Drew

iTrader: (58)

^^^Baffles^^^

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

Thanks Drew I'll look when I get a chance the center front of air intake to top of condenser doesn't fit bumper but I can work with mine just fine - so pieces pictured above are different than 90 back?

Drew

iTrader: (58)

Idk if they're different from earlier cars. Compare the part numbers to what you've got. The set pictured are from my 91.

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

Yup, a lot is different with the bumper change in 91. A lot less stuff in the newer cars

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

OK the rad/cond intake is a one piece front and sides on the 90 I don't know why I can't make this work? also been looking where the battery cable re-enters the body - cable was hanging from last zip tie just forward of fuel filter so I ran it up to tank lines and over looks like they had it run through lower body plug as its missing and ground lug is right there too
it will need another grommet to seal that up. Funny just noticed my sausage fingers in one pic and if you look at the bad finger there, you can see the blister from the plasma cutter "incident" and that was with leather gloves on! gotta be careful with welders and such!

Drew

iTrader: (58)

It's funny how some people do things.

Yeah, I'd expect that baffle setup would work. You'll know when you go to put it all together, if it fits it ships.

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

Well that looks fun.. Was the ground lug even crimped or soldered ? Def not the way I'd go about it but looks like someone was afraid of or didn't have a hole saw or unibit!

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

Yeah that's what I figured Mr USPS man


haven't really looked at it that close but I'd guess soldered? because it sure isn't crimped - when I get done with fuel system- meaning injectors and one pressure line 3/8" that goes from rail to flex hose to frame - if anyone has a spare one its a short -like 12" with funky flare with o-ring hawks wanted $75 bucks for that I have a early set that's longer if we need to horse trade? Then I'll be onto the electrical stuff. I was thinking about making new hole higher up and replacing the plug

Back in 2007 a company called Unique performance that was local to me was building Eleanor clones with Shelby and later Foose well they ended up shutting the doors and I bought a couple of cabinets from them and one was electrical stuff and lots of cable I really was buying it for the cabinets but got alot more - and it came in handy for my 69 Trans Am clone I'm building and lots more projects like this car. If anyone needs some 4 gauge cable for making battery cables grounds and such let me know otherwise my kids will have to deal with this stuff when I'm gone
I bought a import crimper for like $30 on Amazon and had to buy more copper terminals and it took some practice and heat shrink
If anyone cares my T/A clone build is here Trans Am Clone build

TEDSgrad

iTrader: (4)

Bigger is better on the hot side!

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

hot side? this isn't turbo
so I went last Friday to the body mans place and got some parts and spent Saturday with my car. The Aluminum impact bar was more than I expected it to be, but after opening up the ends to make room for new park lights, now the impact cushion needed "some adjustments" to let cover fit used my sawzall to trim that up, little shave here and there, of course cover had to come on and off several times once that was done I then could work on mounting the park lights. so what you think?
OK now for that are body man experienced, the headlight assembly's were changed and now needs some more adjustment and what can I do to make pass side of cover rise to meet the hood better? I'm not much on "fitting" these things I'd appreciate your 2 cents here
before


and after

Drew

iTrader: (58)

FWIW the 91-92 bumpers fit poorly under most circumstances, it's the nature of the beast. Make adjustments as best you can and it'll probably turn out good enough. Perfect might be impossible.

TEDSgrad

iTrader: (4)

Electrical - "hot" is +. No big deal, though. Cross - terminology. Communication is not always precise.

ResIpsa

iTrader: (1)

Do you mean lower the headlight cover to match the hood?

I imagine you know this but there are three bolts that allow adjustment. In my case I was able to get 1987 headlights to fit pretty good to a 91 hood (with modification of the bezel). But of course, you are working with 91 headlight assemblies and they may be different. If all else fails, you can just reuse the original assemblies.

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

There are so many adjustment bolts on the headlights it would be hard not to get them correctly located. Some aren't easy to get to though.

