I picked this car up in the spring of 2013 for $500. Im going to be posting the whole rebuild/ fix up. (still in progress though.) Not too bad of shape but it was intended to be my first car to drive (which it is). I love rebuilding cars and doing budget stuff for sure. I mean hey, Im an 18 year old in college I don't have a lot to spend on it

 

hope these pics work

 

Can't beat the price, welcome to the forum

 

Thanks! These are pictures from the spring but I have quite a few I can upload and show you guys the work I did

 

I cannot figure out how to post pictures from my phone so I will stick to posting them on my computer I guess

I tried uploading a picture of the large dent in the fender but It wouldnt let me I dont know why?!? But here is after I pulled the dent and worked the fibreglass down.

the rust on the quarter lip. I dont have any pictures of the welding I did on here but here it is after some fibreglass filler.

 

Here is some more progress from the summer.

 

Here are some pictures of the floor work I had to do. If anyone has had this problem on the passenger side, the reason it happens (aside from moisture) is the exhaust system heat. the intermediate pipe runs underneath the passenger floor so the heat deteriorates the floor pans even though there is a heat shield.

 

no one likes my thread?

 

LOL. Well keep up the good work. Looks like your car was originally red from the look of the floor boards?

 

Haha yeah it was one of the owners painted it yellow, only sanding the outside but they still sprayed the jambs and inside the hood without sanding it! And applied body filler over unsanded paint lol!

 

Oh and they didn't use primer so there was fish eye all over haha

 

From your pics it looks like you're doing a good job bringing that car back. Your data says the engine is a 350; are you sure? If so, that's one less swap job to do. Does it still have the 200R trans in it? I have learned from this forum that they aren't very good. The car looks great for the price you paid. Post up some pics of the engine and interior please.

 

oops! thanks for letting me know. that was supposed to say 305 h.o. and i will do that right now!

 

Im glad to see a few people following my thread
Here is a pic after the body work was pretty much done. I primed the car with eastwood urethane primer. It is really good for 80 bucks a gallon! it covers nice and thick and sands well too. then painted the mirrors and trim with rattle can tremclad. it came out pretty nice but I had a problem with spider webbing on one mirror so i had to re do it. and gearhead141 I will post pictures of the engine and interior in the next update. I had the jambs painted in the pictures with the engine so i wanted to show some of the progress in between that first haha

 

It's looking better all the time. Are you going to respray the original color? I like the red, I just don't like the way it fades. A good clear coat would probably reduce the fading though.

 

nice project. looks like its coming along.
it brings back some great memories. one of my buddys had a black 82 with a 305, 4-speed, t-tops, and those same rims. we raised some hell in that car back in the early 80s, lol.
best of luck on your build.

 

thanks alot man! i appreciate it i am in college right now so i am not able to work on it until the spring maybe Unfortunately i am not a fan of red. I only like a deep metallic candy red. For this car I decided on eastwood single stage. I am going with yellow, with one black stripe down the middle of the car I have pictures its actually a really nice color!





I dont have a picture of the full exhaust but its dynamax 2 1/4 dia. exhaust.

 

thanks redneckjoe that car sounds really nice! i was thinking about going black haha

 

Is the 200r automatic? because mine is the 4 speed transmission. Im pretty sure firebirds came with muncies or saginaws for the 4 speed Im not sure though.

 

A darker red like you said would look good.

 

coming along nicely,just wish mine was,

 

Haha thanks man appreciate it. Unfortunately I'm in college right now so I won't be able to work on her until probably may! But I'm antsy to get working again! What year do you have?

 

1983,shes a bit worse than yours,but is slowly being saved,problem i have is that im in england and all the repair panels have to be imported from states,and boy do they rob us on import duty and tax and vat,hoping to get on with the old girl this week,plan to have jan feb on it as they are normally very quiet times in garage,but this year very busy so customers cars come first good luck with the build /steve

 

Yeah I bet they would charge an arm and a leg! I plan on replacing basically all of the panels on the car in the future. It needs new doors fenders and quarters but I did the best I could to repair them nicely without going through all of that just yet. I wanted to just get the car ready to drive which I did haha. The quarters didnt have alot of rust but the rust was on the wheel well and the inner quarters. They dont make patch panels for them so I am just going to cut the whole quarters off eventually Its alot of work but hopefully these cars will be worth something soon. Do you have any pictures of yours?

