| I have been
fixing a little bit of this and that. I parked the car back in 2005,
and it was hard to remember what was working and what needed attention.
I do remember when I drove it into my newly finished garage in February
2006, the front brakes jammed. I thought the master cylinder was the
culprit, and bought a new one made by Raybestos. Now was the time to
replace it. I started performing "bench bleeding" of the new master,
only to find the rear seal leaked. I took it apart and found a
misassembled lip seal. This was a factory-new part! I took that seal
from the old master cylinder and continued. Now it seems to work.
The other nuisance I could remember was the jammed driver's door window. The new window seals were so tight, so as I started cranking down the window, the glass stayed shut and came apart from the bottom channel. Now they are glued together with Sikaflex (polyurethane adhesive). So far so good! |
 The last time we made a long trip, summer 2005, I got fed up with road grime, sand and dirt building up on the gas cap. Also, gravel flying around the rear fenders was chipping off the paint. That's because there was no inner fender panels or gravel shields, whatever they call these. There actually should be one like this on the gas cap side, but the original piece that followed the car, was in bad condition. It wouldn't fit anymore either, as the previous owned had made some patch panels that didn't follow the original inner fender shape. So it was time to fabricate some shielding inside the rear fenders. I made them out of aluminum. As you can see, I was in a hurry and I got too freehand and casual with the bead roller - like I was drunk or something. Shame on me. Should have been more organized. I'm getting old and I'm losing attention to detail. |
 People keep mailing me and asking for more photos and detailed information regarding my rear suspension mods. Please enjoy. Here is a bracket for the original Buick sway bar, welded on the '89 Trans-Am rear. No, this is not the 9-bolt Aussie rearend, but a regular 10-bolt. The 9-bolt, made by Borg-Warner of Australia, is a stronger unit, but it's almost impossible to find parts for it. |
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| Above Left:
Here's the '89 Trans-Am
Trailing Arm, or lower control arm, as you wish. There's a front
mounting bracket
welded on the inside of the framerail. I had to open up the framerail
slightly to gain room and allow the trailing arm to swing freely. On
top of
the trailing arm, there's an Air Lift air sleeve. Above right: There
are small coil
springs above the axle, that work in concert with the sleeves. I can
actually drive the car on the coil springs alone, sleeves fully
dumped. In the future I will convert it to airbags only. |
 Here's another shot of the control arm, right side. |
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 Above and left: The Trans-Am Torque Arm mounts on a bracket that was welded on the Buick frame X-section. It originally mounts on the Trans-Am transmission tail. This is close enough. The rubber part, in which the arm slides in, came from the Trans-Am, too. |