First post First car I've bought (second i've owned) and my current daily driver, a Maui Blue 1991 Firebird Base, 126,xxx miles, power mirrors, power windows, t-tops, all stock except the radio & muffler. Unfortunately, the U1A head unit didn't work and almost every button on it was cracked. I'm considering a V8 swap, but I'm loathe to ditch a perfectly good 3.1 V6. The car has a very rusty undercarriage that I've been working on with a wire wheel, muriatic acid, and rustoleum, but there's a bunch of tiny spots on the surface of the body that are about to bubble through and IDK what I'm going to do about that yet. The car has been repainted at least once by a previous owner.
So far I've installed a functional radio, replaced every exhaust component behind the cat (most of it was rusted out. Didn't replace the cat yet because someone welded it to the down pipe ), replaced a cracked tail light lens, installed stainless steel rear brake lines (the condition of the original lines still gives me nightmares), turned a drum and replaced the shoes (the drum was carved pretty deep), deep cleaned the interior (smokers car), replaced the distributor (original was insanely rusty), and put a new alternator on.

Originally I was looking for a 4th gen, but I gotta admit, the 3rd gen is growing on me!

 

Late thirdgen Firebirds are the best thirdgens. Have a like.

 

great candidate for LS swap, great color a blank slate with your build

 

I read that you said it's bubbling in spots, but in the pics that paint looks really good. It was always a great color.

I prefer the pre-1991 Firebirds, but I like the 1991-92 also. But one thing here kind of illustrates one of my big problems with these. The car is old, has a ton of miles on it, but this was true when they were new too. Look at the lines where the nose cone meets the body. It's uneven. This seemed to be the case when they rolled off the line brand new, not just after 29 years of use. This always bothered me. It just makes it look like some sort of aftermarket add-on.

I don't mean to be insulting at all. It's a nice car and if I ran across a nice 1991-92 convertible, I'd consider buying it. It's just some thoughts on the Banshee nose that I've had for years.

 

Welcome aboard Shadow9x99! That's a great looking bird...love the color, t-tops, and the unique '91-'92 front end. I just don't see them around here much.

 

The front bumper could use adjustment. To be fair, a lot of thirdgens need adjustment, the 91-92 firebird bumper just makes it more obvious since the entire body line across the front has to be perfect or it looks funny. Everything else has turn signal slits or headlight buckets making the panel gap less of a focal point.

 

Well said now how do you adjust that? inquiring minds want to know

 

I'm not a body man, but... Carefully. Fenders to door and A pillars. Headlights to fenders. Hood to fenders and headlights. Fine tune headlights to fenders and hood. Front bumper last. There's a series of 7mm hex head screws across the top of the bumper. Also the stamped steel support can be tweaked. The hood latch and safety catch plate can be adjusted a little too. All of the steel can be bent from previous abuse, so it stands to reason the hood and the bumper cover support may need to be gingerly "adjusted". Then there's urethane bumper sag and warp, which is careful heat gun and damp rag adjusting.

Personally my Formula isn't perfect, but it's close enough for my standards. It's only started to bug me in the last few years, but not enough to bother messing with it. It's had some rhinoplasty before I bought the car, and I can tell, but no one else has ever mentioned it.

 

This is true. Build quality of the era I suppose. There's a lot of Firebirds where the hood gap is uneven, but it's only over that center portion because of the signal location, not the entire width of the front end and so not nearly as obvious as with the 1991-92 nose design.

On my GTA, there is quite a difference in the how the tail light is positioned in relation to the body on the left side vs. the right. But with that, it's not noticeable at a glance since the entire taillight assembly is inset a bit.

 

I really like this gorgeous blue car!! Drew you are right on.It ts a chore to adjust these cars especially one like mine that's had a fender bender or two and shoddy bodywork in the past. Dang 30 yr old ground effects uggh

 

X2 on the build quality. GM has almost always had fit and finish issues. Things have been going on lately with the c8 vette, too. The stitching on the new Vette dash looks to have been sewn by a drunk.
DR K.

 

Mine have actually been pretty good since about 2000 or so. I have a 2019 ATS Coupe now which is really well put together. In my past Cadillacs, an '04 CTS had a little unevenness in some of the front trim, but an '11 CTS Coupe was really good as was a '10 Camaro. The best-built car I ever had might be been an '02 Monte Carlo SS, in which I never was able to see any imperfections.

I've had three third gen Firebirds. They all had some minor issues with body panel fit. The sort of thing that you as an owner are more likely to notice than anyone else.

I had a 2014 Cherokee that had a pretty bad fit between fender and hood on the one side. To me, it was glaringly obvious. No one ever said anything. I learned to live with it, but it was pretty disappointing in a car that recent. The dealer said that there really wasn't anything that could be done, outside of replacing the entire panel, and that was true. It was a slightly malformed piece of metal, and I didn't want to go through the process of replacing that and having it painted.

 

I don't blame you. It's always disappointing to pay that much money for something, only to be met with poor build quality. I've owned several Jeeps, and their quality has always been crap
They are still great vehicles, but it really bothers me to see things that have obvious issues like that.
DR.K.