SolarGoldRaptor

Hi,

I'm François, I'm 21 and I live in the north of France near Dunkirk. I'm a fashion design student and a big Firebird fan. My first is a 1979 Firebird Esprit that is being restored completely, she's a rust bucket.
I had written a big thread but it has been removed with many others I can't find.

So here's my 1984 Trans Am HO 5 speed as she was just after I brought it home from the UK, where I bought her for a riduculously low price. I won it on eBay, seeing the number of options and the relative rarity I couldn't let it go. 82-84s are very rare in Europe :
Here's a quick photoshoot I did two days after I got it :

SolarGoldRaptor

Pierced_Zombie

lmao love the custom licence brake brackett

SolarGoldRaptor

The SPID sticker, not many options are missing :


And the radiator support tag :



I quickly sold the nice Knight Rider front bumper to firebird78, so I could put an original 84 nose with the Aero spoiler. It was only missing the two filler pieces.


I repaired the complete wiring harness, and removed the old alarm system. Every single electric component worked ten times better after that

SolarGoldRaptor

Second photoshoot, after installing the original front bumper. Our horse training field makes awesome photos :

SolarGoldRaptor

The last shots before I started disassembly :




PS : those 92 tail lights were here only for the inspection, they were removed shortly after.

The floor, only one tiny rust hole. I got lucky on that one, and the insulation pads were completey wet !


Can't wait to restore that motor !


Here she is right now :

SolarGoldRaptor

So my plan for her is to partially restore her. I won't touch to the drivetrain for the moment, she will get a fresh paint, upholstery and motor thorough check.
I'm trying to find the right materials for the upholstery, it's harder than I thought.

I'm still not sure on the paint, I'm hesitating between :
- white on silver (my personal favorite, also white is cheap ^^ )



- light gold on silver or gold
- very light metallic blue on silver
- black on gold
- black on silver



- original (82U/82L/16A), but I'm not crazy about this color at all

knight78

Personaly, I love black on silver but, you know, It's my KARR side...
I also like all white. But, I guess you prefer 2 different colours on.

SolarGoldRaptor

I did a bit of welding yesterday night, and repaired about 50 percent of the rust

Before



After



I filled a small hole that was next to a seat thread, and three other small holes around the T-Tops edges. I still have to grind them.


All I have left to repair is the hole under the dash :



And finish (grinding and painting) the one that was already repaired on the other side :



That's nothing compared to my '79 Esprit.

Blackresto

Wow, I'm going to follow this. I have an 83 that I plan on slowly restoring.

1Aauto

Should be pretty cool when it's finished.

SolarGoldRaptor

Oh thanks guys, I hadn't seen your replies.

I just picked up a pair of original 5.0L HO headers and the CC distributor. Those parts come from a friend's 1984 Camaro Z28. You can see some videos of his car on Youtube :
http://www.youtube.com/user/mancamar.../2/k_-sM2yWx04

He had already given me quite a lot of original parts this summer : Y-pipe, AC compressor, AC hoses, various connectors, vaccuum canister, some various brackets and hoses.

FormulaL98

looks like a fun project on a solid car! Ive been looking for a L69 driver/project for about a year now, but most in Ohio are rusty beaters or overpriced. Good work, looking forward to seeing more pics

SolarGoldRaptor

I found the time to work on the car this afternoon, I've restored the intake manifold. I didn't take pictures before disassembling so here's an old picture :


I decided to go the natural aluminium look instead of the original black. The manifold had already been repainted before in an ugly grey paint that was flaking anyway :


The valley pan, it looks clean to me :


So here's the manifold after the first coat of paint. I used a zinc based paint for aluminium, I have used it earlier on the alternator and the AIR pump :

SolarGoldRaptor

Here's the AIR pump after rebuild. I will sand and paint the pulley and brackets later. I got it for free with a bunch of parts. It was stuck but after disassembling, cleaning and greasing it, it spinned nicely. :



The alternator after rebuild as well, it stopped working suddenly on day. I bought a kit on eBay to replace some of the interior components. The shell was cleaned, sanded and repainted. Worked like a charm after this. The pulley looked like crap, but the other side looked brand new so I reversed it :

SolarGoldRaptor

How can I say if a camshaft is good or not ? I got the original camshaft with the car, and I would like to put it back as I'm going the stock route.

I can't feel any scratch or defect and there is no obvious wear, but there is some light visual pitting on it.

I took some pictures of the camshaft, with the flash it looks quite horrible :

SolarGoldRaptor

Haven't updated this thread for a while, but here's some progress :

The hole on the firewall is finished, but I still have to grind the welds. Is still need more training at welding.

The rot cut :


The firewall part finished, it's not perfect but it's prettygood for a first time at shaping sheet metal considering I only have a bodywork hammer and a vise. :



All the parts welded. I will add the seam sealer later !



This is a small portion of the pile of parts I have to paint !


The floor is getting stripped, I found a few more rust holes. Nothing major. The paint is flaking on every original spotweld, I'd suggest anyone who remove the carpet to apply antirust paint or primer on those.


