Money Shift - The Firebird Saga

[Tactical Bacon]

Someone suggested I create a build thread on my Firebird here. It's a 1967 Firebird 400 4 speed. Bought it as a roller, no engine or transmission. Started life painted Mayfair Maize with manual brakes and steering, the deluxe interior, and a black vinyl top.

 

Timeline:

May 2016 - Cop runs a red light at 80 mph and wrecks my 1997 Trans Am.

June 2016 -  Ruled my fault due to me hitting him behind the rear wheel. I retain a lawyer.

January 2017 -  Lawsuits are filed.

March 2019 - Settle with the bastards at Jackson, TN P.D.

April 2019 - Find a car on FB marketplace and go look at it.

May 2019 - Get settlement check.

June 1 2019 - Seller delivers the car to my garage and the saga begins.

 

Car came with most of the front clip, a 6 cylinder hood, floorpans that had been replaced with tech-screwed sheet metal, a massive dent in the roof right at the front edge, and about 2-3 inches of loam, pecan shells, dirt, sticks, leaves, and probably some animal poop in the floor. Naturally, the very first thing I did was install a new lock cylinder in the trunk lid and find the rust in the master cylinder.

[Tactical Bacon]

Spent some time vacuuming out the interior though really I should power wash it, still. Rear bench and door panels were shot so I threw them out. Car had drum brakes and the correct hardware for the front drums was unobtainable at the time (the rear hardware is listed as working but the auto¯adjuster is too long and will cause the fronts to lock up) and still is so I planned on converting to disc brakes in the front.

 

Spent 7 hours a week later to assemble the tail lights, used the polyurethane body mounts I got through the part store I worked at and replaced the old body mount bushings, mounted the front seats, cleaned the windows, got the driver window back on its track, and installed the core support and fenders.

[fiatslug87]

This will be quite a project, enjoy it!

[Tactical Bacon]

Did you know you can't install the inner fenders on these cars if the outer fenders are already on it? I found out the very next day!

 

A week or two later I got the necessary hardware (didn't come with too many nuts or bolts) and got the rest of the front end mounted up. I also had some headlights mounted to the brackets for a few weeks at that point so they got installed, too.

 

Not long after this I had to move because the lease ended and the richard head we were renting from decided he wanted to have a place for his brother to live and told us to buy the house or get out. At that point he started fixing the problems with the house that we'd been complaining about for months and being in our way while we were trying to pack and move. Nothing else happened to the car until the 2020.

[Tactical Bacon]

July 2020 saw me set in on the brakes. I bought a complete kit with new hardlines, booster, master cylinder, spindles, calipers, bearings, pads, rotors, and combination valve. That all got installed in one day. Lower ball joints were blown out so they got replaced the following Wednesday with Moog but the original uppers were tight af so I greased all 4 up.

 

Rear hardware and wheel cylinders got replaced but the shoes and drums were in good shape overall so I scuffed them both and put them back on. At some point after this, I also did a rudimentary bleed on the brakes. Not the greatest but good enough for rolling it around.

 

I also firmly bolted in the engine mount brackets that had just been loosely installed before I had to move again, though this time it was because I bought a house!

 

At the time, I identified as a Pontiac 400. Vroom vroom! Running total for the car and parts by this point was around 5 grand.

[Tactical Bacon]

June 2021 - I finally have money at the same time I find a good Pontiac 400. Based on the casting number it's drilled and possibly tapped for a 4 bolt main but probably only has 2 bolt caps installed and originally came from a 1970-72 Catalina. It also came with a TH350 that had 12" extension housing on it, very uncommon, indicates that the Catalina was a wagon.

 

It was freh motivation to work on the car and finally try to fix the roof.

Which led me to find the cover up from a prior owner, I think the fellow before the seller based on all the evidence.

And pulling the crease most of the way out made me realize how bad it actually was.

So I'll be replacing the entire roof skin and support frame for the roof.

[Tactical Bacon]

I also ordered some 235/60R15 Cooper Cobras at my new job, a local mechanic shop, because the old rubber was shot and I'd need to be able to move the car around soon.

The differential was drained/mucked out and 54-year-old gear oil has to be one of the most disgusting things I ever smelled. Dropped the fuel tank to inspect it, too. The inside didn't have a speck of rust! But the outside was a different story. So that got thrown out and I haven't put new fuel hard lines in yet since I don't have a tank.

