Trans Am Stereo Install

Today on muscle car, get ready to rock from high powered amps to fiberglass fabrication. We'll show you how a custom entertainment system is installed. Take a ride in AM C's red, white and blue beast known as the machine

and turn your old seats from ragged to righteous for just a few blocks.

And

you know, dude, there's a few things in life is cool. Cruising with the top down and listen to some tunes.

Yeah. One thing to have a nice car,

you gotta have an awesome stereo

through that,

you know, Richard, I've installed a few stereos in my day.

This really wasn't my thing.

Yeah, the Trans Am. That thing needs a system as cool as the rest of the car. But we got just the guy to show us how full on custom audio video system is installed. Check out what he's got going. I want you to meet a good buddy of mine, Nate Larson from California, Nate Brent. Brent. Nate. Great to meet you too. He's been doing installs for me for, what, 1012 years now, pretty close to that.

A lot of cars. Yeah, a lot of cars over the years. Man. How's your shop doing? Anyway, it's doing great. I'm in a store called Audio Tuners in Sonora, California

do a lot of custom, uh, high end vehicles just like this. Rare. Yeah, very cool. I know about every time I'm in there you either got cool street rods or hot rods or something going on in there. What do you got planned for this one? Um, we're gonna be doing a full wiring on the vehicle. Sound deadening and a super sweet system to match the rest of the car. Cool. Right on. See what you got going. Let me check it out.

Well, here's what we got for you guys.

We got an alpine AM FM CD DVD, full IPOD controls, navigation brains,

two amplifiers from Boston acoustics, four channel AMP to run the highs and a base amplifier,

two channel subwoofers to pump the base in the trunk

and then the front doors should be custom molding in a pair of uh 6.5 inch components

and the rear. We put in a set of five and a quarter components in the rear. Cool,

nice. Where do we start?

Well, let's get this car quieted down. Let's get some

dima installed. Cool. Let's do it.

The coolest stereo in the world isn't going to impress anybody if it makes your car rattle like a coffee can full of marbles, which is the reason for this Dyn Matins

putting in.

It's pretty important to make sure the drain holes aren't plugged up, you know, just in case

going the extra mile and putting it inside the door panels as one of those little things that makes the difference between a car being nice or awesome.

Once our fuse box finds a home on the firewall, we can start running the wires that'll make this baby talk to us.

Big sound means big power moving all through our Trans AM and to carry big power, you need big wires and lots of them. Nate's keeping them in check with some more dynamite and a few zip ties

with the wires hooking up in the middle. The brain box for the navigation system can be plugged in

and the antenna, it gets a home in the corner of the,

I

just wanted to give all your six

F body owners a heads up Detroit speed and engineering has figured out a way to mount a late model wiper motor into your first gen F body using their motor and their wiring kit. You actually get seven different settings out of this thing. That's five delays and two wiper speeds and a bolt. Right in

this conversion can also be used to modernize the wipers on a 69 to 72 Nova. So a few raindrops on your glass won't warrant a mental meltdown

with that in. We can load up another piece of sheet metal, namely the cow. All it takes is a few shims and a little love to make it look right at home.

Mhm.

Now, we do have the new wiper arms for it, but since, I don't know where this motor is in its cycles, so we've never had power to it. I'm not gonna put them on until after we run it completely through. I know it's in the down position that way when we turn them on for the first time they're not gonna get drug across our brand new cowl.

Hey, man, I gotta take a break from that wire and it's driving me nuts. Yes.

What are you doing? Kind of boring.

Uh We're even putting these speakers right here in the door, but instead of just cutting a hole and just dropping it down in there,

I'm gonna use some, uh, materials and do something a little custom to make it look pretty cool over here in the door and flush the speakers right in. So they sit smooth right with the upholstery and everything after we're all done. Right.

So how do you do that?

I made a ring out of half inch MD F. Since the door panel is going to be upholstered in vinyl, we have to account for the thickness of the material that the door panels can be wrapped in.

So using double sided tape, I've wrapped it around there twice to make the exact size of the ring for the speaker to be mounted into.

Ok. So I understand what you're saying. But what I don't understand is how do we actually end up with a flush mount speaker? I'm gonna take a piece of one inch A BS plastic. I'm gonna heat it and staple it around this.

When it's all done. We'll have a ring and the speaker

we basically drop right in the place and it'll sit flush right in the panel just like that. Oh, that's pretty cool. Right

on, dude.

