79_T/A_guy

Ok,

So I have been meaning to make a thread for my 15th anniversary bird for a while and i figure why not now. However I as of recent was laid off so i wont be making any serious progress for a while, well not until i get some work and pay off some debt. Anyways here is the skinny.

I bought this bird for 800 dollars and drove her home. Since then everything has slowly started to go wrong so i finally gave in and started to tear her apart to rebuild her from the ground up, picks are in order of progress i have done. Some pictures were taken of areas after i pulled a part to sell to show what i have left. For the specifics of the car check under my avatar.





there was a nice dent in the door then someone sanded off the paint to prep for bondo im guessing and never get around to it.

79_T/A_guy

79_T/A_guy

Ok, thats about where i am, i got the hood off, and started to pull apart the motor, i plan on taking that L69 out and dropping a 383 stroker in there, while also having the 700R4 rebuilt. The interior i had a huge debate on whether to try and redo back to stock or do a completely 1 off interior. I settled on 1 off interior simply as i cant seem to replace 99% of the 15th anniversary parts. However externally i plan on still having it done to match what a mint 15th anniversary would look like.

any suggestions or comments, feel free to put them out there.

andy625

Wow I admire your bravery. What were the main things that were going wrong before you took it all appart? I see you have a bit of surface rust to sort out there, do your roads get salted alot in the winter? I'm from the UK and have an 87 Firebird 5.0. They salt the roads a fair bit in the winter here, so I try not to drive it too much for those months. I did get under mine and underseal everything last year, and was surprised to find that it was pretty good condition. Whats yours like underneath?

79_T/A_guy

my underside is pretty bad to be honest. i live in the midwest and in my state they use this liquid salt **** that just freaking EATS cars. we get a ton of salt and that water/salt liquid, and its horrible on cars.

As far as problems, it was a TON of electrical problems, i have to replace all the electrical wiring and so i figured id just completely gut it to a shell fix all the rust and build it back from the ground up. the motor was starting to die as the car had/has 268XXX miles. The previous owner used it to tow stuff back and forth from texas..............some people

anyways though everytime i fixed something something else broke or didnt quite work right so i kinda gave up on fixing it the easy way and have to tear it completely apart.

sbcfever350

Looks like a pretty good project hopefully theres not a whole lot of rot and tow hitches and third gens do not belong together. Good luck with it.

92conv

Looks like you got a good start there, keep us posted on your progress.

I too just picked up a 15th TA, I've got some work ahead of me too mainly interior and maybe an LS1 swap. I'd be curious to hear what your plans are for your interior.

79_T/A_guy

My plan is do do a completely custom interior. I was going to build a custom dash, and custom center console, and right now im trying to pick if i want back seats or not. and id love to see some pics of your 15th when you get a chance to make a thread. i love the way these cars look.

92conv

That sounds cool, just remember to keep all the original parts, it'll make it alot easier to return the car back to original if you decided to someday.

Here's the link to the thread about my car............

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/members-firebirds/544021-picked-up-15th-ta.html

79_T/A_guy

ya i still have all the original parts except the dash support structure and the gauges. wish i didnt sell them but i had to as i got laid off. other than that though especially the 15th anniversary parts im keeping unless i hit a rough spot again.

1Aauto

Great car to restore.