powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

A couple years ago I BOUGHT a 1992 Firebird Base 3.1L V6 for about $800. It wasn't in great shape, I thought I'd fix it up but I had no idea how bad it was.

Turns out there's a LOT more wrong with the car than I anticipated.

In disassembling the front end (which is where most of the problems reside) I can tell that it was in a front end wreck and was SLAPPED back together with bad welds, sub par parts, a little "Custom Wiring" and utter contempt for my sanity, just so it could be sold/traded.

My goal is to get the bird back to functional stock condition. I've done a lot of work so far but I'm still stuck in many places. I have no previous experience with Firebirds and I'm trying to differentiate between what's original and what the previous owners "Rigged" themselves.

eseibel67

I'm not sure how much deeper than the $800 you are into this thing, but if it's not too much worse than that, you might consider pulling the chute.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

The thing is I totaled my old car and I needed another one quick so I picked this up hoping to drive it soon, well, that turned out good.

In the mean time I've been using my retired fathers vehicle but I can't do that forever. He and I have been doing what we can with the car and here's what we've got so far...


The welds where they tried to salvage the core support and front drivers side corner broke when we were tearing down the front end. We replaced a lot of the core support and drivers side corner from a large portion of a front end cut out of a Camaro. It came in a little short where the drivers side headlight mounts on so we made a makeshift bracket for now. I know long term I should have the frame straightened or just replace the entire front clip but for now it's about making this car drivable and safe again.





On the passenger side we only had to weld the tie bar back into the original frame.



This is how far back I had to replace the front drivers side corner.



Closer view of the corner where you can see I had to weld next to the steering box




We've also replaced the heater core because the pipe was cut off and I bought an entire ac system (excluding vents and ducting) as it was all missing.

Replaced the transmission fluid lines that were partially cut off and replaced with hose.

Bought a cheap hood as the old one was too shoddy to mount back on properly.

Fixed the inner fenders by plastic welding i.e. a heat gun and some scrap plastic.

Replaced the hood latch and cable, straightened the hood hinges and replaced the hood lifts and rear hatch lifts.

Bought a stock fan, fan shroud and pigtail because they rigged a cheap aftermarket fan backward on the radiator and wired it into a random hot wire. Here's a pic of where they wired in the fan.



The interior needs some work such as trim, upholstery and other minor things but it's not as urgent.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

I'll have more pics soon.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Car's been sittin for a while but still fired up like a champ yesterday!



Here is a side view of the nose. You can see I'm missing the ground effects and the bumper cover is held together by rivets. I will replace them both at the same time when I have the money.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Here are a few of the mystery things I'm stuck on.

This hose...



I think it was on the Evap Canister here.



A pigtail that has no apparent place to plug into. Seriously, I can not figure out where it goes.



A top down view of the hood latch. What is the thing behind the latch that I've circled?

Linson

If i'm not mistaken, in the pics you provided, this csr appears to be missing the front air dam. The fromt air dam forces air through the radiator when the car is in motion. Without that part ($50 or so, new) this car WILL overheat CONSTANTLY.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

I'll have to look into that, thank you. Things like that are exactly the reason I made this thread.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Think you could link me to one

Ace

iTrader: (2)

Your front mount and yellow wire is for the front air bag sensor.

Can't comment on the hose, probably a vacuum line of some sorts. Could also be the vent for the charcoal can but it don't recall a T on that line

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Ok, well my car don't have an airbag or a sensor so perhaps they replaced the steering wheel and scrapped the sensor after the wreck.

And as for the canister I can't see any reason for the hose if it's just a vent but I'll keep looking into that.

Thanks.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Well right now I'm currently in search of a complete air dam. More pics soon.

MintWS6FORMULA

that plug mounted on the radiator mount - I think what was something someone rigged up for who knows what and doesn't even belong on the car.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Actually the plug isn't mounted there, I just laid it there for the photo. I thought it looked strange but it really looks like it's part of the original harness. Like Ace said it's probably for an airbag but I can't find anything to plug it into. My wheel don't have an airbag anyways so I'll probably just tuck it away for now.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Here are some pics of my Air dam and Ground Effects, well, the lack thereof.

Missing air dam


Missing air dam and gfx drivers side


Missing air dam and gfx drivers side close up


Missing air dam and gfx passenger side


Missing air dam and gfx passenger side close up


Underside view of the missing air dam and gfx pieces, drivers side


Underside close up


The passenger side from underneath


And a couple more pics of the drivers side

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

A user on here is selling me the main center part of the air dam for cheap so at least I'll have that.


I believe that's the only part I absolutely have to have. If I'm wrong let me know.

