Pontiac Trans Am UK

Seems like I’ve neglected this blog a little bit, just like I have the car. The plan was to spend my spare time in April getting the Trans Am ready for it’s MOT and some leisure time during the summer, but I’ve been unexpectedly asked to leave the garage where I’m keeping it as soon as possible, which has lead to me trying to get it running this week. Picked up a new battery, but the terminals are the opposite way around to the current battery and the connector leads aren’t long enough for the new one. Will try and change it tomorrow. We got it connected up just to try it out though and the starter turned but the engine didn’t fire. Started getting the plugins out to clean them and inspect them, but one of them broke in my hand, so will have to get new ones now. Hopefully will be able to pick some up after work tomorrow and have another pop at getting it going.

TransformationRestorations is run by Jason Daugherty in Port Allegany, PA. They specialize in restoring old cars and in particular muscle cars like Trans Ams, they built one of the Fire Ams mentioned previously. By the looks of their website they are very dedicated towards involving the customer to the maximum and appear very flexible on the acquisition of parts and the involvement of other third parties. I’d recommend having a quick browse around their website and check out this 4 min slideshow.

After a long while, the trans am is finally tucked up in it’s own little garage. A good friend is letting me use a garage of his to store it before he starts a masterplan to transform the land it is on.

The garage itself is an old style garage, wide enough to easily walk down both sides and long enough for the bandit with about 15 inches to spare. It’s alarmed, secure and the yard itself has a barrier on it. Basically it’s going to be ideal for keeping it away from the elements and for working on it as needs be, it even has a pit!

Will try and get some pictures at the weekend.

Manuals arrived safe and sound today, both in nice enough condition. Had a quick glance through the Haynes one and it’s seems thorough enough, what I’ve come to expect from Haynes really.

The bandit has been starting reasonably well this week, but I still want to get a look at the starter and check it out.

Anybody reading this should check out this sweet video of a restored 1977 Trans Ams first test drive. A little short, but the sound of the engine, the background music and the drivers facial hair and ponytail make it essential viewing.

The bandit wouldn’t start yesterday, I’d just spent a couple of hours cleaning and polishing her with the new cleaning stuff I purchased, tried to fire her up and just got a clicking noise.

The previous owner mentioned he’d had a problem the day I picked it up, it hadn’t been started for four weeks and there was a problem with the starter motor. So, I had a quick browse around on the internet learning what I could about starter motors and what to do when they’re not working. In the end I simply rocked the front end of the car quite heavily hoping to unstick the drive gears, after that it cranked on the third try, fired on the fouth. Obviously it’s not a long term fix, but I’m learning along the way.

On a good note, I landed a couple of manuals on ebay, costing me £26.11 in total, a little cheaper than I would have had to pay on Amazon.

Update:I won another Haynes Manual on eBay, totally forgot about it to be honest, this one costing only £5.99 including postage. It’s well used, but that’s the way the should be. If it’s not used beyond the capacity for decent use, I’ll sell the as good as new one on.

A trip to Halfords on thursday night saw me purchase an outdoor cover and some cleaning equipment for the beast.

I’d looked around on the internet for car covers and found The Cover Company, who looked to provide quality products, but with prices upwards of £150, I decided to make do with a cheap one for now. They had two brands of cover at Halfords, but their own line only went up to Large, which wasn’t going to be big enough, thankfully the other line went up to XXL, which fits the length of the bandit neatly, but is a little slack on top. This cover cost me £64.99. I think eventually I’ll invest in a decent one, should keep it better in the long run.

We’ve got a bunch of car cleaning products in our garage, but I thought while I was there the bandit deserved new, so I got an Autoglym gift set, which came with shampoo, polish, glass cleaner, wheel cleaner, sponge and polishing cloth, all for £19.99. I also picked up a chamois leather cloth for £8.99.

I’ve been lucky enough in the last week to acquire a 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am and I aim to tell it’s story on this website, as well as create a decent resource for American Car enthusiasts in the UK.

I bought the car through an auction on eBay and would like to thank Paul the previous owner and Steve his mate for ensuring a nice easy transaction. I’ve never bought a car from eBay before, but if this time around was anything to go by I’d definitely do it again. The pictures from the auction can be found here here.

In all the car cost me £5000, plus I’ve had to fork out £1044 for a years insurance from MCE Insurance. Need to thank my parents for fronting me the cash until I get a loan sorted.

In the weeks to come I’ll be detailing everything I can about the car, I’d like to learn alot more about it and no doubt will be forced to at some stage. It seems to be running nicely at the minute, but the car is nearly 30 years old so will undoubtedly have some problems. I’m currently looking into finding a Haynes manual, at which point I’ll attempt to fix the climate control. I’m also looking for a cover for the car, even if my Mum’s car wasn’t in our garage, the bandit’s more than 18 inches too long to fit in. Ideally I’ll look to rent garage space somewhere locally, but this may prove hard to find.