But I did get the engine and trans dropped in the car and mounted!

[Tactical Bacon]

Starter was fine but the solenoid was busted. I tried to jb weld it back together but it kept hanging and running the starter after I cut power to the solenoid so I swapped it out.

Seller also threw in the longtubes that were on the engine so I got a free pair of Hooker Headers and installed them sans gasket. Sounds pretty frickin sweet on brake clean or a little gas down the carb.

I did pull the intake and valley cover to check out the cam, hydraulic flat tappet but already broken in based on the lobes. Also, the oil pan got cracked when they loaded the engine on the pallet so it needs fixing or replacing.

 

It's been about 44 weeks since I really worked on her, finances can get rough. Timing cover leaks at the passenger coolant passage into the block so that needs a reseal, water pump bearing is gone and the shaft wobbles like crazy. So the plan is to fix the pan if I can so I don't have to pull the engine, reseal the timing cover, replace the water pump, and then see if she'll really run on her own if I feed fuel hose into a gas can.

 

Before she can drive she needs to run and she needs throttle linkage, a custom driveshaft, trans cooler lines, fuel tank, working lights, a few small things mounted or addressed, and hopefully I can get all that done this year.

[The86manche]

I'm also doing a first gen firebird build!

Mines a 69 though.

As far as I know the firebird never had a v6? I6 or v8. Either way nice car!

[Tactical Bacon]

On 5/9/2022 at 12:08 PM, The86manche said:

I'm also doing a first gen firebird build!

Mines a 69 though.

As far as I know the firebird never had a v6? I6 or v8. Either way nice car!

Yeah, they didn't get a V6 until 1977, I just misspoke. Cool fact about the Sprint I6 they used in the first and second gen Firebirds, it was the first mass produced Inline engine that used a fiberglass reinforced timing belt instead of a timing chain or gear drive.

Past few days were productive. I had a good idea and dumped half a quart of wax and grease remover in the engine to clean the inside of the oil pan and the crack in it, worked like a charm. Wiped it off, sanded it, wiped it with a blue towel sprayed with brake clean, pushed some dielectric grease in the 2 big holes in the pan and then put steelstik on it. Gave it an hour to fully cure then coated it with Kwikweld and gave that 24 hours before I dumped a quart of oil in the pan and it seems to have held without dripping or sweating for 24 hours so I dumped another 5 quarts in it after work today and now we wait to see if it'll hold.

Also got the water pump pulled off, pulled the harmonic balancer then reinstalled it to keep things sealed, and now I'm waiting on replacement parts. Timing cover gasket, intake manifold gasket in case I need to pull the manifold to get it to seal to the timing cover, water pump, harmonic balancer, trans cooler lines, a new water pump divider plate, and a throttle linkage rod.

[Tactical Bacon]

Busy few days on this one, oil pan repair seems to be holding for now, no leaks, seeps, weeps, drips, or drops. Timing cover was re-sealed to the block/oil pan, installed a new water pump, tried to install a new ATP harmonic balancer (had rust in the bore and large raised bumps that wouldn't let it slip on the crankshaft), ordered a Dorman from a local part store (found out from Summit after an original bolt snapped off below the surface that they used metric threads instead of SAE on a part that "exactly matches the fit and function of the original," and Dorman doesn't list this information themselves or include new hardware that would fit), then they were nice enough to order a replacement and warranty it out for me Sunday so I got that installed and new bolts holding the crank pulleys on. Radiator drain plug was the only leak after filling with water so a little teflon tape sealed that right up.

 

I also was able to verify the alternator is charging (putting out about 12.6V with a loose v-belt) and even got the headlights working. I'm not sure if the fuel pump works so I'm weighing out an inline electric pump but before that I still need to install the new metal fuel line and get a replacement fuel tank for it. But before I sort the fuel system, I'm probably going to look into what's needed for the tail lights to start working.

 

Lastly, I checked the timing last night and found that at some point I left the distributor hold down bolt loose so I got it set right around 6-8* BTDC for initial timing so I can start it once I get a fuel system in it. Plan is to adjust the lash on the valves at some point this week/weekend.

[87MJJeep]

I'll watch for progress of your Bird.  I hate what happened to your 97.  I love them all.  

 

'72 Grand Prix

'88 Trans Am GTA

'01 Trans Am

and some Jeeps... sleeping in Memphis