1979 Trans Am

Fred32v · Post by **Fred32v** » Wed May 27, 2009 10:11 pm

Did you know that it's not possible to balance a tire with water in it?

MostMint · Post by **MostMint** » Wed May 27, 2009 10:23 pm

On a static balancer?

How much water are we talking about?

Fred32v · Post by **Fred32v** » Thu May 28, 2009 12:19 am

The Firestone store thought they couldn't balance the wheel because the center was loose and sent us to a different tire store in Chardon. The second tire store insisted there was water which they found after dimounting the tire. They removed two whiskey glasses of water. That tire was on four different electronic tire spinning machines. Each gave a different reading after each spin. I believe that the same thing would happen if you had it on a static balancer. It would be a rough ride.

wxo · Post by **wxo** » Thu May 28, 2009 6:03 am

Aren't these new tires? Where'd the water come from?

MostMint · Post by **MostMint** » Thu May 28, 2009 8:21 am

For a tatic balance, in theory the water would spread evenly across the bottom side of the tire and not affect the balancing.

I would still want the water out of there.

Basement Paul · Post by **Basement Paul** » Thu May 28, 2009 6:19 pm

Apparently the water came from either the sponge we used to soap up the tire when we mounted the rims, or from the tire machine when it blasted air into the tire to help set the bead.
I've had fix a flat do the same thing (I bought the car that way). It would never balance the same way twice...

-BP

Basement Paul · Post by **Basement Paul** » Sun May 31, 2009 10:22 pm

Last night 32v helped me get the trans mounted to the motor. Today I spent about seven solid hours in the garage working on putting this thing back together. Some bumps in the road include the larger than stock torque converter bolts which forced me to open up the holes slightly to accomodate. When trying to tighten the new converter, the converter mount was hitting the corner of the counterweight on the flywheel, so I had to grind that down too.
Since the tranny lines wouldn't come out of the trans, I had to cut the lines before removal, and I put compression fittings in for the next time.
I had the fuel return line to repair from all the rocking back and forth of the motor, it got damaged (it was pretty dry anyway).
The only things left to do are minor, and should be done this week with no problems. Hopefully there are no new issues after startup.

I think there's a Sunday race at TRP around the third week of June. I plan to be ready for that, if not sooner on a Wed or Sat.

-BP

Basement Paul · Post by **Basement Paul** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 9:28 pm

So I couldn't stand it sitting there so close to being done, so I went out and buttoned up the rest tonight. After putting in 9-10 quarts of fluid, and checking the fluid a bunch of times, it finally showed full.

So far, the car seems much more responsive, and revs a bit quicker, but still travels down the road without screaming or getting warm. I didn't try to launch it hard, but it stalls around 2100-2200 on the first try. I think if I rev it at the line to build up vacuum, then put it in gear, I might be able to get closer to 2500. The converter seems to break away to around 3000 instantly though.

I figure with the good tires, I'll be launching around 1500 and let it drive up into the converter off the line.

The only problem was one compression fitting started to drip just a little after the drive, so I'll tighten that up another day when it cools down.

The next things to do are to install the shift light, and change the line lock activator switch. After that, probably the switch to race seats.

Driving it again was great! It sounds so good, especially at full song... so far, it seems like it was worth the work.

-BP

Basement Paul · Post by **Basement Paul** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 9:43 pm

After further investigation, my compression fittings are fine. The leak appears to be from either the front of the pan or from somewhere under the inspection cover. After driving it tonight, I rechecked the fluid to find that it was way overfilled. So I'm thinking that it might have something to do with that. I don't know if draining it some would help. I'll probably start with that and go from there.

-BP

Basement Paul · Post by **Basement Paul** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 5:49 am

Turns out the front shaft seal was leaking from the bottom of the seal, not around the input shaft... pretty much needed replacing again.

So yesterday morning I tore it all apart, and 32v came over to help me stabilize the trans, change the seal, and put it all back together. After a normal "around the block" trip, the area that was once wet is now dry... YEAH! As insurance, we put a little RTV black on the outside of that seal before we put it in.

I have a strange squeak from the rearend area that increases with speed. We're blaming it on the rear u-joint, so I think next weekend we'll put new ones in the front and rear.

-BP

markss327 · Post by **markss327** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 6:17 am

... and the tinkering continues...

It'll all be worth it once she goes 12s.

Basement Paul · Post by **Basement Paul** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 9:27 pm

My goal is to cut the 12's in half. I believe this is a realistic number though. If I do that, all the BS will have been worth it.

-BP

Basement Paul · Post by **Basement Paul** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 9:15 pm

So I didn't like the switch I had hooked to my line lock which was basically rubber banded to my shifter shaft. This is the way the manufacturer designed it, and it sucked as it slid around and was hard to keep in place.
I bought a toggle switch from Advance and went to put it in tonight. I was looking for a good place to put it and the best place was where my power window switches were. My car has crank windows so these switches are redundant. Then a thought occured to me that I could make my old window switch, my line lock switch.

After about 20 minutes of screwing around, the "new" line lock switch is right back at home where it started it's life, now activating my burnout brake.
Now, what to do with the passenger's side switch???

-BP

MostMint · Post by **MostMint** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:50 pm

nitrous

Post by **TireSmoker** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:57 pm

Basement Paul wrote: Now, what to do with the passenger's side switch???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TTt-lwx ... re=related