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I previously posted about converting a 1983 trans am from RHD to LHD but have other concerns now that I have the carbon my possession.
Backstory:
My name is Troy, located in Victoria Australia, always loved Trans ams, especially the 1980 shape and the 1982-4 shape. I've recently come into possession of a 1983 black and gold TA-, payed $4000 for the car and about $1600 to get it transported to my house. I knew that it was going to need serious work, photos showed that but didn't show all the serious work needed - from a distance, it's awesome lol. Trying to work out if the car has the original transmission, the motor lines up with VIn but sure of the transmission. The rust on the other hand is... scary. Just wondering if I could get some advice on what some of you experts would do? I've uploaded a lot of photos.
Ultimately, I want to find out if it's an all original car and if it would be worth fixing up? Thank in advance!
Remember guys he's talking about Aussie Dollars not real Dollars. LOL
This car is scrap metal and it is barely that. Crushed into a cube and on a slow boat to China to be made into soup cans should be this car's next life.
You would have been better off in the beginning taking your $5,600.00 AUD and lighting it of fire. If you spend even 1 more dollar on this car other than having it hauled off for scrap you are dumber than a box of rocks.
I gotta agree with the others about the car itself. No way in Hell that thing is worth $5600. Not AUS, CDN, NZ, US, or any other. I can't see that it's salvageable with any kind of reasonable effort.
The transmission in the photo is yerbasic V8 700-4R. It appears to be missing its extension housing, valve body, and most of the servo. The ext hsg is unique to these cars; not easy to just come up with, MUCH less common than the ones for any other body type. Can't tell from the photos whether it's originally from that car or not Missing the exy hsg, I'd suspect, not. (not that it matters a wholehelluvalot). Plus, sitting around like that with no valve body, exposes the CRITICAL separator plate mating surface, to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. I'd be SHOCKED if that surface isn't already too dinged up to be useable.
We very often see stuff like this on this forum. "I just bought this [car, engine, part], what do I do now?" or, "Did I get a good deal?" WRONG QUESTION. Rather than that, the RIGHT question SHOULD HAVE been asked BEFORE buying it, and would have been "Should I buy this car? Why or why not? If so, what is an estimated reasonable price to pay for it?" Instead, you now have a pile of scrap rust and a much lighter wallet. I don't think there's a single soul on this forum that would have recommended paying more than about $300 AU for that heap if we'd seen those photos.
My advice is, try to send it back to the con artist or scammer you got it from, and get whatever money back you can (shipping obviously is not recoverable). IMO you got cheated and robbed. If you can't, and you're just stuck with it, sell whatever parts you can, for however much you can, and bin the remainder of the carcass.
That will need a decent body parts car to take sections from to salvage this -if floor and underbody are as bad as what is in the pics,it is junk...I have seen '69 camaros,57 chevys,chevelles,mustangs worse than subject car restored...
An incomplete trans. like that isn't anything that will take a car into "worth restoring." It is missimg so much, no one is building it unless they already have a perfectly good, compatible unit that cracked the bellhousing. The 7 might mean 1987, but if you're building a 700R4, just start with an (incompatible) 88-up unit.
And if you do forge ahead with the nuttiness of a 700R4, get an aftermarket torque arm set up that mounts it on the crossmember instead and bolt on a truck tailhousing instead.
Post some pics of the floors under the carpet and the foot wells. My gut is there will comparable rust in those areas. Anything is fixable with the money and skills. You're gonna need at least one of the two for this project.
I gotta admit, from the original pics I thought the entire car would be rotted to dust. Seein the recently added pics does give me some hope for you, if it isn't all rotted down under (pun intended) you may well be able to save it after all (Roof/A pillar donor from a scrap car perhaps). Still, your into professional body restoration territory, gonna be one Hell of a learning curve with this one
Last edited by OrangeBird; 08-31-2024 at 08:47 AM.