Well, you're on it. I had to get back to wiring. Thanks. Have fun.

This ring made of MD F wood lets the speaker sit flush inside the door panel,

heating the A BS makes it a lot easier to work with and it won't fight against the staples.

This is the part where you need to break some eggs to make the omelet. So Nate's gonna make the hole for the speaker

once he's cleaned up the hairy bits, then the real customization begins a few marks and an air grinder are all it takes to make a nice seat for the speaker house and an anchor into our door panel.

One cool trick that Nate uses is a spray on activator that makes the ca

glue dry almost instantly.

This mold fabric acts like a foundation for the shape of the speaker housing and it only stretches one way

once it's all trimmed up, then it's time for resin. This is the framework for the entire modification,

but he's leaving the top nice and dry.

Why? Well, that way when it curs cutting the hole requires a razor blade instead of a body saw.

Voila a cozy home for your speaker.

You done with this thing yet, man, I wanna rock. We're getting closer.

Actually, if you wouldn't mind, uh, finishing these two panels out, getting them all done for me, I can get over there and start working on this trunk, get that finished up. If it'll help speed things up, I'll do whatever needs to be done. Super appreciate it.

Hey, guys, don't go anywhere because before the end of the show today, the Trans Am it's gonna be singing another tune

coming up. Nate gets his head straight and Rick finally gets to rock. Turn it up, dude.

Nice.

Like anything else when it comes to building cars using dowels isn't the only way to do this. It's just the way Nate rolls.

Hey, man, looks like the custom stereo install. Fairies were hard at work last night. Huh? Yeah, I wish

it's just me. What'd you get done?

Well, I took the box we had yesterday. I made some frames, kinda come around. It took the, the cloth,

we had

wrapped it all over it and fiberglassed it

pretty much the same thing over here except to use a lot of wooden dowels and stuff to make this back plate that drops right into place.

It looks like a big old art project to me.

Yeah, it kind of is. It's it's pretty roughed out right now. But, uh,

uh,

yeah, that'd be great. Actually, what we're gonna do right here is I'm gonna have you tighten up some of these gaps

and

just kind of clean it up and make me look good. And I'm gonna go, uh, start working on that console. Use my mad body working skills. Yeah, I'd appreciate it. So,

yeah, I'm gonna jump on that console

knocking a couple of pilot holes in the front of the console is the first step in making room for some of the new toys that are going in the T A.

Now, some people might cringe at the thought of cutting up this 40 year old console.

But

the gods of

Rock

demand a sacrifice and the bigger the stereo, the bigger the sacrifice.

Nate's kissing the edge of the chrome with an air grinder to give the glue a good place to grab on to the console

with the accelerator for this glue. You don't have to stand there holding the pieces together, just spray and play.

Now, at this point, you can see where the head unit is going to get parked, sneaking it into the car means you can double check that everything is going to work.

Now, once the marks are in place for the cage, a little epoxy holds everything in place.

This hole is where the brains of the entire system are going to live. So trim, lightly taking just enough off to make for a tight fit

with it all together. One more quick piece, braces up the entire thing.

Gluing both sides is always a good idea

for obvious reasons.

Time to poke the console into place along with the head unit and all the wires.

The last thing you should hear when the unit goes in is a very satisfying.

All that's left is the juice.

Hey, man, I got the trunk all buttoned up. Ready to fire this thing up. Yep.

Yeah, there it is.

Turn it up, dude.

Nice.

Well, hey, we still got some other stuff to finish up. So a

lot of adjusting.

Yeah, I should probably get on it

cool.

After another night of chewing coffee grounds, we finally got the wiring all buttoned up and the rear speaker pods done.

I got creative in the trunk with a body colored panel to cover the Ys. I'll come back later and add the names of some of our sponsors that helped this project come together.

I capped it all off with a matching trunk latch cover.

Well, I finally got this thing wrapped up, man. It's gonna look a whole lot better once we get the interior all stitched up too. Yeah, that sounds great too. Yeah, it really does, man. Hey, I wanna say thanks for coming all the way up from the west coast and giving us a hand, man. You're very welcome

to see you guys soon. Oh, absolutely, dude. Definitely.

Well, hey, if you wanna learn more about Nate or check out his shop, audio tuners, then go to our website Power Block tv.com and you can check them out there. Uh, don't go anywhere because coming up after the break we got a lot more muscle car for, you

could

drink this thing.

