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Every year the cars show gets bigger and the classes have more cars in them. If you have a muscle car you know the competition is stiff. The judges are looking for more detail to pick the best car in the class. Great paint and interior is not enough to win. We have come to expect the paint to be smooth and flat, the interior to be free of rips. Judges are looking deeper into the car to see how clean the engine compartment, or to see if the trunk finished. If you are the guy that wants to win the class every time, the entire car must be restored. What separates a car that sometimes wins, from the car that wins every time, is the underside. Looking under the car may be the last place the judges look, but if it is a close race, the underside will be the deciding factor.
For the true car nut it is more than what has been restored, but also how it is done. We can say lifting the body off and spraying over lines, cables, and hardware is restored but, you still won’t win the class. The restoration has to be above and beyond the last great car that won. When I am working on a project I ask my self "is this a first place car"? What will make it a first place car for years to come? Look out, there are hundreds of cars being worked on right now, and if yours is the best today, tomorrow another may take your spot.
In my mind there is only one way to do the restoration. Exactly the way the factory did it. Even if you do not intend to do a frame off you can learn some detail tricks that will bump your car up a notch from the rest. These concepts apply to all areas of the car. When the car came from the factory all the nuts and bolts were plated some sort of color (not Painted). Many parts that seem to be bare metal were actually gray phosphate. All the black was painted with a material that did not require primer. The black paint was all different shades of black since the parts came from different manufactures. The brake lines and cables had a tin coating to prevent rust. The bottom side of the car had body color over spray on the body only, not the frame. Every part installed on the car was double checked with a paint dab, chalk marking, or grease pencil mark. All parts installed on a car had to have a part number stamped on it, or a paper tag so the assembly line worker could identify it. Assemblies such as brake boosters, masters and power steering units had the option code on the part as well as the part number. When your car came down the assembly line all the options were installed by referencing the build sheet which had the code for each option. Next time you are passing your local new car dealership, stop in and look under a few cars. Of course the tags and marking will be different today but the method is the same. Your car had these same markings which are now covered with undercoating, and 30 years of road grime. If you live in the snow belt there is no chance of seeing the tags. When the paper got wet with salt and snow, not to mention rain, the label was destroyed. One concept has stayed constant in the hobby of restoration, as styles and fads come and go, putting a car back to 100% original never goes out of style or down in value.
When you are looking for a car to restore the old saying is true "You get what you pay for" and "pay now or pay later". If you save a few bucks and buy a car that has more rust you will pay more for the parts and labor to repair the rust. If you buy a car that is missing a lot of parts, once you buy all the missing parts, it will be equal to the price of the car that is not missing parts. When I am looking for a car to restore there are two factors to keep in mind. How clean is the car and what is missing? If you are doing a full restoration, bad paint or rips in the interior is not a concern, but what is under the paint is. You also have to look to make sure the expensive parts are all there. I will accept a car that does not have the original belts, hoses, clamps, floor mats, plug wires, etc. I will not accept when the air cleaner, bucket seats, center console, trunk jack, and other large items are missing. If these big items are missing there is much more missing, you just won’t spot it until you start the restoration. Always remember rusty cars are never show winners, even after being restored. You can’t get deep pits out of frames, springs, control arms, and plating looks bad when it is over pitted metal.
I have begun this restoration with a car out of California that was neglected its entire life. The good new is, not a belt, clamp, or hose was ever replaced and the car is not missing a single piece. Did didn’t run when I purchased it and had been sitting since 1983 under a car port. Let’s start the restoration on this a-body.
This is the car: a 1969 GTO Judge, 4 Speed, Ram Air III, hide-a-way headlights, with only the go fast options. Disc brakes, rally gauges, the Judge package and no horse power robbing options, NO A/C. It was not long before the car was coming apart. There was not even one broken or rounded off bolt on the entire car, since it was rust free. It came apart with no problems.
Taking pictures of how things are prior to taking a car apart is the most important step in the process. As good as we think we will remember, the pictures never forget. Here we see the routing of the lines and where the clips are located. Also note which direction the control arm bolts run.
In the above picture, we can start to see the color of some of the nuts and bolts. The control arm nuts and washers are silver. We see gray phosphate under the grease of the steering link and engine mounts. The color is always well preserved between parts and in deep dark crevices.
Every nut, bolt, and washer is photographed. A digital camera is the way to go so you can download the pictures to your computer for future reference. There are 600 disassembly photos.
A two part epoxy paint is used, which required no primer and is tough as nails when dry. It has a semi gloss finish not too shiny and not too dull right in the middle. Start from one end of the frame and finish at the other, repeat for all black parts.