Also if anyone has any pictures they'd like to share of what a Firebird in stock condition is supposed to look like under there I'd be very grateful because I've never seen that, lol.

Linson

Crap. So you know...there are two different types of air dams - the one in the pic you posted, and a somewhat more triangular shaped style. My '89 Formula uses the triangular one. I would advise you to check the mounting bolt hole pattern under there and make sure you're getting the right one, as i dont think they're interchangeable.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Yeah I think the triangular ones like you mentioned are on cars with higher trim packages and meant for high performance. Mine's a Base so I bet it's probably the basic one I posted above. I'll match it up for good measure though.

I think this is what you're talking about.

Linson

Cool. Also, in case you're not already aware, the basic air dam you showed is actually a 3-piece kit (i think only on Firebirds) (and at least on model years through 1990.) Not sure if the seller has the two little side pieces.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

No, he don't have the other pieces. But that should do for now until I can pour some big money into the GFX and such.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Here are the parts I think I need to get the front end back together right. I'm buying #40 from someone else as I posted above but I'm confused about #39.

3wheelnuts

iTrader: (3)

I think it was on the Evap Canister here.



No hoses go there. There is a little cap that clips on to prevent water or debris from going in. I grabbed one from the wrecking yard for mine.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Alright, good, less for me to do.

TRANSAM82-92

iTrader: (1)

I have all the parts for your FB. I'm currently stripping a 1991 with the PKG that looks like Trans Am & GTA. It also has air bag sensor that you're missing the plug that has no place to plug. It also has a good column and air bag steering wheel. Light tan cloth interior. It has gold honeycomb rims also...

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Sweet, i don't know what I can buy right now but I am interested in these parts:

Hood
Front Bumper Cover with Mounting Brackets
Fender Ground effects
Any and All Air Dam Pieces
Exhaust Pipes (all of it, from engine to tailpipe)
Rear Hatch Lifts (if they are still strong)

And all the bolts/washers etc. that hold on those parts.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

So I had my car inspected a while back and it didn't pass because several things were wrong with it. I Ended up having to replace the following...

egr valve
both struts
inner and outer tie rod ends and adjusting sleeves
idler arm
pitman arm
center link
both brake hoses because I noticed they were about toast
both lower ball joints
passenger side control arm because it was to F'd to seat a ball joint anymore (tried other ball joints, even Moog, didn't help)

And also an exhaust leak that needed fixed so I had that done at the shop. The whole exhaust system isn't hanging right and it's rattling around against a crosmember on the rear of the car. Probably have the whole thing replaced come tax time.

Those shenanigans cost me about $700. That's with cheap or salvaged parts and doing most of the work myself. Plus the gas to run around and get all these parts.

Almost forgot. I had to buy a headlight motor repair kit and a battery. So all in all I've dumped about $3000 into this car, including the purchase of the car itself.

Now I need to get it inspected again and it should pass. But now I'm concerned because my car has like, no power whatsoever. I can floor it for a 1/4 mile and it won't even reach 60 MPH. Maybe because it's been sitting so long and it needs a real good tune up? I don't know, perhaps I jacked something when I was doing all the other work. Whatever it is I hope it's easy to fix and not very expensive (fingers crossed).

THIS IS NOW ABOUT DOING SOMETHING THAT ISN'T EVEN WORTH IT JUST TO MAKE A POINT BECAUSE YOU'RE TOO DAMN STUBBORN TO GIVE UP!

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Get This. The garage I took my car to won't inspect my car because the welds I made weren't done by a "Certified" welder. Anyone ever hear of this?

On the plus side I did figure out why my car wasn't getting any power. While replacing my fuel filter I noticed my gas line was twisted and nearly pinched shut.
I replaced the section of line, took it for a test drive and BOOM! It was like driving a new car. I bet I was only getting about 50 HP tops with that line the way it was. But that's all good now, no leaks. Here's some pictures of the gas line.




NOW HERE'S THE KICKER.
While my car was sitting at the shop after failing inspection, AGAIN... Someone ran into the front drivers side with their Dodge truck . Fortunately the Guy who hit my car was honest and left his insurance info with the shop. Long story short, I got enough money from his insurance to fix the car. Luckily it only did superficial damage and didn't hurt the new front end I just welded in . Now I can buy some replacement external body parts plus I have enough to get parts I was missing, like fender GFX for example.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Here's the air dam i put on. it's the only air dam related piece i have.


The wrecked fender. I had to use a slide hammer just so i could take it off




The inner fender was destroyed



Broken Horn



Broken Side Marker Light, wiring is still good though

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

One more thing. I mentioned how I fixed my headlights buy rebuilding the motors but I was still having trouble with them. They just wouldn't always come up or go down when I flipped the switch and this is a problem a lot of people run into. The problem is with the headlight control module located just behind and to the left of the brake booster.



