I haven't posted a build thread or anything like that, but I wanted everyone to see my car inside and out and what I've done to it so far. I'm very busy with work and school so I haven't been able to work on my car all that much. I bought her two years ago as my first car and has been my very reliable daily driver ever since. Can't wait until one day I have more resources to work on her. Well, here she is:

Day I bought it 2 years ago:


Car vandalised 1 year ago:

Car was keyed all down driver side from hood to bumper. And the gas cap was torn off.

Entire car repainted 1 month later:


Flowmaster muffer put on a few months back.


3" flat black exhaust tips a few weeks ago:


Window tint from Ziebart from my girlfriend for birthday August 14th:

 

How the car is today after a fresh car wash and cleaned up interior:

 

Really need to take care of the headliner. And get a new steering wheel...when I replaced my ignition cylinder I had it off and tried to move the leather back into the correct place and it wont budge.

 

I picked up a new center tail light piece at a local junk yard for 20 bucks that was in fairly decent shape:

 

Alot better than the one of my car currently:


With a little bit of 1000 grit sand paper and a few sprays of clear coat the one from the junk yard shined up like the day she was made. Might do this to the one on the car now and post it on here for sale?
Before(sanded) :

After(sanded and 2 coats of clear) :



I ordered some bulbs for my tail lights and am gonna install the new tail light center while I'm changing the bulbs out.

Here is a couple night shots of the car:




If you look closely in a few of the pics you can see a few nicks here and there. One above the Firebird emblem on the driver side. My hood by the headlight on the driver side is chipped to due my headlight bracket being previously broken. I'm thinking about re-painting. I am probably going to go with a light-medium grey metaillic with black trim. (Spoiler, mirros, door skirts would be black) And get some black wheels some day. Thoughts on the change?

Things that I've done to the car that aren't pictured:

Just replaced the bushings in the headlight motors with a kit from TDS...worked wonders. Great kit. Even came with replacement screws because they knew the screws would break when you remove the motor from the bracket on the left side. Also had to replace the headlight bracket on the left side because I broke it getting pissed off when it wouldn't come up one day:

I put it a 180 degree thermostat just the other day...amazing. Car is cool and I love it.

Custom decal put under the Firebird pouch on the passenger side. It's a nice touch, I like it.

Recent tune-up, all new plugs, wires, fluids, filters.

That's all I can really think of right now, still SO much I want to do to this car. Looking forward to it

 

Beautiful car, keep it blue & get some black rims like "CharcoalBird" & a power bulge hood or a RA-II hood like his.

 

Thanks man, I dunno if I'd switch to a RA-II hood. His car looks great, but it's not for me. I've considered putting a Trans Am/GTA hood on my car, but it's an expensive swap.

 

Nice looking car and I love the color. Yeah it needs a hadliner and I don't like the Firebird sticker on the dash, but over all it's a clean lookng ride.

 

Thanks.

The T/A hood would look nice. Even the powerbulge would look good.

What other things are you thinking of doing to it?

 

There's still some maintenance that need to be addressed first
-Pinion bearings
-Harmonic Balancer
-Not necessarily maintenance, but the AC still needs to be fixed. I keep putting it off.
-There's a few other things that need done that I can't think of.

I want to put in a five speed, and a new rear end. And a motor swap later down the line. Some interior work to make her look more modern. Probably change out all the bulbs with LED's. I'm gonna get some headers here soon, and black wheels. Again...so much more. But I'm alright with that list so far.

 

And I really need to tackle my engine bay...it's hideous.

 

I wish my 91 was that clean! Nice car!

 

I have an LT1 style fiberglass WS6 Ram Air hood I can sell to you for $325. It's about 6 months old and in perfect condition. Depending on where you live in Ohio, I could deliver it to you without a charge. Let me know if you're interested.

 

Did you spray the center section with a gun or rattle can clear?

 

Thanks for the offer, Carlos, but the only other hoods that I'm interested in are the TA/GTA hoods.

