Marks Custom Kits is pleased to welcome the newest arrival of the custom team to grace the shop; a 1984 Pontiac Trans Am Convertible. This was a rare option done by only a couple of companies in the 1983/1984 year, and those companies have long gone out of business. This page will be dedicated to the arrival, the cleaning up and the subsequent professional customization of this rare vehicle into a replica of the 4th season convertible car from the tv show. The only thing it wont have is the "C" button to make the top come down on its own. Enjoy the page..... its going to be a fun project!
Some history of this car; it is a 1984 Trans Am, which started out as a red hard-top from the factory. The company to do the actual convertible conversion is not know, as no identifying labels have been found yet, only a production number on the door jam. This car has a High Output carb engine that MOVES. Plenty of power and you will not need to activate Super Pursuit to get through traffic.. It only has 57,000 miles on the clock and is still tight, but will be getting some part replacement as certain wear-type items are worn out such as ball joints, tie rods, etc.
DISASSEMBLY
Now that a previous project has been completed, we can now start tearing apart the convertible for its makeover. For those of us who own one of these rare cars, if you've never seen under the fiberglass and want to see what "magic" lies hidden, you will be shocked to see some of the things we found.
Before After
By todays standards, the fabrication of some of the parts is crude. In fact, almost all of the parts that make up the rear trunk section are just reused such as hard-top headliner sections, hard-top door rubber, and MASSIVE amounts of silicone caulking. And even with gallons of caulking, there was horrendous amounts of body rot and cancer from water seepage.
While the parts seem to fit good, there was obviously water that had been getting in under the fiberglass pieces. Bondo work was also found under some of the factory parts.
Here are some more shots if the car apart. All lower ground effects and sections have been removed and the bodyline will look like an 82 or 83 Trans Am.
SANDING AND PRIMING
The hard part of disassembly and corrective action is now over, and its time to begin the beautification process of getting the body and parts ready for primer and paint. While there was'nt much body work needed, it still had to be properly sanded down, slight dimples and door dings filled in, and imperfections fixed before any paint is shot.
When your working on 3 projects, The start of sanding old
it gets alittle cramped and crazy! paint and filler.
Still sanding and caressing Priming the patch areas first
And while priming is happening, the fabrication of the new 1 piece trunk tonneau cover is being worked on. Stay close, were getting ready to shoot the paint and clearcoat!!!
PAINTING
The painting was uneventful, and after looking at the car in its red/primer condition, was a relief to see it all one color again. Below are some action shots taken during the painting process.
This is what it looks like before This is the start of the process
Primer goes down first Then the start of the paint
Total coverage is done to make sure all nooks and crannies are done with sufficient paint coverage. Areas of non-paint are masked off to save the cleanup process.
Done. Now comes the part of wetsanding it out and then compounding and polishing it out to a mirror finish. We are not done yet, but getting closer!
SANDING AND FINISHING
Now That the hard part of painting is done, the fun job of wetsanding out the paint to prepare it for compound buffing starts. This is the part that gets any surface defects out prior to hitting it with a power buffer.
Fresh out of the paint booth, it even has a shine to it before any sanding and buffing is done to it.
This will be turning out like glass and will be a thrill to drive, if nothing more than a gloss black convertible in Florida summertime!
RE-ASSEMBLY
With almost all of the wetsanding and buffing done, its now time to start to put all the pieces back on the car to see how its going to look. And from the initial reaction of everyone who has driven by and stopped dead to look, its going to be a killer!
Then again, with 3 cars outside, one inside and one out front, its not too difficult to understand why someone would stop by to see what is going on!
The "look" is starting to come together.
Stay tuned, we are getting close to the end of this project, and its going to shine!
FINISHED PROJECT
Well, the project is done. And boy what a beauty. It looks like black gold! If you want to see how she turned out, follow the line of jaw dropped people......
aaaaa PAGE 2 ZZZZZ
CONVERTIBLE PARTS
Need replacement parts for your convertible that may have gotten damaged over the years? Tree fall on your Tonneau cover and need to replace your rear cap piece? No problem. See the For Sale page for information on convertible parts such as the red seats, original Pontiac rims, etc.
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