes a lot of parts are interchangable with a regular 70-72 Firebird but it's really hard to find a rust free example as a donor car. For example, the flat top radiator supports rusted from the battery being bolted to them and an overall poor design. The doors were unique so you have to find a 70-72 car with rust free doors which are really rare. The early second gen Firebirds and Camaros had a serious rust problem with the lower rear frame rails and it's really hard to find a car that does not have that problem, too. The dash pads are the same up to about 1975 so you have a larger hunting area there but they all cracked and warped, and it's really hard to find a nice unmolested one with the radio hole intact. These pads were one gigantic piece of vinyl that encompassed the entire front dash area from the windshield to the knee bolster area. Unfortunately the area where the radio goes was just another piece of unrepairable plastic and vinyl that everyone hacked out with a saw to install that high fidelity Kraco AM/FM/CB stereo back then.
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