My first TA Resto is in my sig, a 78 SE. It took almost 8 months. I had never done so much bodywork, so I made a promise to myself that I would never start another project that was a complete basket case rust wise.
So when the time came (I mean the bug bit again) late last year, I found this gem from fellow member Neverendz. Its a 403 numbers matching TATA with only 38K documented miles. Bill got it from another member Birdman455 in 2008 with the intention of rebuilding his dream car. Things changed so he decided to sell it and I bought it. The story goes like this: it was originally sold in Austin, TX back in '79. It then was sold to a gent in CT in 1987 with less than 12K miles. He drove it till he passed in 1997, putting about 26K on it. His widow had it in her driveway for 10 years. Mr Birdman was persistent saw it there, and wanted to buy it but was rebuffed many times until 2007 when the lady finally relented and he got it. Its basically straight as an arrow, and bone stock except for an aftermarket stereo (they cut the radio slot, so I added a custom mount for the stock radio. I've started a thread here
http://www.78ta.com/smf/index.php?topic=22062.0 to show how I did that).
Here's how it looked when still in New Jersey:
I bought the car just before Christmas last, but it took 3 weeks for a car shipper to be located to transport the TATA from New Jersey to Albuquerque. I finally got it early in Feb, in the middle of a blinding snowstorm here in the mountains. Appropriately, the shipper unloaded the car on the side of Route 66 down the hill from my home. It had trouble starting and needed a jump, and the car was mounted downwards on the lower level of his auto rack, so it slipped and couldnt gain traction on the metal tracks. They had a WWII Jeep right behind it, so they were careful as they backed the car as far as it would go, then gunned it. It made it up the ramp and off the truck.
That was about 3 weeks ago. Since then I've rebuilt the carb:
Before:
During:
After:
Replaced the intake gasket:
Before:
After install:
Gutted the interior:
Restored the dash:
Cleaned and restored the cruise master control:
The headliner board is out and waiting for delivery of the headliner material. The seats frames are in great shape, but they were replacements of hobnail red cloth. Very nice condition and for sale
!
Mr Birdman said the original TATA seats were totally shot and he replaced them with these from a 20K '79 Redbird. The covers do look almost perfect but I'm biased of course.
My goal is to restore the interior first. Then engine is dirty, but ran very nice and smooth, even with the unrebuilt carb, numerous plugged vacuum lines and a stuck distributor. The original weatherstripping is in surprisingly good shape. I plan on pulling the engine this summer, cleaning it externally, as well as restoring the engine compartment at the same time. But till then, I'll just fix up the engine with new hoses, vacuum lines and battery cables and drive it.
I will shoot the exterior with the correct TATA silver, but not the contrasting grey just yet. I'm going to wait until the engine compartment and engine are redone this summer. By then all the bugs will have been worked out. I'm going to have to replace the cat converter since they smog test around here, and hook up the vacuum lines back to stock so it will pass. But I want a stock car, so the original exhaust with the 2 into 1 cat with split behind it is what it will get.
I am going to move fast on this car so I'll be adding new pics frequently.