Most of the cast parts were gray phosphate. The Palmetto kit which comes in black and gray was used. Bead blast the parts, mix the solution, heat to 225 degrees and drop in the parts. When the fizzing stops, lift out and spray with WD-40. The parts will look just like factory.
Pictured is the factory 2 part rotor being restored. Letting the WD-40 soak in it helps to preserve the finish. You can also wipe off the oil and spray Krylon matte clear to also preserve the finish. Now the rotor can be turned down so the flat surface is shiny again.
After a few hours of work, all the parts are ready to put the rear drums together. The brackets are gray phosphate, lug studs are black and the springs are all different colors. The rest of the hardware is both silver and gold zinc.
This is where the photos you took earlier come in handy. (What? You didn’t take any!?) The service manual is your next best choice but make sure you are using the right year manual, these parts may change from year to year.
While bead blasting, lightly dust the parts for any markings. I was surprised to find paint markings on many of the parts. The spindle had a yellow spray to distinguish it from the drum brake spindle. The Silver, Gold, and Black plating was reconditioned through Bob’s Boosters.
Inline Tube provided the exact reproduction brake lines and the correct spiral wrap parking brake cables. The rear end was to big to plate so we used three different brands of cast paint to tint the axles from the casting of the pumpkin. Clear was then applied to get a slight shine to it.
The frame was now starting to come together. Notice the tube fittings are purple and the fuel & return line are clipped together. It is important to duplicate these details.
The shock should be medium gray. Wheel cylinders, backing plates, and axles are all gray phosphate. The wheel studs are black and the face of the axle is painted silver because it is a machined surface.
Above is the finished disc brakes with the correct two part rotor turned down. Notice the caliper is black, but all the machined surfaces are painted silver. Correct brake hoses and tin coated lines. The ball joint has the correct rivets and are not bolted in. Line tags are available at Inline Tube.
Frame A-arms are black, the springs are cast, back of rims are gray. Notice the paint markings on the caliper. Marks are anywhere a factory worker tightened an important suspension component.
Coker tires and a grease pencil was used for the 70 mark. Gearbox cast with aluminum cover and black bolts. Correct power steering hose, line, and clips from Inline Tube. Anywhere there are multiple holes on the frame (engine mount) would be marked with a grease pencil so there was no mistake.
All the brake & fuel lines, parking brake cables, flex hoses, clips, cable hardware and line tags came from Inline Tube. Body mounts and rubber control arm bushings were from Kanter Auto Parts.
On a smaller scale we all can’t resist buying the model or diecast of our own car especially if it is in the right color. We all know a guy or a few that has gone over the top and buys anything that has the letters GTO or Trans am on it. After all these toy companies are making all this stuff for us grown adults not our kids and I too buy it. I can’t resist from the small hot wheels to the fully detailed diecast. We all deep down all have our own car shrine to our favorite.
This collection always includes paper work items such as dealer brochures, key chains, owner’s manuals, and can get pretty detailed to include a glove box full of items pertaining to your favorite car. Finding these items can be hard enough but once found they can be a treasure trove of information pertaining to your car. You could spend hours on one page learning and reading the facts or codes and when or if you ever go to sell the car it only increases the value. You see these boards at the car show or on the auction block and they make any car look more impressive to the next buyer. We are going to tell you what is out there where to get it and what useful information it has in it.
Pontiac Historical Services PHS – most of us Pontiac guys have heard of this one. This is the option sheet on your particular car. For a few bucks you can send in your vin number a packet will arrive in a few days with the option build sheet of your particular car. All information to build your car is on the sheet. It has the color of the exterior and interior of the car and lists all the options and the sales codes with the prices. The sheet includes the dealer ship the car was shipped to and the build date plus much more.
Shop Maintenance manuals – these manuals were used and available for sale at the dealership when your car was new. The first few pages explain how to decode your trim tag and give all the codes for optional engines, trans and rear ends. This book also has many detailed pictures and instructions to service and re-build different service components of your specific car. It also illustrates the assembly of much of the sheet metal of the car. These books are mostly reproduced and have hundreds of pages of maintenance type information.
Assembly manuals – were used on the assembly line when your car was built as reference to the line workers. They do not go into detail on the assemblies but do show how the assemblies are installed on the car. This book has very few instructions like the maintenance manual but is more of a set of drawings on how the car goes together. It is a large set of instructions of how your car went together in full detail showing every nut bolt and bracket. It is a great reference for any frame off restoration. It also has many charts and graphs that call out codes for engines, transmissions, axles, springs and other components or assemblies.