Reason: Edited to reflect the opinion of the most recent pics.
I have seen '69 camaros,57 chevys,chevelles,mustangs worse than subject car restored
So have I. When they were bought cheeeeep enough that buying those parts from Year One or whoever, and doing all that work, wouldn't have driven the cost of the finished project up to more than that of buying a really nice ready-to-roll car that didn't need all that in the first place.
AFAIK you can't go to ANY store and buy all those parts for our cars. That T-top bar for example, I don't think GM has had it in stock for over 30 years, and AFAIK there's no repops AT ALL. So, no matter what we've all seen done with a few other popular resto chassis, that doesn't apply here. We might as well include some conversation about how we've seen it snow in San Diego. That's just as relevant to the situation at hand. I hate to think what shipping all that stuff all the way to Oz would cost besides, even if it WAS available. The mind boggles.
That will need a decent body parts car to take sections from to salvage this
So, what this means is, to put this into effect, he now has to go out and buy a car that's not all EFFFFFFED UP like this one, cut it up, and reassemble the pieces onto ... ??? whatever is left of this one, that isn't bad. That process will therefore proceed something like this:
-
Find and buy perfectly good car, most likely paying Perfectly Good Car money for it
Carefully inspect this junky car to determine what can't be salvaged
Cut perfectly good car up to harvest all the pieces this one needs
Cut garbage parts off of this car
Graft parts harvested from destruction of perfectly good car onto however little is left of this one after step 4
Paint, interior work, build motor & trans, etc. this one (or install ones harvested from the perfectly good one)
Scrap all leftover remains from both cars
Drive off
Now, explain carefully what value is added by steps 2 - 6.
While ANYTHING "can be" salvaged and/or repaired given enough time, effort, parts & materials, and money, just because it "can be" doesn't automatically qualify doing it as A Good Idea; LET ALONE, The Best Idea, or Mandatory, or The Only Way, or anything else of the kind.
This car is ready to head to the Great Permanent Parking Lot In The Sky.
Last edited by sofakingdom; 08-30-2024 at 03:51 PM.
Hey everyone, thanks for the responses, I bought the car unseen - in hindsight, not a great move - the photos I was provided were not so great. The guy I bought the car off seemed genuine and stated that he was in the process of restoring it - stopped due to cancer - and that the A pillars were the biggest issue. Obviously this is a big lesson on my part, thinking about all the comments, it seems like it's plain and simply a ride off. The tricky part about getting these cars in AUS is that there isn't much around and what is, is not always great. Jumped the gun before doing my due diligence.
How can it look so nice in the picture on the rollback and like death warmed over from the top down pictures?
You got anymore pictures of the car yet?
From a distance it looks awesome, the rear of the car seems fine, it seems that the roof is the biggest issue by far. I had it delivered to my parents place as it's easier to work on there. I was there yesterday for the first time to view the car, started pulling things off. Once is states pulling off the seals, things got worse.
know anything about the underbody and floor yet? how are the doors? From where i sit, looked decent enough under hood: often strut towers are often rusted on road-salt victims along with rear wheel arches... cars exposed to coastal air can rust from top down from salty morning dew and fog while leaving the underside solid....
know anything about the underbody and floor yet? how are the doors? From where i sit, looked decent enough under hood: often strut towers are often rusted on road-salt victims along with rear wheel arches... cars exposed to coastal air can rust from top down from salty morning dew and fog while leaving the underside solid....
Thanks for the response, I've had a look under the car briefly, it seems okay, I'm in the process of removing all interior, the boot/hatch looks not bad, very minimal rust actually. The car was transported from Western Australia, a dry and hot part of Australia, not that it means much considering the condition. Once I have pulled it all apart I will post more photos.
Just wondering if I can get some support in regard to the transmission on determining if it is the original? Just in case I decide to go ahead with restoring it. I feel like I might need to create a new post.
