[V]

Not much of an update but did get around to doing a few more small maintenance items.


I finally bought new tires for it, made a huge improvement at 58+mph. No more random vibrations. Due to the old rear suspension sagging so bad, the rear camber was horrible and half the rear tires were completely smooth. Made driving in the rain scary.
I also installed the new hood support struts so now it doesn't close on my head anymore.



Last night I started the install of the radius rod bushings, front sway bay end-links, and rear radius rod bushings. What a pain it was to get the one nut off the back of the radius rod. a 30mm nut rusted on and the nut itself is maybe 3/16" thick so socket kept popping off under load. Had to soak it with pblaster a few hours but finally got it off. Then I had to get the old bushing out of the control arm. After a while of hammering prying, cutting etc, it popped out and I had to then clean up the bore to fit the new bushings. So much surface rust. Oh well, I guess that what you get with a car that's lived most of its life by the jersey shore.

During disassembly, I noticed my tie rod end was shot, so I ordered a new pair which should get here next week which is fine.
Also had to order new rear 30mm nuts since they seem to be one time use, and even come with a locktite substance on them new. I then cleaned up all the rusty hardware that I have to reuse, mainly some big washers and a few small nuts. The actual radius rods were in pretty bad shape, paint peeling rusty etc, so I previously bought a used set in much better condition.


I daily drive the car about 50% of the time but the other 50% of the time I use a '05 honda odyssey that was given to us. This winter I was hoping to pull the GTOs LS1 and do a simple build but the closer it gets to the winter, the less likely it seems that I will have the time, so maybe I'll collect all the parts and do the build next winter.


I will say this... between working on my 2001 SS when I had it and this '04 GTO, The Camaro was so much more simple. Less stupid issues, less common faults. With this car, you can roll down a window, make a turn, and your door will swing wide open, that's always fun. Several times I actually thought if I should sell/part out the GTO and build/get something else, but so far I'm holding onto it.






Another quick update... Car will be apart in my garage until at least December. I need to clean/replace a bunch of the basic hardware on the front suspension and it turns out there's a nut that's in poor shape and seems to be a one time use deal. Trying to order a replacement was a pain. out of 3 places that advertise having it, 1 stated "out of stock/discontinued", so i ordered from the second, only to get a refund a week later with the only explanation being some small text under reason saying "discontinued". So I ordered from the final option. Got a phone call the next day saying he has 10 of the nuts, but they are in Australia until at least the end of November. So now I wait. The more stuff like this that happens (non-availability of basic parts) the more I'm going to want to part the car out and stick the drivetrain in my '88 GTA. The car is cool and unique, especially with the monaro conversion, but its just annoying now.