Yeah, sounds good

up next. This A MC machine ain't just whistling Dixie.

Today's flashback. A 1970 A MC rebel machine,

muscle cars have always been a symbol of America's rebellious spirit. And to drive that point home, the folks at A MC love to wrap their cars in the good old red, white and blue.

In October 1969 they rolled out their latest patriotic pavement pounder, a slick mid size car with plenty of fireworks under the hood.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the machine.

Took their ordinary rebel and souped it up with a Ford Warner T 10 4 speed pulling a set of 354 gears,

extra stiff rear springs and anti sway bars, front and rear gave a great handling on the road.

But the real story was under the hood.

A 390 V8 pumping out 340 horse.

This was the same engine used in the AM X but it got 15 more horses. Thanks to its free breathing design.

A ram

air scoop combined with a free flow intake, dog leg heads and low restriction exhaust made it one of the best breathing engines AMC ever offered. It's also the most powerful in AMC history.

Mount attack helped to keep track of all that power

tires were E 60 by 15 poly glass wrapped around specially designed steel wheels.

Machines were also unique from a standard rebel in that they used a grill from a 68 model.

I have wanted a machine ever since I was 14 years old.

I wound up buying that first car for 150 bucks. I actually took delivery of it on my 16th birthday.

This particular car my brother found for me, he knew that I've loved machines for a long time. So he called me and

asked me if I was interested in it. I told him absolutely. I was interested in it and I spent about five years doing a ground up restoration on it.

The 1st 1000 or so machines only came in this red, white and blue scheme.

After that, you could get one in any factory color, but all that flashy style ended. Once you climbed inside,

it looks like a taxicab.

The Spartan interior only came in black and gauges. Well, they were nothing special, high back bucket seats with the tri color armrest were the only amenities.

The rebel machine was AM C's further attempt to attract young buyers into the showroom.

Originally, it was going to be a more menacing black car with black wheels, but A MC decided to go with a more eye catching look similar to its scrambler from the previous year. Like that car, it was designed as a limited edition and only two

1003 126 were sold. This is one of about 500 still around

the rebel line ended up getting scrapped in 1971 and replaced by the Matador.

You could order the machine option on that car but the engine was downgraded and only about 50 people chose the package. Just one is known to exist today

among collectors, the 70 rebel machine is considered to be one of the finest cars AMC ever produced.

It's a car we can all agree deserves a salute.

After the break got holes, we'll show you how to fix them without blowing your budget.

Build on a budget muscle car projects that save you time and money.

You know, a fly ride ain't so fly when you're interior looks like a doggy chew toy vinyl has a tendency to weaken over the years and eventually tear.

So if your seats of your dash has some fault lines, here's a way to save you some cash.

This vinyl repair kit from Eastwood includes seven colors of repair compound. A color match guide, powdered hardener

backing material for bigger tears, vinyl grain paper and a heating iron.

It's not expensive and it's a lot cheaper than replacing your seats or your dash

before you get started clean off the area with something that won't leave a residue like

Acetone or alcohol,

whatever you use, test it in an area that won't be seen to make sure it won't discolor the vinyl

using the color match guide. Find the closest match to the color you need and mix the compounds.

Be sure to clean off the mixing stick after each color. So you won't contaminate the rest.

Getting the color right is crucial because if it's off just a little bit,

it look like a wad of gum stuck to your seat,

you'll have to experiment to get it right. So keep checking it against your vinyl until it's a perfect match.

It's pretty good.

Once you get the color right, add some of the powdered hardener and mix until blended,

spread a thin layer over the hole. If you're dealing with a larger hole, you need to lay some of the back material under the vinyl and glue together the edges of the tear,

choose the grain paper that matches your vinyl and lay it over the compound, making sure the grain is going in the right direction.

Rub the preheated iron over the back of the grain paper for several seconds covering the entire area of the patch.

After letting it cool for a minute, pull the paper back and check the repair.

It should be smooth and dry if not hit it with the iron and let it cool again.

This took us several tries to get it right. So I strongly suggest you practice on the vinyl that came with the kit.

I don't expect it to look perfect, but with some patients you should be able to get some good results. Well,

so to pull chalks and bounce, but check us out next week, we'll be back on Project Street Fighter Peace.