The new door from my 89 parts car. I wonder when they went frome the big heavy stamped brace to the tubular brace on the doors ? :

SolarGoldRaptor

The K-member is in amazing shape, the welding heat marks are still perfectly visible ! There a bit of surface rust, but most of the frame was covered with undercoating early in the car's life, so some parts have been well preserved. :




The products I'm using to protect the metal. I was amazed by POR-15, if applied properly, that thing is really tough like a powdercoating, it's very hard to sand. To get too much paint or you will get drops AND small bubbles everywhere :



And then I found this on the frame It's next to the transmission crossmember mounting points...more welding.

musclecar70sfan

iTrader: (1)

nice thread... subscribing!

SolarGoldRaptor

I'm starting to put things back in ! It's a great feeling.
I've added the sound insulation (tar coated with aluminium), it sounds much sturdier now, but I can't wait to test drive the car. The doors harness and rear speakers harness are in place, as well as the firewall insulation.


Here you can see the sound insulation :


I've finished applying POR-15 to the floors, I will cover the area with sound insulation.


As you can see, I've restored the drain plugs as well.

Sure it will be a little heavier (40-50lbs more max) but I'm sure it will be well worth it when I'll turn the music on.

1MeanZ

iTrader: (9)

If you don't have the original lifters, and know which lobe they went with, you can't re-use the original cam. I'd either leave the cam in the car where it is, or buy a new cam and new lifters matching the stock specs.

SolarGoldRaptor

Thanks for the answer, I do have the original lifters but those who changed the cam put them in a box randomly.

SolarGoldRaptor

Engine bay, wheel wells and windshield pillars are PRIMED ! Damn it feels good to actually DO something instead of removing stuff !

Ready to be primed, just before some POR15 on the radiator support and a final cleaning :




After the first coat :





And then, when spraying in some close area, some windshield glue dust came out :/ I was sure I had removed it all

SolarGoldRaptor

An then finally, after applying the body sealer :





The only problem is that I will have to spray again some areas, the primer reacted to the POR15 is a few areas. No big deal.
Nearly two liters of epoxy primer to do that area, there's quite a lot to spray here though and I've been generous.

Tell me, should I apply the paint directly over the epoxy primer in the engine bay or should I apply high build primer even here ?

PS : remember I've never ever done this before, so forgive my mistakes :P

SolarGoldRaptor

Final coat of epoxy primer before high build primer and paint !

SolarGoldRaptor

SolarGoldRaptor

I'm done with the paint on the engine bay, the runs blent nicely with the next coats, even though it's still a bit visible but not too bad.

That color is fantastic, too bad I had to use my old cellphone camera to take pictures because it looks much better that these :









Next step is clearcoat !
Can't wait for it to be dry and to get some clean parts back on the car !

88 5.7 Iroc-Z

nice job, resto is looking good

SXN

Always good to see these cars get restored! good job bud

SolarGoldRaptor

I've applied the clear.
Now I'm a little scared because I've been a bit overkill with the first coat, trying to get a wet coat. I didn't notice the runs at first, and my test on a flat panel looked good and smooth so I thought I was doing it correctly. But that's where the problem is, I've done a few tries on a FLAT surface, so with an easy access and a good visibiliy. Now applying clear coat on an engine bay is a different thing.
I have a lot of runs...most will be hidden and a good part of the runs got smoothed with the second coat, but not much. It's somewhat ok in the wheel wells, but not so much on the firewall...
Now what scares me the most is that I don't know how it will dry. I hope I won't get any problem like milking ir cracking or whatever...



Other than that, it looks good in my opinion, I've been more careful on the visible areas and they look quite smooth. But can we judge a clear coat just after it's been applied ?

SolarGoldRaptor

There are a few tiny dust crap in places though, and a damn mosquito landed on the front edge. Had a hard time removing this idiot since the clear had already hardened a bit.

85_ZED28

Nice work!!

SolarGoldRaptor

Thanks !
A couple weeks ago, I've finished sanding the rear of the body to get it ready for primer, again, small rust spots were a nightmare to remove.

I've also painted the struts towers and the brake booster to a nice semi flat black :



Some parts are placed in their location to remember what goes where before the final reassembly :


This is the area between the roof and the quarter panels, it's a little flat here from the factory, so I took care of that problem :



The whole rear is in epoxy primer now !
But I've made a lot of runs...shame on me. Oh well as long as it's not paint of clear, it's easy to take care of. Most of them are already gone as I'm writing this. I'm out of epoxy so I will have to buy more. I will apply another coat to make sure everything is smooth and covered.

SolarGoldRaptor

Primed !



Sanding to remove runs, dammit:


Smooooooth :

SolarGoldRaptor

Still need a bit of body filler here :


Soon :

SolarGoldRaptor

Haven't done much since the last update Bought a whole lot of new parts from Summit later in 2011 but I haven't found the time to install them.

I've just bought two leather hides for a great price, so I'll start working on the upholstery as soon as I finish my studies (in three weeks now...can't wait)
They're a chalk/light cream color, close to the original light sand gray but a tad lighter.
I'll do all the seating areas, just like othe original leather seats, even though I have yet to find a picture of Light sand gray leather seats from 1984 (only found tan seats).

