New DD: 2004 Pontiac GTO

[V]

Recently bought a NOS rack and pinion. Not 100% sure why though, lol. Kind of an impulse buy. In the past i've read how hard it is to find good racks for the car, and no longer available from GM(last dealer price was over 1k) and reman/rebuilds are 250-400 bucks. I paid 100 plus shipping.

[V]

Bumper arrived. Gonna send it out for paint towards the end of winter and I'll have the spoiler-delete trunk lid painted then too. The spring will be when I do the Monaro conversion.

[MDSheds_SS]

Nice pickup man!

[V]

Parts are back from paint. Trunk lid went on tonight along with genuine Holden vx taillights from Australia. Emblems on the back will go on tomorrow. Front bumper will go on sometime this long holiday weekend. I have to wet sand and polish the headlights and install the hids. The other conversion parts will be installed as soon as I can get to them.

[sweetbmxrider]

The front bumper will definitely make an impact. Looking good.

[V]

Exterior conversion will be complete tomorrow once I add the 1/4 panel badges and aim the headlights properly. Here is a pic on the initial rough test fit.

[Blackbirdws6]

Coming along nicely!

[V]

Only have the gauge cluster face, door sills, and engine cover left to install. Then I think the conversion is done.

[V]

Engine cover in the process of getting painted

[wretched73]

Car is turning out real nice, that blue is growing on me

[V]

Still slowly working on the car. Recently replaced the sagging stock rear springs with brand new pedders brand zero-drop springs as well as installed new rear shocks which were blown. Ordered and recieved a set of 4 new tires which I need to make an appointment to get them installed. Replaced a broken trim panel on the interior and swapped out the Pontiac sill plate logos for holden logos. I even got around to fixing the driver's window which broke off the track guide. Common issue. Passenger side got fixed shortly after I bought the car. Tonight I just finished up installing a k&n cai setup. Bought it used on ebay but seller didn't include one support bracket and the heat shield was all rusty. So after stripping, treating and painting the heat shield, replacing the gasket around the shield, and fabricating a new bracket, its all in and fits great.

Next jobs are to replace the hood struts, front radius rod bushings and front sway bar links. Then maybe I can look into some power upgrades. Heads/cam/bolt -ons like my old '01 SS is the idea but I'd like a freshened up short block if I go that far. And finding a good used ls1 block is tough.

Oh, and the engine cover came out nice. However the easiest way to mount it is to buy used brackets from ebay Australia which I haven't got around to yet.

[V]

Not much of an update but did get around to doing a few more small maintenance items.


I finally bought new tires for it, made a huge improvement at 58+mph. No more random vibrations. Due to the old rear suspension sagging so bad, the rear camber was horrible and half the rear tires were completely smooth. Made driving in the rain scary.
I also installed the new hood support struts so now it doesn't close on my head anymore.



Last night I started the install of the radius rod bushings, front sway bay end-links, and rear radius rod bushings. What a pain it was to get the one nut off the back of the radius rod. a 30mm nut rusted on and the nut itself is maybe 3/16" thick so socket kept popping off under load. Had to soak it with pblaster a few hours but finally got it off. Then I had to get the old bushing out of the control arm. After a while of hammering prying, cutting etc, it popped out and I had to then clean up the bore to fit the new bushings. So much surface rust. Oh well, I guess that what you get with a car that's lived most of its life by the jersey shore.

During disassembly, I noticed my tie rod end was shot, so I ordered a new pair which should get here next week which is fine.
Also had to order new rear 30mm nuts since they seem to be one time use, and even come with a locktite substance on them new. I then cleaned up all the rusty hardware that I have to reuse, mainly some big washers and a few small nuts. The actual radius rods were in pretty bad shape, paint peeling rusty etc, so I previously bought a used set in much better condition.


I daily drive the car about 50% of the time but the other 50% of the time I use a '05 honda odyssey that was given to us. This winter I was hoping to pull the GTOs LS1 and do a simple build but the closer it gets to the winter, the less likely it seems that I will have the time, so maybe I'll collect all the parts and do the build next winter.