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

3 bolt adjustment? the pic above is all the way down so was thinking the assy need to be moved around I like the 91-2 style with PONTIAC molded in drivers cover. and as far as park lights - extend harness or swap to 91-92 harness- i have - would require re-pinning or plug and play- the harness I grabbed does have for fog lights and I think I'll pass and keep it simple
ready for rear bumper, trunk lid and spoiler swap this 90 lid is going on my 87 and I think I'll buy repo wrap around spoiler for it too since the factory spoilers are all crap! Seems like 3rd gens are going to start headed up in value
I'm kind of attached to it was newest car I had ever bought in 91 been in family 29 years now - pics from when paint and spoiler had seen better days it was all SLP'd up on the exhaust anyway

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

The headlight door assembly frames have 4 bolts up top and 4 lower to get things lined up right. Its a pain.

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

so the 4 bolts that mount the assembly? didn't seem like much adjustment was there so I thought I'd ask and as far as a pain, what isn't on these cars? LOL

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

went by junkem yard this am - gonna go back and buy some parts! was hit so HARD in LR it popped the glass sadly its done, RIP. It was fixed up- saw L98 and it had runners on it but lot owner was saving it for 84 Vette
wonder bar was Huge!

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

Wow, looks like a lot of good stuff there. Is it a 90 or 91? If it's a 90, hows the front bumper cover looking?

Drew

iTrader: (58)

It's almost weird to see a junkyard car with both cupholders. Kinda like the GTA seats instead of 4th gen seats... Things you just don't really see anymore.

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

this car is a 90 it must of been pushed into another vehicle upper core support was sawzalled off so bumper and hood (was gone) probably ruined too. I did find a Dakota digital speedo correction box in it AND stick pedals in it so I'm thinking was T56 swapped?

LOL last couple 92 6 cyl cars I found at PnP had both cup holders but had nothing to get them off with -double farts
i was probably going to get these doors as they are better (need less work) than my car has
so yeah what about the seats in this they are grey leather in a Formula? I did grab the SPI tag off the car(the one that says Dont remove ) so if you know the code for the seats let me know

Hey look at top of this pic can you tell of T56 or T-5 slave cyl? its line is all braided stainless

Drew

iTrader: (58)

The seats aren't original. AQ9 if I remember correctly, but Formulas always got the base seats.

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

As did mine. I did buy a set of grey leather Lumbar 4th gen seats for 300 front only sorry i want to be comfortable , wish they were non lumbar as I'm a big guy and they are more comfortable to me and the grey Pallax? seats never lasted very long for me.
I blew up slave above- any ideas?

Drew

iTrader: (58)

That's a T56 slave from the looks of it. If it's got the braided stainless cover that's what it is. The T5 slave uses the poly hose that's only about two feet long. The T56 hose is longer since it has to swing around and come from the back side. Also the T5 has the hose enter the slave from the top, not the end.

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

So our weekend weather made me decide to take off Friday sunny and 72 - still got sunburnt ugh, poor car lucky me - dang I'm sore too




So Saturday I took it easy cleaned out most of truckload and today I put on the 1.25" tube wonderbar (never seen one this big of diameter) and new sway bar bushings. also installed rear panhard bar and brace - not sure how brace helps but I have more exhaust room. so after lunch p I put it on the ground and rolled it out to work on the back of the car definitely cleans the back up





next project will be to R&R the trunk lid and attempt to seal it, This spoiler is done !

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

What a shame on the blue car. Nice to see the pbr rear in that picture. Hope you snagged that to!

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

Oh yeah sure did! if you look under the fender you can see the edge of the rotor on 9 bolt
Dropped rear took shocks loose cut STB and brace off with frame undid frt LCA's and Pow it was in the ground had to undo parking brake cables then and druger out! worse part was dollying rear, doors and all the parts through the maze of other cars they had poorly filled the road with other dead cars what a pigsty! took like 6 trips for son and I

Drew

iTrader: (58)

Last time I did that, the car was parked in a back yard. I wish I'd kept the doors off of it, but two or three truckloads of parts came home over the course of a few days. Come to think of it, if you include the trips get the engine, and a bunch of other parts it was 5 trips, an hour and a half one way each trip. Lot of that car got sold or ended up in buddy's garages, some of it is going in my project car, a lot got sold on Craigslist back when that was a viable thing.

