Bandit

[eaglescout526]

1979 Pontiac firebird 6.6Litre 403 ci shaker. Factory AC, PS and auto trans. 

It has been gifted to me from my grandmother. It will be a revival/fun/show car. I will post pics as I start this adventure.

 

Don’t worry y’all. Chunk and LR will be around. 
 

My wife calls this the east bound and down project.

 

 

[87MJJeep]

How is it going?  I am a Pontiac junkie.  

[eaglescout526]

I haven’t done anything to it yet. Right now I’m trying to do two things. Get a new drivers side door handle and get some free tires to just get the vehicle to roll. 

[87MJJeep]

I look forward to your progress!

[eaglescout526]

I look forward to it too! Be a nice change to have something with some horse power. And no time constraints. 

[Pete M]

[JMO413]

I agree with Pete we need some pictures.

 

[eaglescout526]

Oh I know. I’ll snap some this weekend when I go over. 

[eaglescout526]

First post has been updated with pics. It may look rough but that’s just the interior and body. Quite honestly it’s mostly surface rust. Took a while to get the hood to actually open but once I figured it out, lubed the hell out of the latch and hinges it now opens pretty freely. 
 

The good, it’s all there, top of the line 10th anniversary firebird in a one year only ext/int combo. 
 

The bad, engine has a possibility of being stuck, carb is stuck, drivers side door handle is broken, front fascia is warped, rear fascia is wayyy worse than the front annnnd interior is crumpling. And this is from the same backyard I got my MJ from! And this car has sat a bit longer than my MJ!!!

[Pete M]

that.... is a project.     very cool though! 

[eaglescout526]

12 minutes ago, Pete M said:

that.... is a project.     very cool though! 

That’s an understatement Pete! But hey I brought an MJ back to life and a T-bird. What’s great is it’s GM the older brother of AMC so none of these parts and stuff are foreign. Plus my dad has a GMC so a lot of this stuff looks very familiar. 
 

And I ought to be able to find F-body stuff like the interior from Camaros. 

[89 MJ]

Looks like it should be a good one!

[JMO413]

The good part is it's a project that a few different reputable places have replacement parts for. Good luck can't wait to see it come back to life.

[eaglescout526]

Thanks gents!

 

Fun part is finding interior parts since it’s kinda trashed. Best part is I can see there’s no rust just be removing what ever torn up carpet there is. The key is in the column and I got the cylinder to move twice before locking into position…. Ugh. Damn GM column. Good thing I know how to get into it! 
 

Also cleaned him up a little, washed all surface dirt and grime off where it was loose. Doesn’t look too bad. Mostly surface rust on the body. Only major exterior issues is just the fascia’s. 
 

I'm gonna come back on the weekend, see if the tires will hold air, spray a metric ton of gunk engine cleaner under the hood and drop a battery in and see what comes to life. 

[Gjeep]

Beautiful bird. Lots of work and funds to bring it back!

[89 MJ]

Nice thing about these old Pontiacs is that all of the 60s-70s blocks were the same. There was no big block or small block, so if for whatever reason you need a different engine, just about anything would work. Of course, I’d want a 400 or 455, but you could put in a 326, 350, or 428. 

[eaglescout526]

It. Crankssss!!!!! Woooooo!! This engine wants to live too. I have to rebuild the carb. 

[Pete M]

[eaglescout526]

I also tore into the column to retrieve the lock cylinder. It’s locked up for some reason. All I did was actually rotate the cylinder a couple times and in the third time it locked into position. Clearly my grandfather was in the column before as the lock ring was not retained in place and neither was the plastic cover which I found in the tray under the radio. 
 

The lights on the car work, can’t get the high beam switch to actuate, one side marker is out, missing an entire turn signal, one interior footwell light works and that’s about it. Oh dash lights kinda work. No blower motor, or wipers or wiper fluid. Is suspect the wiper module circuit to be busted or corroded. Oh and one power windows kinda works hahaha. I’ve got a lot of power crap cut out for me….good thing I have the know how. 
 

 

Oh and for giggles my sister got the Datsun 240z and so I decided while I was testing the firebird engine I figured I’d go see if her car cranks over and sure enough it does. Sounds a lot more healthy than mine and sounds more eager to run. 
 

Got a lot of fun lined up. Now to just hope the yard in Prescott valley has that firebird with a complete interior. 

[eaglescout526]

Sad day for the firebird but not for Jeeps hahaha! I scored good Jeep parts and will be going back due to some requests. But the fire bird was picked clean. Like it might as well have been a shell. And they didn’t have Camaros of the same gen so that was a bummer. But it had good front fascia but i don't know about the rear. It looked like a good solid car that should still be on the road. 

[jeff351]

GM had a thing with that color interior fading like that through the 80s. Friend in high school had a Chevette with the similar pinkish dash.

 

Cool car. Plenty of support for these cars, your wallet is the only limiting factor 

[eaglescout526]

23 minutes ago, jeff351 said:

GM had a thing with that color interior fading like that through the 80s. Friend in high school had a Chevette with the similar pinkish dash.

 

Cool car. Plenty of support for these cars, your wallet is the only limiting factor 

I believe it. But this interior went straight from caramine red to crinkle chips. Luckily there’s two rear panels, not sure on the story on those sadly but I would bet my grandfather at least had some intentions to fix it. 
 

I told my wife the same thing. I knew exactly what I was getting in to with this car but she’s full on into getting this car on the road. 
 

And we went back to bandit today. I aired your the rear tires to a full 40psi, they’re holding for now. The car is also in the air as I wanted to get the front tires off. Also replaced the ignition cylinder with a GM one that came installed in Little Red back when I first got her, so it gets an OEM cylinder. Now I just have to reassemble the column. 
 

Engine still cranks good, makes good oil pressure too. About 50psi at cranking. 
 

That’s all we did today, slowly working on the barn to make it a good work space for both my car and my sisters. 

[eaglescout526]

So as I was there on Sunday I pulled the dash bezel to see what I was getting into. I need a new lens for the fuel and battery gauge, found those luckily and I removed the bezel to clean it up and well it’s a pretty special bezel and cleaning it has proven to be..a challenge per say. But the turn indicators and the radial tuned suspension badge were free floating or not aligned so I fixed those up. Now I just need to touch up the gauge trim rings and reinstall the bezel. 

[eaglescout526]

I went back to the car on Monday. I removed the carb to get a rebuild kit and rebuild it as the butterflies to the engine is seized closed. Ill take some pics of before and after. But holy crap is GM a mess with their damn Quadrajets. Like its all broken down by model(pretty sure its part number) number. Oh and the number isnt stamped in the circle on the back with the rest of the info and data, its on the drivers side of the carb. So you could have a 79 GM with a 400ci and like 7 other Quadrajet models that can be on the engine given the make application. Really annoying and tough for someone new to the GM world of carbs. Any who I got a GM rebuild kit, just waiting on the degreaser to show up from the Bezos. 

 

Next will be to at least get a couple tires to make the car roll and or possibly drive itself to where I will be working on it. And I derusted the top of the air filter lid and sadly its shot and has some rust. I am tempted to see if I can weld those holes and make it look nice without getting a new lid. Little steps at a time.

[eaglescout526]

Here’s the before pics of the carb. I haven’t gotten farther other than the carb is just soaking right now in some simple green which is now simple brown. 
 

 

Good news is the main butterfly’s are now freely operating. Bad news is I gotta swap out the degreasing solution haha. And before I dunked this thing I removed the idle solenoid and the vac actuator to prevent damage to either.