Glad things are turning around for you guys.    Nuff said on the pic.

JustA little comparison pictorial.

the below pic is just a generic 3800 pic

the below pic is the first change I made

below is the next change I made

than the next

& the final one, I hope!

Edited April 27, 20242 yr by Last Indian

Things still moving to damn slow. My girl would get better than regress than stalemate than do a little better. Hopefully she’ll get all the way back one of these days, soon, I hope!

The Indian, that’s a different story, hasn’t been any help either. Went to install the 1” rear sway bar; what a nightmare. Now most that know me would believe I know how to install a sway bar, & I do. Well son of a $#@&* I can’t get this thing in. And when I finally do it looks like I took an axe to the sway bar & the struts! With the suspension unsprung the bar is jammed against both strut tubes. If I jack up the rear wheel suspension arms I can barely get it in & that’s with pushing & beating with a rubber mallet. Than I have about 3/16 of an inch clearance between the bar & strut tube on each side! So now I can install the end links. But when I let the suspension down, major contact again! Now I know this is not right! So I call ZZPERFORMANCE where I bought the bar. Guy gives me all the usual garbage about all the bars come out of the same mold! I say what? The bars don’t come out of a mold they are mandrel bent on a machine, this is a solid bar by the way. Well, he says, maybe I don’t have the right camber! Seriously? So let’s see the sway bar now only allows a certain amount of camber? Yeah I don’t think so & on top of that I run zero camber on the rear wheels. So slight variations can & do occur & with the configuration of this particular bar because of all the complicated bends in the bar a ¼ of a degree in one of the curves can mean 3/8 of an inch in total length. End results ZZPERFORMANCE was worthless with this issue! 

So I continued to for another two weeks on & off trying to determine how I might solve the problem. I could try to tweak the bends, but that’s no small task for a solid 1” spring steel bar! And if I anneal it & than reharden it; that’s really tricky because it usually leads to early failure. But I really wanted the 1” bar for the rear because I know it will make a major improvement to the handling. The Grand Prix’s came with a hollow 20mm rear bar. I replaced it with a hollow 22mm bar, which made a big difference, but a 25.4mm ( 1” ) solid bar is a whole magnitude above that! So I finally decided to bite the bullet & order another bar hoping it would be right. It came at the end of the week. So I measured the new bar against the first bar that came. Well I don’t understand it, I must be stupid because the guy said they come out of a mold & they are all the same! But ear to ear measurements showed the bar to be almost an 1/8” narrower. And at the curvature of the bar where it goes around the strut tubes it is 5/16 of an inch narrower! So now in total I have about 3/8 of an inch clearance between the bar and the strut tube on each side!

That’s very tight clearance last Indian ! 
are you comfortable with that ? 
 

Still doesn't seem right, good luck.  With all the projects.  

Thanks guys! I was lucky enough to get the Indian on the ground today & started! Went around the block seemed ok. No leaks from all the other work this past winter so far! That’s good! 
The bars is about 5/16 - 3/8 away from the strut tube. That’s about what the factory 20mm bar was. So I think it will be good, but we’ll see. 
Now maybe I can see about getting the new sill plates in.

Man that was painful reading what you went through with ZZPERFORMANCE. Any chance you were talking some snot nosed 18-year old wanna be mechanic instead of someone who know their products better? Seriously? They all come out of the same mold??? 

Glad to know the Indian is back on the road.

1 hour ago, Frosty said:

Man that was painful reading what you went through with ZZPERFORMANCE. Any chance you were talking some snot nosed 18-year old wanna be mechanic instead of someone who know their products better? Seriously? They all come out of the same mold??? 

Glad to know the Indian is back on the road.

Oh he was young, don’t know how, but young non the less! I’m sure the words mandrel bent made his eyes glaze over & he probably envisioned some cartoon vixen or whatever they call those things, all scantily dressed!

Well I haven’t had anytime to drive the Indian anymore, but I did scrounged a little time over the past week to start installing the new sill plates I built. Finally got the drivers side do yesterday. Along with JustA’s led Pontiac Indian light it & the interior red lights it looks pretty cool, if I do say so myself. The pictures just don’t do it justice. 
Now I have to fix the other led Pontiac Indian light for the passenger side, (light went bad) & install it & then install the sill plate for that side.

Very cool indeed.....

Ever since I relocated the Indian’s battery to the trunk I’ve had a concern for the front setup I built. That there exists the possibility that in an accident or more likely while doing work up around the engine, an inadvertent contact with the positive post & the body/frame/engine could occur. That would be ugly! But other things have always taken precedence & I am the only person who works on the car, so I’m careful. 
So this weekend I decided to CYA!! Much safer now!

May end up painting the amber top black to blend in.

Edited June 15, 20241 yr by Last Indian

Well as fall gets closer to ending & winter gets ready to set in, I'm trying to wrap up my two big house projects, which seem to have gone on forever! Man am I old! While getting ready to do a couple minor ones this winter! But I also plan to get back to my rear wheel bearing suspension build. As well as a set of rear sill plates. Maybe a few other things; not sure yet. Anyway some may remember the front sill plates I built recently. The rear ones will be in the same vein, but different. At least I hope so. 

First though I want to finish the rear wheel hub upgrade assemblies as complete drop in replacement as I have all the pieces parts. The backing plates are used units & as such need to be cleaned up & as a result of that once again I see an opportunity to increase their quality, durability & appearance. They consist of a two piece assembly. The main hub plate that helps house the wheel hub bearing & is the main structure for the parking brake. Then the other is an outer dust/deflector plate for the disk brake rotor. These two plates attach in a preformed rivet manner which works well for manufacturing & function, but not so much so for durability & duration, just makes a trap for debris that causes corrosion. I will separate the two & use only the main hub piece while replacing the outer dust/deflector piece with a fabricated 316 stainless steel piece. This will not only be more durable, but look better while resisting corrosion between the two plates.

This is what was previously done.

This is the start of the additional mod/upgrade of the assembly.

Edited October 24, 2025Oct 24 by Last Indian

Oh Wrongway..... found the source of the metal shavings.

Edited October 24, 2025Oct 24 by JUSTA6

Getting back to rear knuckles/bearing hubs. As mentioned redoing the rear hub plates that attach to the knuckles & encapsulates the hub bearing & houses the parking brake. The outer shield that protects the rear disc has been removed & replaced with a custom stainless steel plate.

Sorry, I'm not even amazed anymore. The man lives in a jewlery store.

Well I sqeaked out a few hours with Arctic freeze that set in. So I have just about finish all the mods on one side, including making a reasonable sealing setup for the parking brake, since there is no replacement for the OEM boot design. Now I need to disassembly the whole assembly. Go through it, lube the parking brake wheel cylinder, double check everything, reassemble torque all the bolts, install all cotter pins, etc, etc..

That said notice in the pictures the excess clearance between the original bolts & the clearance holes as well as the minimal amount of material of the bolt head that actually holds the wheel bearing in place.

Simply amazing.

Another thing of beauty from the mad fabricator himself!

Just a like winter when you get stuck on ice & you spin your wheels, I feel like that’s the same scenario for the Indian! Any more I make plans for my winter projects &, well you know where they go! It’s always something! As Rick Springfield once sang!

I buy more s- - t & never get time to put it in. Like the aluminum finned tranny pan. Or I fab something & don’t get it finished. Like the rear wheel bearing upgrade or the rear sill plates. Well know I can add one more thing to that list! A 304 stainless steel exhaust crossover pipe for the 3800. They are a little larger & have a better flow than the stock piece. Now if I can Justa find the time to put it in!

The mad fabricator is at it again! Way to gonLast Indian!!!!