Tribute Trans Am Rear End Assembly

Today on muscle car all about rear ends from assembly and calibration to posse and peg legs. The Trans AM gets a power plant and a dry

oil system and a tricked out olds, Cutlass. W 31 finds its original owner.

Hey, welcome to muscle car. You may not even recognize this car. It's our 69 tribute trans AM

now I left here a month ago is looking pretty sad, but since then year one has put in over 300 hours. I'll tell you there's not much left of the original sheet metal on this thing. In fact, the only original panel is this fender right here and even it's been patched back together.

This car started out as what looked like a good condition. 400. It was even a pretty good driver. But after blowing it apart and having it blasted, the truth came out, rust on every panel. Gallons of fiberglass and Bondo.

This car looked like it was pieced together by a band of monkeys working by candlelight

since Brent and I have our hands full with red sled in the comet year one offered to take this poor bird under their wing Now, along with extensive rust repair, they also replaced a lot of sheet metal, they even dropped in the Subra connectors put in the rear tubs and they hooked us up with a trick set of adjustable hood hinges

and the whole car has been mocked up except for this rear end. Now, we want to make sure that these brackets and everything are gonna line up before we start a body work. So we're gonna set up this rear axle here. Next, we're starting with a brand new housing,

a gear set,

Eaton posse

and Moser axles. Now, all that was supplied by drivetrain specialists. Then Detroit speed stepped up and cut it to length and got all these brackets here mounted for us.

First, we're assembling the ring gear to the posi

unit for those noobs out there who don't understand what a posi

is, I'll stick around because we'll show you once this thing gets assembled.

But once the bolts are in, use a torque wrench to tighten them to 50 pounds

we've already pressed in the race so we can go ahead and drop in the opinion with a mock up bearing to check to de

how to do this.

We use opinion depth tool. Of course, we'll take a reading with no shims first,

then add shins to bring it up to the gear manufacturer's depth specs.

Next is the backlash set up, press the bearings onto the carrier unit,

then drop the assembly into the housing with no shims,

using the dial indicator,

measure the distance that moves away from the pin,

remove the pinion,

drop the carrier unit back in

and measure the total distance the carrier moves in the housing.

These two measurements tell us how thick the shin pack needs to be.

Now we can reassemble the axle with opinion carrier and shims. But without the crushed sleeve

with the dial indicator, we'll measure the backlash

it's within specs. So the caps can go on.

It's time to check the contact pattern on our teeth to do that. We're going to use some of the paint supplied in the kit. We're gonna apply that on the teeth, spin the carrier around and see where we're at.

The contact patch should be in the center of the tooth.

If this isn't right, you'll get that annoying gear wine. This looks good. So we'll go ahead and tear it apart one more time so we can put the crush sleeve between the pin bearings

with the mockup bearing out of the way we can press in the real bearing

time to put it all back together one last time, a

drop in the assembled pinion

tap in the other bearing

the seal

and then the yo

tighten the yoke with an impact until you feel a drag on the pinion,

then measure the rotational load using an inch pound torque wrench. We're looking for about 20 pounds with a consistent reading throughout the rotation

with the pinion rotation set, we can drop the carrier and shims back in and tighten the caps to 50 to 60 pounds.

I checked our backlash and our tooth pattern one more time and we're looking killer and that means we can stab in our axles here and finally button this thing up. Now, if you notice on our axles, there's no indent for a sea cliff. Why not? Because we ain't using them. What we are gonna use is a Ford nine in style retainer. Now, this eliminates the sea cliffs because they can come loose and when they come loose, you can lose your axle and these are a whole lot safer.

Yeah,

these retainers not only hold the axles in, they also serve as mounts for the brake calipers.

I said earlier that I was gonna explain to some of you younger guys what a posse is since we still have the original 10 bolt out of a firebird laying around. Figured a side by side comparison is gonna be our best bet.

Now, this style carrier is referred to as an open differential.

