Hello,

My trans am has been in a wreck before I bought it, actually started a thread about it months ago. Anyway I found a roller and guy is selling me everything from the strut tower forward, including trans am bumper for $450. Question is what's the quickest and best way to remove if a sawzall isn't allowed? I know the parts are held on with spot welds so is there certain ones to target to pull the front portion off as one? Thank you all in advance!

 

All spot welds will have to be carefully grinded away. You can go through the top/bad layer but you will need the last layer to be solid so you can re spot weld it together. Some have 3 layers overlapping. Measurements need to be done constantly or else panels won't line, body parts won't bolt down etc...

My .02 is this needs to be done by a professional.

 

Definitely not against a pro doing it and Definitely don't disagree. I'm also curious though as the donor car I found also had this same thing done to it, it looks like they cut the structure out as a whole from the front side of the struts forward and only had to do two welds. This was definitely diy and wouldn't seem as bad as precisely replacing individual pieces.

 

Can you get a pic of the weld section you're referring to? Without seeing it, im curious if this section is an LS1 fbody thing. I know they changed the front support for the lid assembly. Again, just a random guess.

 

Yeah I'll get a picture, I'm going to go cut it off today.

 

I cut from just behind the welds. I got all that, the proper TA bumper, foam pad, lights, brackets, the plastic at the base of the windshield (forgetting the name), and the little rubber piece at the base of the antenna, plus all i cut out that should fix my crash damage, even left the headlights on for 460. My TA is a daily but I'm hoping I can at least do some disassembly soon to make sure I don't need to go back and cut more but man It's SO cold here right now.

 

I meant to respond to this last week, my bad. But my response won't bring any answers to you. Those welds don't look factory. They should've been ground off or at least have a quick cost of seam sealer. Only thing I can think of, the factory converted the last lt1 inner fender parts to ls1 style. But again, why would they leave them so rough. Most likely, the car was repaired the same way before.

Good luck with your fix. Please post pics of the final product.

 

yeah I think this car was wrecked and they did the same job i was going to do. I took my fender and bumper off this weekend and it's just carnage. I need a whole fender rail and whatever the bigger frame piece is that runs more centered. My best bet would be a roller and swap everything over but the car is on a loan so it's complicated.


I found big stacks of washers, self tappers, and a literal wood shim.