 

got a couple but computor wont let me post em for some reason will try again and see what happens

 

okay haha it might be the file type. or the files are too large. Some of the pictures I tried to upload wouldnt work either

 

Oh my goodness, when the previous owner painted it yellow, he painted everything yellow didn't he? Even the air cleaner housing! That's just not right. Oh well, nothing that some elbow grease and paint can't fix. I still say you got a good deal. Because you are able to perform most of the work yourself as far as welding up rusted areas, you are dollars ahead. The body shop would charge a princely sum for that alone! It looks like your inner door panels have holes for window cranks but I see window switches in the console? What was original to the car? The seats look to be newer models from what I can tell, even with the covers over them. I would really like to find some seats for mine out of a GTA. A power drivers seat would be nice as well. I keep looking for them at the junk yard. It's good to see you saving this one. With the weather being so severe this winter, maybe it's a good thing you can't work on it until May. It's no fun freezing out in the garage.

 

HAHA I sanded the whole car down, primed, 600 grit sanded the jambs, under the hood and the hatch. I re sprayed them with yellow again thats not the previous owners work! and I re did the engine compartment black because it was sprayed yellow without sanding or priming. and I painted the air filter housing to match the car lol! Im hopefully getting a new one soon I didnt think it was that bad though. I dont know much about the door panels. One of the owners could have changed to power or just changed the door panels I really dont know. eventually I want to go with black interior but for now this car is great the way it is. I went to the scrapyard and got the plastic interior parts in a darker gray from an 87-88 camaro. I wasnt able to get the sill plates as they are different for the camaro.

 

You say that the engine is a 5.0 H.O. yet from your pics I don't see a bulge hood or the proper air cleaner housing that came on those cars. If your car is an H.O. model with the L69, then the 8th digit of your VIN should be a "G". If it is an "H" then your car has the LG4 which was common for V8 Firebirds. It's odd that your car has the ground effects for a T/A and yet has the flat hood from a base model. The car must have an interesting history. I also noticed you swapped out the wheels. Did you sell those originals? People who have those early cars search for those wheels. Even harder to find are the "bowling ball" hubcaps that go with them. It would seem you have a pretty well optioned car as I see the rear window wiper. That was only offered for the first couple of years. Enjoy it; it's a piece of history and they are no longer around!

 

Yeah I noticed that about the power bulge hood too i was curious. I'll have to look at the vin .I just went from what the guy said. The engine isn't completely stock that's for sure. It has quite a bit of power that's another reason why I think it's a h.o. But not 100% on that. I think the car had some panel replacement years ago so they might have changed the hood. I have the original turbine rims I don't have the caps though. I need to sandblast the rims and paint them black because the paint was chipped and yellow lol.

 

Very good work you have done on the car. It looks so far so good. Keep on that way

 

Well I finally got working on my car this spring and I pretty much finished it

I finished blocking then got the car sealed and painted. I also masked off and went with a black stripe but I didn't get pics of the process I was too excited. There will be more to come soon!
Stay TUNED

 

Sorry about the sideways pictures I cant figure out how to fix it

Also did some engine dress up. New edelbrock air cleaner and valve covers. Also adjusted the carb, but I am going to be needing a new one soon .

 

you did a good job, nice build

 

Hey guys heres my car pretty much finished


new window sweeps

new fender emblems

 

 

Looking pretty sharp!

 

Very good done. Left taillight is not correct but can be found easily. Keep the good work

 

You have done a great job and i bet you are enjoying it. Good for you.

 

Thanks guys Im glad you like my build! Im not going to bother changing the taillights yet they are still in good shape so I left them

 

New Wheels and tires! American Racing Outlaw II with Radial T/As.

225/60R15 on the front
255/70R15 on rear. they are a bit tall I will probably go with 60% aspect ratio on my next build.

 

good work. I have an 83 that I have been working on for quite a fue years. I have quite a lot of parts in my garage, If you need something let me know, I just might have the part you need

 

Nice job! You have put a lot of effort into it.

 

Awesome! I will eventually need a passenger side headlight motor, dash pad, and sill plates, probably more stuff I just can't think of it right now haha! Do you have any pics of your car?

 

Thanks a lot guys I appreciate the comments! 👌

 

Hey you big hoser, that's some real nice work you did on that there Trans Am, eh?

Now you can go have some poutine and a few Molson's to celebrate!

 

Hey nice project you really made some progress on it !!!


FYI,Those finned wheels are worth some $$$,They are the same wheels KITT had on knight rider,But I can tell you have 14's


But I suggest you take that S%&!@ yellow paint off lol


Good luck on your car man and nice to see a '82 T/A saved !!!!!!

Dave

 

.

 

Thanks a lot I am having a lot of fun with it! And those turbine rims were the originals I love them! I was going to use them but I didn't have a sandblaster and I wouldn't have been caught dead with that faded chipping yellow paint on it from the other owners.
I unfortunately don't have the bowling ball hub caps though, the previous owner didn't have them either!
Thanks for the comment
Nick

 

well I happen to have a set of those wheels too. alas the hub caps are gone too