That's because at any given time, power is only getting sent to one wheel. Now, other terms for this rear end are one leger or peg leg or my personal favorite weak. Now, why do they use it?

Well, it is smooth and quiet and it works awesome for your daily commute. But if you ever try to put some serious power to it, you're either going to blow the spider gears out of it or you'll end up with one wheel going up in smoke. Now, the rear

we just assembled as a posi

traction unit or posi

for short, what it does is it ties both the wheels together with P and eliminates all the spider gears that way it can hold up to gobs of power. Now, since both the wheels are getting equal amounts of power, you get way better traction and the potential for a lot better acceleration.

Not to mention the fact, burnouts are way cooler with a posse.

Now stick around because when we come back, we're gonna start mocking up the rear end on a Firebird.

Hey, once we finish getting our bars hooked up, we'll get our rear end put into place and start building our mounts for our coil overs.

We attach the arms to the car before jacking up the rear end. So all we need to do is bolt them into place on the housing.

Uh, rear end hauser was delivered with the lower amounts for coil overs. The upper one. It's a different story. We're gonna have to figure something out.

Hey, Brent,

what do you think, man?

We definitely can

10 to that sheet metal

right

there. No, I just ripped that right out. What do you think if we take a brace and run it from this edge and kind of arc it up and over we can do it on both sides and actually box that whole thing in,

drop a hole through it and run a bolt through it

and anchor it. Can that be strong enough?

Yeah, I think it would be.

Did not always swear it should have been.

These mounts are supporting the entire back of the car. So we'd rather overbuild them than take any chances. Now, these were cut out of eight inch plate. I'm mocking up the assembly before putting them in place to make sure the spacing between the plates is correct

before welding them in place. I'll double check the angle to make sure the coil overs are vertical.

Now, once the world's cooled down, we can mount the coil overs and mark one more thing off our list.

Our one off wheels haven't arrived yet. So we'll put these on for rollers.

Now, this isn't just your average run of the mill restoration. There's a lot of one off parts involved here. And since we don't wanna have to make changes. Once we start the body work, we're putting the drive train in. Now, the weight of this thing can change your body panel alignment. And since it's an LS Seven,

that means it runs a dry, simple oil system and a breather and that means something is gonna have to get cut.

The training going behind this LS

seven is TCI S Super Street fighter.

It's an ultra tough version of the 4060 E designed to handle up to 600 horses. It can be driven as an automatic or manually shifted so you could bang through the gears with no lag time.

We're also dropping in a radiator from B cool. So we can make sure the dry, some tank will clear.

Now, every Ls Seven runs a dry sump system that not only increases oil capacity, but it also cuts down on oil aeration and frees up horsepower. That's two gallon tank here from Peterson. Well, this needs to find a home somewhere underneath the hood since the battery is migrating to the trunk. It's going to take up that real estate.

We got a breather over here also that needs to be mounted and this has to be higher than the tank. That way, oil doesn't accumulate inside

the outlet on the tank also needs to be higher than the inlet on the engine so that the oil drains back to the pump. We found a good place to put

it, but there's some sheet metal on the way. No problem.

Well, we thought it looked pretty good until we realized it was hitting the bottom of the fender

so we can make some more room.

We're patching it back in to keep the area sealed off from dirt and debris.

Right on, man. It's looking good. Yeah, I don't think this looks too bad.

You need to put us a little plate or something here to mount this bracket to though. Maybe box this in a little bit and get some support and

it

in. Cool. That'll work well. Hey, while we fat up some brackets over here, you guys can go fab yourself up a sandwich but don't go too far because we're gonna be finishing up this dry sump system later in the show.

Yes.

Up next. A solid gold olds with all the options.

Today's flashback. A 1970 olds Cutlass W 31

ever wish you could get back that car you had in your youth

and not just one that looked like it but the exact same car.

Well, that's what happened to Bill Bagot in his 1970 olds. Cutlass W 31.