Here it is compared to the vinyl parts found on the seats covers :


Compared to the lighter cloth of the seats, it's hard to get the right color of this fabric on a picture especially with a bad lighting :



I really hope she'll be back on her four wheels for the summer...

SolarGoldRaptor

Lots of work done since two weeks !

But here's a few (bad) pics of the progress :
Heads gaskets on :



Head and intake bolted :


The engine bay, nearly ready to receive the L69 !


Hadn't seen her like that for a while !


The end of the engine reassembly...I still have to figure out how each external part is installed, remember many of them were not on the car when I got it, so I need pictures to see how everything fits. I've got a few, but I wouldn't mind more. :


Looks like a mess with the AIR system, I might remove that later since it's completely useless. But now I want to get the car running in a mostly original configuration.

I'm cleaning the two valve covers to get them ready for paint. I will paint them body color, to give a bit more life in there so they can stand out of the mess of hoses and wiring looms that makes an 84 Trans Am engine bay so...unattractive :P

knight78

It's nice to see the progress of your project. Can't wait to see that baby on the road!

SolarGoldRaptor

After days of work, she's back to life. I made a few start up test before but since the timing was completely off, it just backfired a couple time so I didn't look further and decided to set the timing from zero. I used the starter to get to BTDC sice the crankshaft threads are bad. I went slowly and it kinda drained the battery but I didn't have the choice. When I got up where I wanted, I removed the distributor, rotated the oil pump shaft and then slid the the dizzy back in. Plugged everything back and guess what...this is the first try :




SHE'S ALIVE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




Another one, gently pushing the accelerator :


Of course it still needs some tuning and apart from the knock sensor, carburetor and distributor connectors, there's nothing plugged. No hose or anything.

mbruneaux

Any updates??

SolarGoldRaptor

Long time since the last update, but the long and very cold winter didn't help.

Sor here she is, up and running in the sun for the first time after nearly four years :



I have just welded the missing piece of exhaust so I can work on it without annoying everyone around a mile
Idle is still way too fast, I have to check all the air leaks and make sure the timing is set properly.

SolarGoldRaptor

Oh my, I haven't posted any updates here in nearly two years. Well guess what, I was tired of it so I gave it to the nearest junkyard...trash ****** rides aren't for me.

Hehe, no just kidding, I finished the restoration last september, a lot of time and care went into it during the first half of 2014 when I finished preparing the body and painted the car. That hood was a pain to get straight. I've been to two car shows and driven 177 miles with it since then. Not a lot I know, but there were a few issues I needed to adress before driving more. And the non working power steering makes the car quite hard to handle so I'm about to order another bunch of parts.

So here she is !

luvofjah

iTrader: (2)

Well that's a first... you bought a Knight Rider replica and turned into a Firebird!
Amazing work you did ( and lots of it)
It looks great!

Rafael

SolarGoldRaptor

Hehe yes, the nose refunded half the original price of the car Which was really low to begin with !

I went to De Panne in Belgium last thursday night !



Driving without PS is a chore in the city, my arms hurt really bad after a short drive this afternoon. It's fine on the highway though.
There is a pretty loud bearing noise at the front, so I've added them to my list of new parts. They were in excellent condition so I don't know why it's so noisy.

FirebirdUSX

Are you using american lincese plates?
If yes how you do it? Id love to use US plates in Europe but I dont know any way I can legaly to that .

SolarGoldRaptor

They are french license plates but in a US size, it's not entirely legal but it's tolerated...I've driven by the police or gendarmerie patrols a few times and they didn't care. My brother had the same plates on his former '84 Corvette and he never got any problem. The car has a collector title which gives a several advantages like having the license plates in their original size for instance. I wish it would allow just the rear license plate but hey, can't have everything.
I know a few people with US cars with the collector title or the normal title with real american made stamped plates and I haven't heard of any problem. I guess as long as they're readable the police doesn't care too much here.

Do you live in Europe ?

FirebirdUSX

That sure fooled me I thought those are american plates
yes I'm european .Live in Germany and have a business in Romania travel alot between these two.

Well...how can i become french so I can register my car there
That is damn good looking car with perfect size numbers .You can't get that anywhere in Europe ...they are either too big like everyone has miopya or too small and wide .

I've seen few people driving with american plates in Europe.I have no idea how they do it especialy if they are not americans .

SolarGoldRaptor

I've bought them on this site : www.mineralogique.fr
But I doubt it would work with german license numbers as they're quite long and there are the first letters of the Länder in the beginning IIRC.
I know you can get them made in the US like normal US plates but with the number you want, but I can't recall the website.

FirebirdUSX

In germany and romania the font and size are regulated so you can only get the standard sizes.

SolarGoldRaptor

The exterior is done, the decals were installed last week, I need to adjust the driver door. The original seats are being recovered as I'm speaking (by myself as well). I will have to replace the carpet too.
The transmission will have to be rebuild in a near future, it works great but whines and leaks a bit. I will replace the valve stem seals too, she's hard to start, and smokes bad on startup after sitting for a moment.


This was on the 26th of April after a show for the 51st year of the Mustang :




And a quick comparison :