really dude?

[ericjon262]

another car?

it's time I actually start documenting this one a bit... For a while, I've had an 87 Firebird sitting in the back yard, a while being a year plus. over that time, I've been casually eyeing it up, and trying to come up with a plan, but placing no priority on it whatsoever.

this is the, as purchased car.



it doesn't look like much, and it's really not, the only fun option is the V8, and it's the lamer V8 option, a carbureted LG4 305, but apparently, that's the best LG4 to get, as it had the best heads a non-vortec 305 got, and a roller cam.

I paid 1700 for it, with extra wheels, and a few new parts, and in reality, aside from a couple of dents here and there, and a misaligned decklid(almost all of them are) it's very straight and complete, but unfortunately, didn't run or drive, and the previous owner removed the fuel tank...

The other day, I decided it would be nice if it at least ran, that way, if I decided to sell it, it would be at least easier to get on a trailer or something. when I bought it, I tried starting it by dumping a little gas down the carb, it wouldn't' even cough, and I didn't try anything else, it just say there for a year or so. knowing that, the other day I threw a distributor in it, dumped fuel again, and it coughed to life for the first time in at least a couple years. since the previous owner bought a fuel tank, and had removed the old one, today I installed the new tank, and put a sending unit and pump in it.

The biggest issue on the body of the car, is this dent, that's right at the top of the B pillar, where it transitions over the roof, it had been driving me crazy since I bought the car, because it was otherwise very straight. my first thought, was to pull the headliner, and try and push the dent out from inside, unfortunately, the seatbelt brackets block the dent, along with some of the internal roof structure, so I used it as an excuse to pick up a new tool, a stud gun from horrible freight.









The primer really hides the issues with the bodywork, it's far from perfect, but the stud gun allowed me to get the B piller straight, and most of the roof to within a range that's reasonable for body filler. as far as body work goes, I'm not real set on making this car perfect, or even a 20 ft car at the moment. I'll put some paint on the roof where I've worked on it, and call it good for the time being.

at this point, I need to wrap up the tank install, by connecting the fuel lines, unfortunately, the new sender has a fitting that I don't have, so it will have to wait until summit can get me the right one on monday, when that happens, I'll wrap up the tank install, and hopefully be able to test drive it and see what i'm working with.

plans? well, we'll see, if I keep it, I have an aluminum Gen III 5.3, and a T5 in the garage, I might put them in, make for a fun beater, I also have some parts that aren't exactly not for it, I have a trailblazer front diff, and I've seriously considered trying to make an AWD 3rd gen, but for the time being, it will mostly be yard art.

note for me
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/ltx-lsx ... ost6404838

[ericjon262]

I installed a new fuel tank, it came with the car. so it made sense to use it instead of trying to swap to a 4th gen tank, I however, did not have a sending unit. being that I want to eventually make the car EFI, I elected to put a sender in that has provisions for a fuel pump. little did I know the stock LG4 has both a block mounted mechanical pump, and an electric pump. the electric pump in my old tank was shot, so I put a regular EFI pump in , and am going to install a block off plate and fuel pressure regulator in place of the mechanical pump. 

I made the block off plate, and enlarged the holes in the Holley FPR bracket so that it could use two of the block off plate bolt holes, and mount right where the pump was. 

in the mill



block off plate



FPR with enlarged bracket holes



FPR on the block off plate



I'll try and get it all installed on Monday when I get off work. The flare fittings are basically AN fittings, I'm only using them because they were free, otherwise, i would probably just hose clamp the them with barb fittings. 

[ericjon262]

I installed the regulator before going into work monday, I was disappointed, but not surprised when the rear most fitting tried to occupy the same space as the engine mount. I kinda thought that might be a problem, but didn't adequately prepare for it. last night I made a little block to space it forward 7/8".





I did get the car put back together and take it for a short drive, it's absurdly loud, it's stupid slow, but, it runs and shifts through all the gears, and it stops. I did find that the water pump is leaking from the weep hole, so I'll throw a new one on. the car also desperately needs tires, but for now, it will sit as it until I get the house finished up. I can't find tires that fit cheap enough to justify it for a car I'm not driving. I also desperately need a muffler for the car, the previous owner cut the exhaust off, and the cat out, so it's ridiculously loud. nothing like letting all the neighbors know you have 165 hp with a smogged out 305... I'm hoping I can snag a stock one from the junkyard to put on it and quiet it down.