Well, I always liked those mobile. I had a used

uh 68 and I always liked the A body style

and this 70 model came out with the fiberglass hood and all the amenities it had. I fell in love with it

as a college student back in 1970. Bill bought this car new off the lot and spared no expense tricking it out.

I wanted a nice car, you know that uh looked good run good. Bill started with a cutlass s and added the W 31 package

which included a fiberglass hood with twin scoops and chrome twist locks, racing stripes down the side and on the hood and a 325 horsepower 350 V8 with Ram Air Induction.

He also added a month in close ratio, four speed with a hears competition shifter rocket rally pack gauges with a Tik Tok tack, a

sports steering wheel and to top it all off an eight track player.

Nothing like a little solid gold to match that factory color the nugget gold. The salesman at the place where I got the car, he

had some final parting words for me. He said, son,

you better aim that cannon before you're fired.

That firepower came from the W 31 engine which had a large bore and a short stroke with 10.5 to 1 compression

heads equipped with a two inch intake and an inch and five eights exhaust valve plus a high overlap. Cam this small block really built a big power.

I had it on the strip a few times when it was new, always had good success with it. It usually won its class wherever I put it. But soon Bill had to hang up his racing helmet after my wife and I married for four years later, along came baby girl.

We brought her home from the hospital in it and we figured, you know, this is not exactly the car that we would wanna have in raising a family. So in 1981

we sold it

for peanuts. $2500.20 years passed. And the car went through several owners as well as receiving a total restoration by Richard Kitzmiller in Prairie Village, Kansas.

Then one night in 2001, bill got an unexpected phone call,

lo and behold, it was a guy that owned the car

some five owners later. So

he, uh, told me that, uh, he was coming to Nashville to Cool Springs, Galleria.

When I saw it again, I wanted to kick myself forever saddling it to begin with. The car looked just as it did when it rolled off the lot except the rear spoiler had been added. One of the few options. Bill didn't get back in 1970.

Bill managed to buy the car back from the owner a few months later. Boy, is he glad he did? Turns out this is one of only 74 still known to exist. If you're ever able to get your car back you had when you were growing up, take good care of it. Don't abuse it like you did when you were young. You'll always be happy that you did.

Our muscle car builders try to find the missing piece of a plumbing puzzle without showing plumber's crack.

Hey, welcome back. We got a dry some tank mounted. Now, all we need to do is get our breather mounted and then run all the lines. But we got a slight problem. I can't get at the backside of the firewall. But I got a solution for you gonna show you a little trick here. Rib nuts.

So what's a riv nut? There's threaded inserts also known as poly nuts. They make for an easy install in places where you can only access the front of the sheet metal.

All you have to do is drill a hole,

then use a thread setter tool to insert the sleeve. The sleeve gets crushed into place and threaded at the same time,

a couple of these babies and the breather is good to go

with everything else in place. The lines can go in. We're using massive dash 12 lines to go from the tank to the breather and for the oil return from the engine to the tank by running them over the wheel. Well, they'll be hidden from view, keeping a clean look in the engine bay.

One of these 2-6 outlets would go to an air cleaner if this was a factory set up, but we don't need it. So it's going to get capped. The other one runs the P CV valve

last up is one more dash 12 line from the tank to the inlet on the engine right next to the outlet. We ran, going back to the tank,

air inductions up next. The fans are going in first. So we know how much room we'll have to run the duct work.

Well, we got a lot to work with here and a spectral performance makes just about anything you'd need to customize your air induction.

Uh We're not really sure what all here we're gonna be using, but one thing I do know that we need to find a place for this mass airflow sensor as for the rest of it time to figure it out.

After trying dozens of different combinations, we finally found one that works. Now, we could have put this whole thing together using the silicone couplers, but Brent had a cool idea. He tig welded it all together and made it all nice and smooth.

Now, we still have a lot of work left to do on our tribute Trans Am. So we're gonna keep wrenching and thrashing. So until next time we're out of here.