I'd say transmission originality not important-T700s made after about 2/84 got several upgrades over the 82-83 versions including bigger 30 spline input shaft.Also #s matching only really matters with very original, very good condition special models-especially pre-1973 vehicles made before the "malaise era"(~1973-84) Early ,pre-84 t700s had a different appearance pan-ribbed or something,I don't know the exact details. 27 spline input shaft on earliest 700s too.
I think the crossfire cars only had the th200. I may be wrong though. I thought only the HO got the th700. I may be wrong. I've seen a bunch of crossfire cars and the all had 3 speeds.
do you have a shifter plate for you center console? Does it have 3 gears only 1, 2 and D or 1,2,3 and OD?
Maybe some photos looking up through the floors from underneath with a strong light in the interior.
The transmission thing is a dead horse at this point. No sense beating on it anymore. Although, might be worthwhile to sort out all those improperly installed parts (the ones laying in the cargo compartment) and see if any of its missing bits are there. (servo, ext housing, pan, valve body, etc.) That'll make it easier to sell, if it's at least all there.
And yes, originality to the car isn't going to be any kind of a factor in this matter.
Maybe some photos looking up through the floors from underneath with a strong light in the interior.
The transmission thing is a dead horse at this point. No sense beating on it anymore. Although, might be worthwhile to sort out all those improperly installed parts (the ones laying in the cargo compartment) and see if any of its missing bits are there. (servo, ext housing, pan, valve body, etc.) That'll make it easier to sell, if it's at least all there.
And yes, originality to the car isn't going to be any kind of a factor in this matter.
Thanks for the response, I'll be getting onto that shorty and send some photos, getting my dad to pull all the interior our to check the chassis.
The 700R4 here is a 1987. There was the early 1987 that used the Type 1 valve body. The later 1987 version used the type 2 valve body. If you are going to build a Heavy Duty transmission. Then you can use either version here. If you are wanting Street/Strip setup. It will need to be the later type 2 valve body. Otherwise everything internal is the same either way. Now, if you have the early type 1 valve body and want to build it as a Street/Strip setup. You will need a type 2 valve body from any 1988 and later 700R4 along with the separator plate. I hope this helps here.
I think the first thing you should do is strip out the entire interior, then go with it with a pick hammer thingy top and bottom and find all the rotten pieces and floors. That firewall looks like it might have been covered with something and looks sus...
.......then from there you can determine if this car is worth saving.
Don't think that's the original trans since it's a 700... per wikipedia
"he well-worn Borg-Warner 4-speed manual transmission came mated only to the 145 bhp LG4 305ci, while the Crossfire-injected LU5 305ci rated at 165 hp came with the TH-200c automatic 3-speed transmission."
The 700R4 here is a 1987. There was the early 1987 that used the Type 1 valve body. The later 1987 version used the type 2 valve body. If you are going to build a Heavy Duty transmission. Then you can use either version here. If you are wanting Street/Strip setup. It will need to be the later type 2 valve body. Otherwise everything internal is the same either way. Now, if you have the early type 1 valve body and want to build it as a Street/Strip setup. You will need a type 2 valve body from any 1988 and later 700R4 along with the separator plate. I hope this helps here.
I ended up finding another number on the gearbox related to the vin, doesn't look like it is the original. Thanks for the help.
I think the first thing you should do is strip out the entire interior, then go with it with a pick hammer thingy top and bottom and find all the rotten pieces and floors. That firewall looks like it might have been covered with something and looks sus...
.......then from there you can determine if this car is worth saving.
Don't think that's the original trans since it's a 700... per wikipedia
"he well-worn Borg-Warner 4-speed manual transmission came mated only to the 145 bhp LG4 305ci, while the Crossfire-injected LU5 305ci rated at 165 hp came with the TH-200c automatic 3-speed transmission."
Exactly, totally agree, I'm going to remove the carpet and interior this weekend to check.
08-30-2024, 03:22 AM
