Like removing the Jeep from the garage and putting the Trans Am back into prime position to start doing the bodywork on it.
Because its nice out. And the Jeep has remote start. Not that we need to warm it up to take the kids to school anymore... Not that the Jeep even moves from the driveway every day.
I’ve been borrowing my delivery van from work since my wife works from home 2-3 days a week. I’ll do a review of it someday, its a 2008 with a 3.3 and 195k on it.
This is its GOOD SIDE:
Anywho, since I have the room in the garage to Do Work now, I started by pulling apart the rear end out of the Esprit parts car that I’ve had sitting all winter. I was in a rush to get rid of the smaller lighter parts before it got too cold out, and now all that’s left are the biggest and heaviest. The rear axle/springs have been in the garage so it came first. The engine/trans/front subframe have been outside all winter. They’re next. Which is also where the van comes into play. I need it to transport the rusty old junk to the scrap pile at work. And it needs to FIT in the van (and be light enough to load) so its gotta come apart.
The right rear wheel was stuck when I bought it, we never got it freed up, which made loading and unloading a bear. I wish we had tried harder.
But first I popped the cover off and for sitting in a field for 20 years with 133k on the car, the fluid was pretty good. It had obviously been changed.
Sadly being an Espirt, it had just an open diff with probably 2.43 gears or some silly high ratio highway gears. I wasn’t able to read the stamping on the tube where Pontiac put them because rust. Not much value here, but I’m keeping the axles and carrier for parts JIC for my 3.23 Posi Trans Am rear.
The unstuck brake was mostly because someone had already dismantled it. No shoes to be found. I pulled this axle then went after the stuck side.
After some persuading with a couple pry bars on the backing plate, the drum came free of the shoes and the axle slid out. Like I said, we should have tried harder back in the day.
Axles out, I felt it was a good time to remove what was left of the leaf springs. Surprisingly, I didn’t have to cut any hardware off. The U-bolts and retaining/shock plate nuts came off without drama. But the springs refused to move from the channels they fit into on the axle saddles.
Out came the air hammer and chisels.
It made quite the mess, but success was had. Along with ringing ears. And annoyed neighbors. And today a sore everything. I’m getting too old for this...
Pulling the carrier was next, also with the help of some pry bars and some light persuading.
By now my garage reeks of old gear lube and rust, and I get to load all this scrap in the van tonight and attack this hunk of junk next.
Not sure if I want to make a coffee table, or try to see if its at all salvageable. I mena, it DOES RUN.... but its a gutless 301 that no one makes performance parts for so there’s no real reason to keep it or try to sell it as is.
Right?