I will say this... between working on my 2001 SS when I had it and this '04 GTO, The Camaro was so much more simple. Less stupid issues, less common faults. With this car, you can roll down a window, make a turn, and your door will swing wide open, that's always fun. Several times I actually thought if I should sell/part out the GTO and build/get something else, but so far I'm holding onto it.






Another quick update... Car will be apart in my garage until at least December. I need to clean/replace a bunch of the basic hardware on the front suspension and it turns out there's a nut that's in poor shape and seems to be a one time use deal. Trying to order a replacement was a pain. out of 3 places that advertise having it, 1 stated "out of stock/discontinued", so i ordered from the second, only to get a refund a week later with the only explanation being some small text under reason saying "discontinued". So I ordered from the final option. Got a phone call the next day saying he has 10 of the nuts, but they are in Australia until at least the end of November. So now I wait. The more stuff like this that happens (non-availability of basic parts) the more I'm going to want to part the car out and stick the drivetrain in my '88 GTA. The car is cool and unique, especially with the monaro conversion, but its just annoying now.

[V]

still waiting for two radius rod nuts.... the car is looking more and more like a good donor for my gta....




update. ETA for 2 nuts is early january.... anyone wanna buy a gto roller?

[V]

Radius Rod Nuts came in about 2 weeks ago. Haven't had time to put the suspension back together yet, maybe this week/weekend. Car is covered in dust, still on jack stands. Owning a obscure car is fun...... I wonder what the trade in value is....

[V]

So this....

[LS1ow]

Originally Posted by V

So this....

Jesus Christ.

[IROCZman15]

holy smokes! that is a major unlucky incident. Wow

[Blackbirdws6]

Ahhhhhhh

[sweetbmxrider]

Noooooo! I was enjoying this build! How bad?

[ThoR294]

oh no... dont leave us hanging what damage was done?

[V]

As of now, car is done.
Rear window, trunk lid, trunk filler panel are all damaged beyond repair.
Rear bumper is gouged and scraped so would probably need a new one.

Passenger 1/4 got dented down enough to pinch trunk lid and driver c pillar has a dent and some waves.
Rear seats got messed up from the glass and water.
Package tray also got all wet and ruined. 3rd brake light piece shattered.


All in all, I figure parts/repairs could range from 3k-6k. A lot depending on what parts I could actually still find and their cost. Rear glass alone could be 500+. Half the car would then need to be painted, so thats the big cost.


I only have liability auto insurance and home owners doesn't cover anything so no help from insurance.



The current decision seems to be a full part out. All the Holden Monaro parts would be sold as a package. Australian VX series taillights survived so that was somewhat of a relief. Then I would keep the LS1/T56 for my white '88 GTA. With the value of GTO parts, I should be able to make close to what I could sell the car as a whole pre-damage. This damage along with other issues or possible issues they car may have had is why a full part out and not a repair is the most reasonable choice.




Oh, and in the last picture you can see the passenger front seat is out of the car...

So when the tree broke the rear glass, there was a squirrel nest that ended up landing on the rear speaker. When I was clearing it off, a little squirrel appeared and ran down into the car. It was hiding under the seats and I couldn't get it out so I had to unbolt the seat completely and pull it out to finally get the rodent out. The next day, when I pulled the tarp off the car to clean it more, the squirrel was back in the car but ran out right away. I taped off the back window to keep anything else out and now the car is at my father-in-laws in his garage. So yea, interior being wet and having a nest basically in it doesn't smell too fresh. The squirrel was the final straw.

[V]

More pics

[wretched73]

Are you sure insurance won't cover? IIRC with my insurance there is a section that actually states damage from trees on my own property

[V]

I did call my insurance and asked. They said the tree removal was covered but not the car. Even if there was damage to the house, the deductible is 6grand since its wind related and the deductible is a percentage of the structure value. I will look again at the policy though and see if there is anything specific.



In the next few weeks, several trees will be getting removed from our property.

[wretched73]

Just fyi, the statement I'm referring to was in my car insurance. Good luck. That's a bum deal