And Charcoal, I used a Sata Jet gun with a brand new 80 gallon compressor.

 

Center came out nice with the clear. I normally just buff mine.

 

Thanks man I appreciate the feedback

 

So I finally got my bulbs in the mail today from superbrightleds.com, I got new ones for the license plate light, dome light, and hatch light which I chose the color "natural white" it looks awesome! And I replaced the bulbs on my tail lights. And also installed the freshly cleared tail light center.



And a night shot:


I solved a rattle issue in my engine, I thought it was my balancer, but ended up finding out it was my timing chain. I'm gonna order a gear set from JEGS and return the timing set. Does anyone recommend the noisy or quiet gear set?

 

Wow. Those ARE superbright. Maybe too super bright. But you'll be seen either way. What did they run you, out of curiosity? Also, does the third brake light not work or is it the pic angle?
-Chris

 

The 194 bulbs were $6 a piece, dome light was $5, and the tail lights were about $15 each, not that bad for some good lighting.

The third brake light is not working, I have replaced the bulb, checked the wiring and it's all good. Any ideas?

 

Check the bulb housing. If you look around the area where the bulb socket is, it gets a lot of sun which makes it easy to break. I went through 3 or 4 of them till I found one that wasn't cracked or broken.

 

Thanks Charcoal Bird I'll look at that, I just got off work and am not doing it tonight! lol If it is cracked are they hard to replace? And would I find one at a parts store or do I get to go to the junkyard now?

Also, what happened with that dead rat on your hood? That was terrible!

 

You get to make a junkyard run. They're not hard to take apart, just be careful because they are easily broken.

The rat I sprayed off, washed the car but there is still a couple spots that need clay or I have this cleaner/sealer called O-6 that does a good job on stuff like that. Will try that first and one day i'll do clay. BTW, he wasn't just dead, he was eaten and then regurgitated back up on my hood!

 

Going through my interior and replacing all the bulbs with leds. There are a few places I have questions about. There are holes there which appear to be for bulbs but there is no place to plug a bulb in? Here are the spots:


And here:


There are holes for bulbs but no where to plug them in! Are there supposed to be bulbs there?

 

Just a few pics of the leds I replaced in the car.

Mirror in daylight old and new:

Mirror at night old and new:


Mirror in daylight all new:

Mirror at night all new:

BRIGHT! lol

Center console daylight:

Center console night:


Dome light:


I love them, when you turn on the lights inside at night the entire car lights up like it's daylight!

 

May I have the bulb #'s that you used.

 

I have lights in those areas as well. They work when they feel like it I guess. If there is no way to plug it in, it could be that your car did not come equipped with those.

 

Sure, for all the 194's I used... Part Number: WLED-xHP5

And the tail lights I used... Part Number: 1157-x1W-G

All from superbrightleds.com

Yeah it's weird, there's no bulb slot, no cut wires or anything, but the holes are there.

 

...

 

Thanks Luis! That means a lot coming from a guy whose gonna have one of the best restored third gens to date pretty soon.

 

Just snapped a pic from my cell phone today...love what the rain does to the color of the car.

 

Great news today! I bought an entire T5 swap for my 700r...everything appers to be in great condition. It came out of a 1991 Camaro and he even gave me the entire center console from the car. $450

Bad news..? Round trip for the tranny was about 300 miles give or take. I filled up the car before I left and I barely made it back with enough gas. I feel like that is very very poor gas mileage. I was traveling at probably 75 the whole way there and back and the entire trip was highway. Only mods to my car are muffler and a 180 T-stat...does that sound right?

 

I get about 150-200 miles with 10 gallons.

 

your car would look so good with some 91-92 tails or even 85-90 and the 91-92 spoiler for sure .

 

Why are you selling your hood? Are there problems with it?

