The New Project: Part Deux!

[njsteve]

I drove the Formula to Newark today to have a friend at a local bodyshop try to remove the acid rain waterspots from the 25 year old enamel paint. He was able to reduce the waterspots a great deal. In the end he had to gently colorsand and buff to get most of them out. You can still see a lot of them but they are not nearly as prominant as they were before. I am not really that concerned since I am eventually going to strip the car and get it repainted but it looks a lot nicer now.

And what do you know, I go to get on the on ramp to I-78 East at my exit this morning and what enters the highway a couple cars ahead of me?



I pulled along side and yes, it was a 1973 Cardinal Red SD455. I wasn't close enough to read the VIN but it sounded nice. We cruised alongside each other for about 4 miles, saluted each other, and then he went south on I-287.




Just when you think you have something unique on the road, someone has to immediately burst your bubble [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/grin.gif[/img]

[Xplantdad]

That's cool Steve~!

[njsteve]

To save some $$$ I signed up for the intro to bodywork course at the local poly-tech located at our high school. It's a night course and its filled with old guys who want to hang out and work on their cars in a nice shop environment. I am having quite the fun time. The teacher is a local body shop foreman and is happy to give advice, and supply extra dented fenders to practice on.

He said if you have a project, by all means bring it in. So last Tuesday evening I worked on the scale on the trunk floor. The poly-tech supplies all the materials and air tools to work with. They have a state of the art paint booth and even have a nice sandblasting cabinet.

It is well worth the $400 tuition fee for 12 weeks, every Tuesday night. The only rule is that you have to be able to get whatever you are working on, home at the end of the three hour class. So I drove the Firebird there, worked on it for three hours and headed home at the end of the night (covered in dust, of course).

So here is the trunk. As you may recall, I had previously derusted it and then painted POR15 on the now cleaned scaley spots. Here it is in mid sanding.

[njsteve]

Here's a neat piece of historical evidence I found:

There has been all sorts of arguments over the years that only GTOs got the &quot;455HO&quot; air cleaner decal in 1972.

Since my original owner photo shows the unrestored engine compartment with the decal plainly visible on the air cleaner, that of course caused the doubters to say that the owner must have put it on there.



That was until this Holy Grail/Smoking Gun document was uncovered in a recently found 1972 Assembly Manual. (1972 was the impossible year for locating assembly manuals as the UAW struck the Norwood Assembly Plant and killed the 1972 model year from April to September 1972. Very little assembly line info survived the strike).



Since the assembly line instruction sheet plainly states: &quot;Engine Designation Label: 455HO Except Trans Am&quot;, that would clearly indicate that the Formula 455HOs definitely came with the decal, since that was the only other F-Body to have that engine and use the Ram Air air cleaner assembly.