[ericjon262]

Water pump is off, I have a serpentine belt drive kit for a smallblock, so I figured there's no time like the present to put it on, it will require me to adjust the harness a little bit, but I'm ok with that, I need to make a couple of wiring repairs anyways.

Because the previous owner removed the AIR pump and cat, and I don't have parts to go back on to replace them, I went ahead and removed the tubes for the AIR system, to clean things up a bit



with the water pump off, I decided to flush the block out a bit... ew.



The Pig's 350 was similar when I rinsed it, so I'm not overly worried about it, what I would like to do, is fill it with water, run it, and dump it a few times and try and get some of the corrosion products out before I throw some 50/50 in and call it good. if the block drains were easier to get to, I would try and flood water in through them, but they're kinda a PITA, so I'm not going to. Depending on how things go, I'm considering taking the TBI setup off the pig and putting it on this car, but I need to button up the L31 for it before I can do that. it would be nice to have EFI and not the weird computer controlled carb.

[ericjon262]

worked on the car a bit this past week, I knew the battery cables needed to be replaced when I bought it, but damn...













Here's some of the replacement cable next to the garbage I pulled out.



it may surprise some of you, that the car cranks WAY faster now... 

in other news, when I installed the fuel tank I tested the gauge, and verified it swept about as expected, and it did, but now that the tank is in, the fuel gauge no longer works... the fuel pump is clearly working, because the car runs for longer than a couple of minutes, the idiot lights on the dash are also not working, they share a common ground, but the ground they share doesn't appear to be one that would have been disturbed while I was working on the battery cables. this week I'll put a multi meter in a could of spots and see if I can find anything suspect. 

[ericjon262]

The car was rattle can primer painted by the previous owner, but not very well, and the underlying topcoat paint wasn't scuffed up much. I sprayed it with some brake clean, and found the primer rubbed off with a little effort, so over the past couple of days, while working on my house, when I needed a break, I wiped primer off switching from brake clean to acetone. after getting one side mostly finished, I hit it with a buffer real quick, it looks way better, not great, but better. now it's got more of a "patina" look, instead of looking like a half-finished project. I still need to do the bumpers the hood and roof are both way too far gone to bother, if I do anything to them, I'll get some rustoleum or something.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Is this now Project: Really Dude?

[ericjon262]

not really yet, if it becomes something that will be a project for me, I'll rename the thread. at this point, my principle objective is to make it start, stop, and drive relatively safely. this little bit of paint work was done on "Break" while I was working on the house. I did put the cheapest 2.25 in/out turbo muffler summit had on the car, it's quiet enough that I can now tell the rear end is howling... I'll have to check out some options on that one, it's not something I desperately need fixed, and a rear end can get expensive in a hurry.

[ericjon262]

a few weeks ago, I took the car for a short test drive, on the return trip it seemed to just die, but almost like it flooded or something, I tried firing it a day later, and same story... so yesterday I pulled the plugs, they were all wet, and autolites (BLEH) I threw some AC delco plugs in, with a new cap, rotor, and wires, I had a hunch the cap was bad because there was a piece of rotor button floating around when I popped the cap off, unfortunately, after all of that it turned out to be a bad coil... DOH. swapped the coil, and it fired right up. only reason I wanted to spend any time or money on it was to get it further away from the street, it's kinda a PITA to move without it running.

Other than that, I haven't touched it, it still needs a rear end, and more cleanup. one day, when I'm rich and have lots of time on my hands, I'll do something with it.

[ericjon262]

For the past few weeks, I've been desperately wanting to work on this car, but I've also had a ton of work to do on the house, so I haven't. I had the past two and a half days off, and on tuesday I was really thinking about messing with it. I have the 5.3, and T5 in the garage, but the T5 also concerns me, they aren't known for durability at stock power levels, better yet with a 5.3 making significantly more power, speaking of which, some of you may remember, several years ago, I picked up 2 eaton M122 LC3 Cadillac superchargers, I'm not opposed to the idea of putting one on my 5.3, it could make for quite the peppy little engine. I'm also considering putting the other up for sale, or trade. if I could trade one for a T56 or TR6060, it would be a massive improvement for my T5. I had sat around thinking about it, and then decided I needed to shit or get off the pot. I went to the garage, and saw the DMAX chassis, which is when I had a moment of clarity.

The Firebird runs, and drives, although not very reliably, it does do both things, the 86 C20 Suburban, does neither of those things. if I'm going to work on a vehicle, I should work on the one that doesn't run, not the one that does, so I made a massive shift in plans, and started working on the C20.