Inspector Guides – were used on the floor of the assembly plant to check over the cars before they went to the dealer. These booklets have pages of assembly codes, part numbers and quick reference material to make sure there were no mistakes made in the production line. The originals are extremely difficult to find but many are reproduced.
Build Sheets are the holy grail and the finger print of a particular car. There were several of these going down the line with the car and these also are packed full of option codes, assembly codes, color and vin information but are not always found. They could be under the gas tank, door panels, seats, carpet and in some cases not present or the car before or after on the line. Some plants considered them trash and did not want them left in the car.
Dealer brochures – are another great source of car specifications. They show the different models and options and usually in the back give specifications on different options and power trains complete with, horse power ratings and axle ratios. There may be many different brochures on a particular car some are the full versions and others are on a particular model. Many of these are now reproduced or the literature guys at the swap meet or eBay is another good place to find the originals.
Accessories brochures are much harder to find and not reproduced but were made for every year car and list every option with a description, picture, UPC and sales code. The captions tell you what models the option is available on and the factory pictures are a great reference. On the last pages it shows all the dealer installed accessories or add-ons.
Accessorizer Booklets were available to the dealership sales man and explain the options and groups of options that were available on a particular car. The sales man could quickly reference a option, look up the price and compare it to an option group. This little book also has all the sales & UPC codes just like on the PHS so you can look up the code on the PHS and get the full description. It also tells you what options will not be aloud together. These are all reproduced by Inline Tube.
Comparative pricing booklets – are another sales man selling tool. These books compare one make and model to another by options and price. So if you went to by a new 74 Firebird but were also looking at the Camaro the salesman could quickly look up the equal models and give you the advantages and disadvantage of each make. This handy tool has all the wheel bases, engine displacement, horse power, compression ratios and weights of equal cars from all the different manufacture. Many of these are reproduced by Inline Tube.
Glove box manuals give you maintenance schedules and operating procedures which tell you how to operate your new car. They are also filled with specifications and service replacement numbers. Not sure what spark plug number or which type of oil to use – it is all in the manual. It explains the operation of every knob on the dash and how to change a flat tire. Most cars came with additional pamphlets that are long gone. These explained special emissions or if you got a convertible how the top worked.
Dealer prep sheets were used on all gm cars as a final check list to make sure your new car was in perfect working order. There was a customer and dealer copy that was filled out and checked to make sure everything on the car was operational. These are available new from inline tube on the 68-72 models.
This is all the stuff that got thrown away the day you new car arrived home. Usually the dealer window sticker, spare keys envelope, dealer business cards, starting and break in instructions, protect-o-plate and other information cards did not last past the first owner. Most of these items are reproduced today to give your car the dealer fresh look.
Your window sticker can be reproduced – PHS now offers a service that with the vin a new window sticker can be made. This will only be made to how the car was new – so if any options were added or deleted the sticker will not reflect it. Spectators at car shows love to look at the final sticker price since it is hard to believe that these $3500.00 cars are worth so much more.
Odd Ball Stuff – this is the stuff that is specific to one dealership or a famous dealership. It can include membership cards, old magazine articles, and dealer key chains or even speed parts offered by that dealership. These can be found with lots of luck at local swap meets and car show or talking with other car owners that grew up in the area. Lots of people visited the dealers and new car auto shows and surprising still have some of the paperwork in a file cabinet.
Old magazines have the real story – at least the first hand info. There are plenty of old Hot Rod, Super Stock, Motor Trend and many other magazines that reported on the muscle cars when they were new. Just like today there are plenty of features and photos but unlike today all the photos are of the cars when they were brand new and the photos are a great restoration guide.
STORY BY Jason Scott / PHOTOGRAPHY BY Marc McGrew and John Kryta
After a torrid, one-year fling with this '75 Trans Am, the owner mysteriously parked it with just 9,000 miles on the odometer, never to drive it again.
It's been said that every car - like every person - has a story. Some stories are comedies. Some are tragedies. And some, like the one behind this 1975 Trans Am, are mysteries.
The bits we know of its past are few: The original owner purchased it on a whim - he had driven by the dealership one day and the car caught his eye. He pulled in, looked it over and bought the car on the spot, for no reason other than he wanted to buy a cool, new car.
For the next year, the owner drove the car nearly every day and racked up roughly 9,000 miles on the odometer. By all accounts, he seemed like he thoroughly enjoyed the car. Then, just as quickly as he became smitten with it, he suddenly lost interest, parked it (indoors), and never drove it again.