 

In the first pic, there should be a bulb in there. I'm pretty sure my car has a bulb in there. As for the second pic, my car has the same spot but nowhere under the dash can I find anywhere to put a bulb in there. It is on my to-do list though.

 

im pretty jelly right now, your car looks exactly like mine except a hardtop.....and in better shape

 

Thanks for the comments guys!

The tranny I bought came off of a Camaro so the center console and shifter plate were useless to me. So today I went to a new junkyard and found a nice Firebird 5 speed shifter plate. Today I also bought a new neutral safety switch for the manual transmission. So I have everything now and will probably put in the new tranny next weekend.

Why not mock up the new shifter plate?


Tonight I'm gonna scuff it down and paint it black. Opinions before I do it? You guys only got a few hours! lol

Also the tranny I bought was FILTHY. So I spent most of today cleaning it up and will also finish that this week. I will post pics of it sometime soon, but it's looking pretty shiny now.

 

Also do you guys know if there is any way to clean up the little gear plate? I'm not sure if it comes off or not, on the bottom its attached to the lightbulb housing and it moves a little. I want to take it off and try to clean it up a little bit because it's kinda faded. Anyone whos messed around with one of these knows how easy they are to break. Thanks!

 

Honestly, I'd save the Manual shifter plate, sell it on ebay, (because they are rare and expensive in good condition), and buy a better one that is automatic. That's just my opinion. It took me forever to find one when I had my Formula. And I paid a pretty penny for it too. And that was almost 10 years ago!

-Chris

 

I need that plate for my T5 swap, why would I sell it? lol

And did I score or something because I only paid 20 bucks for it and it's in good shape.

 

Sorry about that. I was working on the pic info b/c it was an auto tranny. I totally missed that you're doing a T-5 swap. See what happens when I stay away from the boards for a few days!
As far as the plate is concerned, it's been my experience that the really nice shaped ones go for high $$$. I remember paying close to $80+ for mine, and it did come in good shape, but did NOT have the mirror switch cavity in it. I had to remove that myself with a dremel tool. I took that plate b/c I was having such a hard time finding one at the time. Yours looks in very nice condition for a real bare bones model. And yes, as far as I'm concerned, you stole that thing for 20bucks.
Call the cops!!!
-Chris

 

Haha, you're cool dude. And yeah I'm gonna have to cut out holes for my power mirrors and windows. Kinda worried about it :O

 

Well, to give you an idea as to how I made mine work, I took the switch and placed it onto the center of the plate, used the grid pattern already on the plate itself as a line to follow by, and marked the bottom of the switch itself with a sharpie, if I remember correctly. This allows the switch to sit like its supposed to. I then used the dremel and a small drill bit to drill out the edges of the mark. You'll essentially have an outline of the hole in circles from drilling, but you just clean it up with a small deburring bit carefully. The secret is, just take your time and work slowly; it's much better to take off too little rather than too much. Space your switch cavities out evenly, and you'll do great!

-Chris

 

Hey thanks for the advice man!

 

She sure is pretty, I have had more than one of my cars vandalized before. I loose all faith in humanity for a while.

 

Yes...I was, to say the least, disgusted.

 

Ok so I decided to put in even more LEDs from superbrightleds.com

Today I received my new reverse lights and my new shifter plate light. I went with blue on the shifter plate and had to take out the orange lense, but I kept it in case I ever want to go back to stock, or I can change it to whatever color I want.

Took off the white piece that holds the bulb and the orange lens.



Plugged in the new bulb to make sure it worked.


Then I cleaned the shifter plate with soap and a toothbrush.


Super-glued it back on.


And we have light!


I really like the blue...for now. Again I can always change it to what ever color I want or go back to stock orange. The only problem is I cleaned it TOO well, meaning some of the plastic that blocked out light is now coming through and it doesn't help that the LED is so freaking bright lol, so I am thinking about masking off both sides where light comes through and painting that plate grey, thoughts?

And the reverse lights.

 

...

 

LOL...I knew someone would say that