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

Funny small world we live in, when we were going through the blue car, I found some owner information, did some looking and found his number so I called, left a message then got a call back and after talking for a while, I realized that it was the same guy I bought LT1 T-56 from about a year ago- see Post #88 it was the trans that was in this car LOL the real reason I wanted to talk was the front Eibach springs had been cut - he told me almost a full coil off the front anyone have any input on how low this would be? or how the ride will be? the front springs are thick and short!
he also told me all the suspension stuff had about 200 miles on it the springs, KYBs all of it
Oh and this was paint code 9536 Gunmetal originally not blue

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

I think those springs are a 1- 1.5 ish drop (what I have on a car) but with 1 coil cut it would be maybe another inch or so?

CKone

iTrader: (2)

Man zman you always hit the jackpot at your local yards! Our yards around here would never be like that lol. Had to chuckle when I saw the cup holder on drivers side as well, if it’s available I’ll take it!!

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

OK, thanks I don't think I'll use them I don't want to install then decide I'm not happy and have to do it again life's too short

LOL actually a buddy of mine spotted it and I went and liked what I saw- its good to have a network of friends that look out for each other, I'm hoping to go back and get more off it last Friday was 6.5 hours and my son was helping seems like I got the heavy jobs like rear end but was glad he was willing to help!! I still want cross member, A-arms and spindles headliner and few other things was too beat to grab the other day. I did remove the cup holders and they need a little epoxy work near bolt I'm not sure what I'm doing with them yet but since you asked first you'll be first on the list.

Drew

iTrader: (58)

Someone needs to market a cup holder delete kit. Part of what attracted me to my project bird was the crank windows (no cup holders), but then I had to go and convert it to power windows. Now I've gotta do something with the window crank holes in the door panels.

As much as I like the utility of the cup holders, GM went overboard when they made them big enough to hold a 44oz Big Gulp. They're so damn big they get caught on the feet of the most cautious driver. If a person uses them for the size drinks they'll accommodate, the weight alone will usually break the mounts eventually. Then all the fast food places went to the X-Large cups that neck down to the size of a 12oz can to fit most cup holders, making the GM design completely pointless. They end up being almost as bad as the dash map pouches that people think they need to stuff with books, sun glasses, lighters, maps, and so on until they're bulging and tearing off the dash.

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

So I got the pedals out of the 90 anyone know if these are 3rd or 4th gen ?


I went back to yard today got few more items one was 15" n64 spare and this was easiest way to remove it

I love Sawzalls

Drew

iTrader: (58)

3rd gen pedals. 4th gen have the gas pedal on a steel bracket welded to the main bracket. Later thirdgen pedals at that, before about 87? the clutch position switch was different.

Also worth noting that those pedals are setup for cruise control, but when whoever swapped them into that car, they didn't add the clutch switch position switch to turn the cruise off when pushing in the clutch. It's just another stand alone 2 wire switch that wires in series with the brake pedal switch.

Drew

iTrader: (58)

The first pic is a set of 91 or 92 pedals with all the correct switches for a cruise control car. The second pic is the same set, a set from my 84 with the early clutch switch, and another late set I picked up somewhere along the way.

The switch with the green connector assurance lock is wired in series with the blue plug on the brake light switch.

Edit: The cruise vacuum switch on your pedals is from an Automatic car, the pink/purple wires are for the torque converter lockup. Non-cruise auto cars have that switch built into the brake light switch. FWIW

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

thanks for info Drew pretty well too much to comprehend! looking forward to few days off for non existent swap meet so I'm going to tackle the trunk lid swap the 90s is going on my 87 and the one that was on my 87 is going on my 90 which I removed weeks ago to have it painted so these pics are my 87 glass where prior body man didn't quite get enough sealer on glass to trunk causing trunk and left rear compartment to get wet and even fill with rainwater, luckily no mosquitoes with west nile to deal with today
here's an example of not enough sealer and the ends of sealer bead



and this is the "new" trunk and spoiler for the Derelict

and here is the old seal intact and ready to reinstall- I managed to remove in one piece so it wont leak any worse than it did before