And there it sat for 30 years.
When the Kryta boys - John and James - found out about the car, they instantly recognized the car was a rolling showpiece of originality, since it had never had any major service work done, nor had it been butchered or modified by the original owner, who was apparently not much or a car guy.
The Kryta's purchased it, both to rescue it and to give themselves and others a chance to learn from it, because it's unlikely there's a more original '75 Trans Am anywhere in the world. "Nothing on the car has ever been touched," John Kryta pointed out. "The spare had never been out of the trunk, nor had the air cleaner ever been off. The original paint, original belts and hoses - never touched."
Ahhh, the stereotypical barn-find - an un-restored, untouched, original 1975 Trans Am with just 9,000 miles. Such finds are our best evidence of how cars were truly built at the factory - not just speculation and assumption.
Studying the bumper jack slots suggests the car was never jacked up - at least not with the original jack equipment. Again, note the door fitment: it's higher at the rear, as evidenced by both the gaps and the way the light cascades down the car's character line.
The more Kryta looked it over, the more amazing tidbits he discovered. For example, "the spare tire has a ton of inspection marks on it," he told us. And, "the cylinder head is stamped 'OK-5', but it's upside down." But then there are the mysteries and what the car tells us about GM's assembly processes back in the mid-'70s: "There isn't much paint on the engine, but the water neck and water pump has a lot of paint - maybe these pieces came from the manufacturer painted and then were bolted on and engine sprayed as a unit," Kryta speculated.
Cars like this seldom come along. Take your time to closely study the pictures on these pages, because each one tells volumes about what was - and wasn't - done at the factory at which this car was built, at the time it was built. Much of that info applies to other first-gen Firebirds, and even to other non-F-body Pontiacs, which were often constructed with similar processes.
It never hurts to keep in mind that exceptions were always possible and that different plants sometimes did things differently. Likewise, processes sometimes changed from one year to the next, or from one model to the next.
But in general, studying untouched originals is, perhaps, the best evidence we have of how our cars were originally built. And in that way, the fact that this car was mysteriously parked with so few miles may fortunately solve some mysteries surrounding others' cars - possible yours.\
Original cars are great for noting wire and hose routings. For example, cylinder #7's spark plug wire doesn't pass through the wire loom.
Interiors may seem like they have less to teach us, but we've seen all-original cars with mismatched window crank knobs, poor-fitting glove-box doors, off screws used to secure things, and even standard door panels on custom interior cars.
Placement and condition of decals and emblems can tell a lot, too. We've seen hood birds that were askew or had minor wrinkles, and we've seen cars with certain decals or emblems that were simply missing.
9,000 miles and 34 years didn't do much to diminish the brilliance of this Firebird emblem, but note the less-than-perfect coloring of the re portions, especially the tail and flame from the beak.
The engine compartment on this beauty revealed that the engine actually had very little paint on it, yet certain items - the water neck and water pump, in particular - had a lot of paint, suggesting that they were painted prior to installation and also received paint when the completed engine assembly was painted. Note the rusted fasteners everywhere and the semi-rusted hood hinges, which tells us they had poor protection against the elements, usually a thin, black-oxide coating, for these items.
Notice the lopsided application of the "400" engine callout decal. It's unclear how or why the rear edge of the decal is worn. Though hard to tell, the photo also shows the paint has a fair amount of "orange peel" - tiny pore in the surface.
Here you can see the paint overspray through the fender vent. Also not the uneven door-to-fender gap.
This is about as clean and perfect as a trunk can get. The spare had never even been out of the car, and was covered with inspection marks and stickers. The jacking equipment is as good as new - because it is, other than its age.
Areas like the underside of the deck lid are great reference points for original paint, because it's rarely faded by the sun or damaged from items being set on it. The jacking and stowage instruction decals show less-than-precise placement and plenty of wrinkles, too.
The interior looks as good as it was new - the back seat was never used and the seat belts never clicked together. It even has new car smell remaining as a feature.
The trunk is equally untouched. The spare has never touched the ground and from the impression in the trunk mat it was never out of the car until the day of the photo shoot. Original cars bring a history of the process of how these cars were put together. In the trunk we can see color of the sealer and the red primer put down first and the blue body overspray followed by the trunk paint. The fasteners and hardware is colored and plated. These are the details that are usually lost in an average restoration.
This type of car is the reference that future restorations are based from. The details are documented and the pictures remember better than the human mind. While there is some deteration in the engine compartment it is clear the color of the different parts. The master cylinder is black, the lid is gold and the booster is gold with green inspection marks. The vlave is bare steel and has light rust and the bracket that holds it to the booster is phosphate.