It's a small black box that says GUIDE on the front of it.




I thought I was going to have to replace it and that sucked because they run pretty high. But I read that there are solder connections inside the module that get cracked and short out which can be fixed by simply re-soldering them. So I took off the box, opened it up and sure enough the solder points on the connectors that the wires plug into were cracked causing the dodgy connection. So I put a little flux on there and added a little fresh solder to the connectors. When I hooked it back up to my car the headlights operated like they were brand new. I don't have any pics of the inside of the box to show you but if anybody's curious there are some videos online of people fixing it like this.

Hope this helps people who are at a loss with the headlight situation. It's usually as simple as this or fixing the motors or both. Rebuilding the motors and fixing the module was very cheap compared to replacing them and I'm glad it wasn't something really bad like a problem with the wiring harness.

DynoDave43

iTrader: (11)

Wow, I'm surprised it ran at all with the fuel line like that.

Glad you got the Guide headlamp module repaired. A task that is in every 3rd gen. Firebirds future I suspect.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Yeah I was taken back when I saw that gas line. I don't know how it got any fuel, not to mention that the timing was like 120 degrees off as well. How it was able to start and drive is beyond me. I think rather than re-stab the distributor the original owners just swapped the plug wires around because after I changed the plugs and wires it wouldn't start. That's how I learned the timing was off.

I was having the timing adjusted at the shop when it was hit. They wouldn't inspect it so they fixed the timing and parked it outside until someone could crash it for me.

I prefer repairing to replacing any day. It's saves on money and cars/parts. Sometimes you can't fix something though and a lot of people let that bring them down. But with this car I want to show that Determination and ingenuity can prevail and that no classic car (well, almost classic) should be left to rust.

A Phoenix never dies, it's always resurrected.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Here's a link to my thread listing parts I need.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/exte...end-parts.html

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Previously in this thread I mentioned that I'm about $3000 into this thing. But With having to replace some front end pieces after the wreck at the shop plus the cost of what I took it to the shop for in the first place, its more like $3300. I'm gonna keep track of every expense and update on here regularly. Not just for other people to read but so I can keep track of it all. Think of this thread... as a war diary.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

OH MAN! It's been over a year since I've posted but I was busy. 2015 was quite a roller coaster let me tell you. But enough about that lets talk about the Fire Chicken. It finally passed inspection and I've been driving it for a while now. But within the last few months I've had some serious quirks and I'd like to discuss those and possibly get some feedback. I'll be mentioning any repairs I've done in the past year in the order I did them.

So for starters I had an alignment done shortly after I got it licensed. The guy at the alignment shop told me he did the best he could but my car, as he described it, had "Memory Steer". I've never heard of this but apparently the steering wheel doesn't re-center like it's supposed to and has to be kinda manually re-centered after turning. I hadn't given that much though until he brought it up but yeah, it's always been somewhat stiff. My power steering worked fine at the time (more on that later) so it wasn't very hard to turn. I figured since the car had been in a front end wreck that the gearbox was at fault. I decided let it go until I could get around to it. We'll come back to this.

Then one of my tires had a hole in it. Couldn't plug it because it was in the wall so I replaced 2 tires to keep even tread and kept the old good tire as a spare.

I had to replace my fuel pump. I had pulled off the highway onto a smaller road so luckily I was going slow when my car died. A truck driver stopped and helped me push the car into an abandoned driveway. I fiddled with the ignition for a while and it wouldn't start but the most god awful whining noise was coming from my pump so I figured it was bad. However my car eventually started and I drove home but the pump made that racket the whole way so I decided to replace it. There's a hole carved in the cab above the gas tank (thanks to the previous owners) so the pumps been replaced before and now I have to do it again.

After replacing the pump my car still died twice during that month, both times while slowing down, but hasn't died since. But the pump was new and sounded fine so I figured something else was causing the stalls. Also I was having idle problems where the idle would just rise real high, then shoot down, then high, then down again. Sometimes the idle would just climb and climb until the service engine light popped up, then if i hit the gas real quick it would shoot back down and slowly start to rise again. All in between about 900 - 2500 RPM's it would fluctuate like this. Hadn't fixed that yet.

Then I had a leak in the middle of my power steering hose as if it had been poked with a needle. So I replaced the power steering pump and both hoses just to be thorough. None of that fixed my steering but at least I ruled out the PS pump as the problem. Still have that memory steer.

