THE
RESTORATION BEGINS ... HONEST
_________________________________________________________________
September 14, 2012
Pictures of the TA as it (finally) is restored.
Here she is, with most f the parts ready
for transport. I felt a little like Vin Diesel in "xXx" when he had his
'Goat with all the high tech parts around it and
he grabbed the poor technician and pointed to all the parts and then back to his
GTO saying "I want all of THIS in THAT." That's exactly what I want.
Another shot of the TA with all the parts. The tan interior was pulled and the tan plastic pieces were replaced with black plastic pieces to give the interior a stronger "black and gold" color scheme. That's the new carpet on the rear aero wing and the new headliner on the roof. The rear seats are stacked on the hood and the passenger side Recaro is there in front.
16x8" original factory wheels, "5.0 LITER FI" was how Pontiac said "Tuned Port Injection" up until the later '80's when the same engine callout became used on the L03 5.0 liter TBI powered TAs and Formulas and the TPI powered Ponchos had bare engine callouts. I plan on replacing these callouts with custom "5.0 LITER TPI" callouts that a local graphics shop is putting together for me. A smaller "TUNED PORT INJECTION" decal, black letters on a clear background, is going to go on the rear in the lower tail-light strip and should make a nice contrast.
Another shot showing the TA covered in her guts.
A shot showing the barren interior. The factory radio quit working a while back (the cassette never worked, IIRC). I finally found another ETR radio on Ebay (after 6 years of searching) and it will be installed in the stock dash pod when the interior is put back together. I've got a new power antenna as well.. You can see the rip on the driver's side left bolster of the Recaro. Recaros are getting recovered as well in the original material.
Rear shot of the barren interior. The fuel tank is located up under that hump.
The replacement ETR radio purchased off Ebay.
The new black interior panels that are
going to replace the boring and sun bleached / desiccated original tan panels.
The contrast is going to be really nice and should complete the interior where
Pontiac got lazy and left off.
Thanks, John, for the parts and the opportunity to do business for these rare parts.