The story here is not how low the miles are or what the mystery is but rather all that can be learned by an untouched original car like this.
Seat Belts are one of those items that we assume are all the same but they are very car year specific and manufacture specific. Beginning in January of 1964, seat belts were required by federal law for the driver and front passengers. So the auto manufactures now began to offer vehicles with front seat belts standard and the rears could be added as an option. Starting in 1966 all production cars got front and rear belts. The standard seat belts usually had a black plastic buckle and the optional Custom or Deluxe seat belts had the chrome buckle and a better retractor system. Just about every year the belts changed with the model changes. The buckles style, button logo and the even the fabric belt webbing was different year after year. To add more confusion the belts were made by several manufactures; Irving, Robbins, General Safety, DAAL, Bay Trim and a few others. Some of these manufactures only made the deluxe belts others made the standard and some made both. Some manufactures produced belts for specific assembly plants. Each of the manufactures had many assembly lines under one roof so identification of the products was a must. This was done by the tag on the belt. This tag tells the part number, manufacture, model number and gives the date the belt was manufactured and the tag is specific to the year make, model and style of the belt. Each manufacture also stamped the web bracket that holds the belt to the floor with a 2 letter code and the buckles and chrome inserts are slightly different from each manufacture.
What all this means is that there is a lot to look at before you mix and match a set of seat belts to make them into a matching set. The material may not match and it is pretty hard to put together different date codes and have a matched set. The belt had a date code but so did the chrome buckle and the top cover. While many of the parts spanned more than one year the date code was specific. In this restoration we are putting tags on a complete set of 72 GTO seat belts to make them a matched set. In 72 there are fewer belts than the previous year since the front lap belt and shoulder belt hooked into the same buckle to eliminate one lap belt per side of the car. It is confusing some pictures and captions will go a long way.
These are tags off several different belts manufactures and dates. They are slightly different shapes and some are stitched at the top and bottom and others on the sides. The tags are also different colors and fabric types, the yellow tags are not faded or dirty with age like so many assume, they were always this mustard yellow. There are also grey tags and light blue along with the common white. Some manufactures used a fabric material and others had a tyvak material.
Over the years you can see the tags can become dirty, torn and stained. The black belt will clean up good with some soap and water but the tag will never come clean. The tags are very belt specific. Next to the GM is the part number of the belt, below this is the manufacture Hamill and below this is the model number of the belt and the big letters is the date code. This is the 11th month of 1972 or November of 1972 the C is the assembly line the belt was manufactured on. Some belts also have this additional tag that cross references the belt to other cars.
Our new tags cost $39.00 from Inline Tube and were made custom for this application with a specific date code and manufacture. It comes as a set and we specified the date code of May 1972. They have templates for many cars and all the different manufactures. If they have not made yours in the past just photo copy or email a picture of one of the old tags and it can be made custom.
The set also has instructions so you know which tag goes on what belt. From the factory the belts came as a matched pair that was latched together. So the lap belt was latched with the shoulder belt and the retractor belt was latched with the other lap belt, and all have the same model number. The tags also have the adhesive on the back so you can stick them then sew them on.
The new tag is placed in position using the old tag as a reference. We have two sets of belts we are working from. We are using the old belts as reference to the new belts. It is a good idea to take pictures of the belts before you take the tags off them. It is easy to mix up the tags and belts.
We lay all the belts out and stick each tag in place before we sew. It can be confusing where the tag goes and on which side and how far from the end of the belt. We again are using a second set of belts as a reference.
With the label stuck in place we are ready to go to the sewing machine. The adhesive on the back was there to hold the tag in place so it did not move around before it was permanently fastened to the belt.
Pay attention to the old tag so you know which direction to sew it on. Some tags were sewn vertically and others horizontally depending on the manufacture. There are a few extra tags in the set so you can practice before you work on the final piece.
This project can be done with any home sewing machine. We are using a jeans nettle and black button thread. This may be a great time to get your wife, that know how to sew, involved. There are not many projects that can bring you and your wife closer while working on your car.
Slip the belt through the machine then flip it and repeat. You can adjust the stitch length to match the factory original. I like to start the machine and feed at a constant speed so there is a consistent lead in and run past the tag a few inches so it is straight and even.
The thread is now cut at the edge of the belts and you can move on to the next belt.
Your finished belt should look like this. For more information on the different year belts and what the tags should look like Eric at White House Graphics has all the graphics and descriptions for 64-74 GTO’s in his GTO Illustrated Identification Guide.