Things remained this way for a while then my new fuel pump started making the same noise as the old one. So I started looking into what could kill a fuel pump because as far as I know, this is at least the third time the pump has needed replaced. Once by the previous owner since they cut out that hole, once by me and now again by me. I also looked into the idle problem and found that the rpm fluctuation, the stalling and loss of power I was having can all be linked to a bad IAC Valve. I still don't know what happened to my new fuel pump but upon inspection of my IAC valve I noticed the damn pigtail wasn't even plugged in! After plugging it in the rpm's went back to normal. I still notice a lack of power once in a while which could be a vacuum leak. And I haven't had any stalls since late last summer so I assume that's fixed as well but we'll see.

So the problems with the steering and fuel pump remain. The pump hasn't quit yet, though it's still very loud at times. I still need to figure out why this car is killing fuel pumps. As for the steering it's taken a turn for the worst. But seriously it suddenly one day started making horrible noise when I turn or push up and down on the front end. Like a squeaking squealing rage of emotion. I think the gearbox is so bound up it barely works because it actually flexes the part of the frame it's mounted to when I turn the steering wheel.

This is where I'm at now. I'll try to update with more information, pictures and maybe even a video of the flexing that's going on.

Later Dudes!

CharcoalBird

iTrader: (4)

Powered, the power steering pump pulling from the frame is a known issue and was the reason for the addition of the wonder bar or steering brace. If it is damaged already you will need to repair it. Once you do add the steering brace to help stiffen that area.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Huh, I didn't know about that, thanks. I'll look into it soon.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

And it died this morning. Same scenario, slowing down while making a turn. WTF?!

CharcoalBird

iTrader: (4)

There are several things that can cause your car to die coming to a stop. Search in the v6 section. New threads are made all the time.
Mine did the same thing as yours it ended up being fuel injectors.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

That would make a lot of sense. Would bad injectors cause a problem for the fuel pump too?

CharcoalBird

iTrader: (4)

Well don't go out and buy new injectors just yet. There are other cheaper and easier things to check before those.

Does it start right back up after it stalls? Do you still have the idle issue or just a lack of power?

Some suggestions that may help it run better is put some seafoam in it, hit the catalytic converter with a hammer or something to loosen any build up inside of it. Not too hard though, don't want to beat it all up or put a hole in it.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

The first time it stalled I had to wait a while before it would start. It stalled 2 times after replacing my fuel pump but I was able to start it right after. It was fine for like 6 months but I was having that idle problem then the fuel pump started making loud noise again. I fixed the idle issue about a month ago. The problem was somehow the IAC valve pigtail was unplugged. It did start right back up after this last stall but I did notice a slight lack of power that day.

CharcoalBird

iTrader: (4)

What I would hate is for you to spend money for no reason like I did. Your fuel pump issue could be just bad pumps, could be bad wiring burning up pumps. Stalling is a number of things as is power loss. A clogged or intermittent injector can cause both.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Yeah I don't wanna waste money either. The pump thing could be sediment in my tank. This car did sit a couple years not being driven. I thought I'd just look at the injectors, clean them, see if they aren't actually bad.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Yesterday my service engine light came on. I checked the code and my Haynes Manual said it was a Code 32. Apparently something wrong with my EGR system and/or ECM. Now I replaced that EGR valve about a year ago (previous to the stalling) as the old one was cracked. The smell of gas was heavy while the IAC valve was unplugged but cleared up after I plugged it back in, however, I smelled gas the day my car threw the code. There's obviously something wrong with the fuel and emissions system in this car. So lets take a look at the current symptoms and maybe we can list some possible causes.

Fuel pumps keep going bad.
Engine Stalls.
Loss of power.
Smelling gas.

Perhaps the exhaust is backing up causing some of this.
Maybe the ECM is bad causing some things to act funky.
A fuel pressure regulation issue making the pump unhappy.
Injector cleaner didn't help so they might need replaced.

What do you guys think?

someone972

iTrader: (2)

Make sure the vacuum lines to the EGR and the solenoid are in good condition. I had one melt on mine and it threw an EGR code (rightfully so). It will run absolutely awful and might even stall if the EGR is not functioning correctly (particularly if it gets stuck open).

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Oh man! I'll be looking at that soon.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Im thinking about having a mechanic do an ecm diagnostic to rule that out, or not.

powderedwater67

iTrader: (1)

Finally got the car torn down to see what was wrong and yeah, it happened. The area behind the steering gear is cracked bad. Interestingly enough though the welds where we put in the replacement chunk from the camaro are just fine. Of course welds are stronger than the original metal when done right. So... I'm gonna pull the engine and tranny to get it all out of the way so I can get this frame right. I'm fed up and I'm going the Full Monte, no more band-aids.