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

OK been off since Wednesday and working on this car got the trunks swapped but didn't take many pics during the sealer part- it wasn't that bad as I thought but its always fun working around freshly painted parts so I laid them both out on fender stand and cleaned old sealer off original trunk that I'm putting on my 87 - first off the spoiler had to go and there wasn't much holding it on the base was that badly rusted

this will be going in dumpster and when I can find a summit discount code I'll be ordering one for my 87 Trans Am

here you can see the old sealer most of it was a Butyl seal and had some urethane on the ends where it meets the plastic diamond seals

so before you rip into urethane sealer I test fit where and how far up the glass it goes then back to fender stand lay a generous bead of urethane and with my son assisting we laid it down on the glass. We had a large sturdy box supporting the glass , then position where it needs to go with the tape reference, snug a couple bolts down and remove box and confirm that its where it should be, when your sure torque them down I shot for 10 ft-lbs on the glass and little tighter on trunk lid.
I used all urethane so hopefully the lid wont do its rearward migration while I'm still alive



I let the urethane cure 36 or so hours before re-installing trunk supports so what do Y'all think?

Drew

iTrader: (58)

Looks good!

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

Nailed it !
part of the trick is getting the sealer on so it'll drain properly into the channel past the hatch seal

DynoDave43

iTrader: (11)

Nice work!

drknow90rs_ss@y

iTrader: (3)

These hatches are a real pita to get aligned properly, but you did a perfect job of it.
DR.K.

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

Thanks Drew and DynoDave

Thanks Tony haven't given water test but I think I did better than last body guy did

and thank you drknow its stuff out of my wheelhouse and I'm glad this part is done for sure
I appreciate the comments from all you guys it's like a pat on the back which gives instant gratification!!
now while I was in between on that job I cleaned up the spare set of spindles of the blue Formula to get some better stopping power



for all that have done this you know how much fun that was!
then onto the rotors and calipers rotors aren't worth bragging about but this set up came off a TTA from Philly area the calipers needed rebuilt and kits were only $5 a wheel so I gave that a shot used channel locks and wiggled them out check out the dust boots and seals from one side - were swollen that much! no optical illusion
the silicone lube on square cut seal and stretch new dust boots over piston far enough to get started on the calipers which wasn't bad at all then pushed pistons in by hand - a lot easier then they came apart you tube vid explained it to me last calipers I rebuilt was on my old 69 Firebird 400 car and they were very simple

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

and final assembled will install set at later date but now its a lot quicker when its time

Drew

iTrader: (58)

Nice! Damn, you're making me look bad for never updating my thread.

Tuned Performance

iTrader: (92)

Get that shxt box running yet !

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

Giggle that isn't my intent just trying to get some stuff done its a lot easier to decide to do this and that but then you gotta do it! was warm (96) and humid today so shop door was closed and AC was chillin! My son has been over and we worked on my 69 project- cutting a 2.75" hole in A-pillar and 1.9" hole on door to install conduit boot
I know its off content on this build but I'm glad he helps out -only right, it'll be his one day

that will bee soon,? kind of finding other(read more fun) stuff to do but I need to remove fuel rail and injectors and cleanout lines/reseal and reinstall - OK here's a question : can FPR be tested with vacuum pump- see if it hold vacuum? as you know this is time to replace it, I don't have a new one but a couple other used presumed newer ones
thanks all for your and soon enough I'll have a dollar

Tuned Performance

iTrader: (92)

Not sure how you can test the fpr other than a visual looking for rips.
hit me up if you need help with vats although you have a ebl willing to help you out.

Drew

iTrader: (58)

I've just got a stack of Firebird related projects I don't really want to mess with, so the entire project gets neglected. I have the hatch so close to off the car it's maddening that there's no one around to help move it off the car. Once I get past some of these roadblocks, the rest of the car will fly together, at least that's what I keep telling myself.

Watching your thread and seeing your progress is a motivator to both work on my crap-wagon, and keep updating my thread with little things in my project's orbit.

zman1969

iTrader: (9)

I thought if FPR was bad that it would leak fuel out of vacuum port with the line removed bleeding pressure off- that's why thought if you applied vacuum to line it would test seal of regulator- maybe I'm mistaken
after rails/ injectors are done it soon will be time to power it up I need to get a battery and reroute power cable to it in the back and make ground cable also then I'll get a buddy that can help with the electrical stuff and attempt crank and run?

Drew I get it, Yall's threads motivate me the same way but get a lending hand to get it done and show us! I'm just trying to use my time off to get R dun kind of sucks whn I see guys cruising their cars I still have some engine swapping to do (oh wait both my third gens are now non running- ugh) and a 6 speed install to get done