"UNPIMP MY RIDE"
Welcome to a brand new theme, taking pimped up cars and un-pimping them. We take what others have done badly and redo it correctly. In this episode, we remove the chrome ghetto / J.C. Whitney "Ractive" exhaust tips from the Trans Am and tuck the exhaust up and under the rear bumper for a more factory look. Here are the before, during and after shots.
The chrome ghetto tips. I've hated them from the first instant I saw them.
They stuck out waaay too far from the bumper.
The "Ractive"
tips and the Flowmaster muffler. These were weld on tips. If they
had been bolt
on I would have taken them off the day I bought the car. Hell, if they had
been bolt on then the owner of Snappy Auctions would have come out of his office
to find these dullard accessories sitting in the empty spot where the TA was
parked.
Yeah, they stick out THAT far and they are coming OFF.
On the rack.
The Flowmaster muffler, part of the aftermarket cat-back system that one of the previous owners installed.
The last thing these ghetto tips are going to see before they clatter to the floor is the jagged sharp teeth of a Sawz-All. I'll have to get some new extensions to the pipes to redirect the spent gasses from under the car. The crew tells me that they can do some quick tips or take a little longer and grind them down and out like factory extensions. I tell them do it right.
Two minutes sawing time and the ghetto tips are gone forever. Good riddance. Visual appearance has just improved 50%.
While I was here, I thought I might show you a couple of her beauty marks. I don't know what used to be mounted here on the rear bumper but it has a strange triangular bolt pattern. One screw is still in the bumper and there are two holes in the bumper cover. The sticky stuff looks like where some kind of decal or plastic emblem used to be. Could it have been an emblem from the original Pontiac dealership that sold the car way back in 1986? When I get the rocker panels repainted, I'll see about getting the bumper painted as well. My body shop will fill in the holes like they were never there.
Here's the
other beauty mark, some kind of bruise on the paint of the bumper at the
passenger side rear corner.
I'll get that fixed as well with the other cosmetics so I'm not worried about
it. The only other beauty marks she has
includes a crack in the front driver's rocker panel extension (in front of the
left front wheel) and a single BB sized ding in the fender. I may get the local "Paintless Dent Removal" guy to
look at working that out for me.
Here's a custom support used to hold the cat-back system in place, on the passenger side, rear.
And here's one of the rattles under the car. A bolt shaft had torn off from its weld point at the cat. The crew at Jerry's welded this back together for me and spun a bolt on the rear of the thread. No more rattle. Thanks guys. A further inspection under the car found no leaks, no rust, no dents in the floor pan from jumping bridges and no more loose ends. Solid.
And this is how it should have looked, with a nut on the back. It did look that way, ten minutes later.
Paper
weights. I left them there. Maybe one of the younger kids would put
them on his truck or import.
I had no use for them, couldn't sell them and didn't want them taking up space
in my shop.
A profile shot showing the underneath of the TA, cat-back system and prior to installing the new custom ground tips. The gas tank and underbody need some repainting. I'll get this done when the car is repainted.
The new
custom ground tips prior to welding. They stick out about half as far as
the ghetto tips did.
When standing next to the car, you can't even see them they're tucked so far
under the bumper.
Welded in place. Good to go.