Help. I have been a Blue-oval boy forever, but I just bought my son a 88 Fbird w/2.8L and AT, PS, PB, AC, T-tops.
Are there any problems characteristic to this car?
Previously owned by school teacher and was pampered.
Headlight doors are inop.
Previous owner said it never gave her any problems.
Any insight would be helpful.

 

ONLY REAL BAD STUFF
Vacuum hoses
Lots of places for the old hoses to wear thru (over exhaust manifolds heat-look underside!!) & plastic to break.
Use 5/16" windshiled wiper hose to patch many cracked plastic lines.
1/2" diameter hose at base of the distributor (driver side) is a big help to know about.
Headlight door, just go to wrecking yard and obtain a working item then swap in.
MAYBE in process of swapping you may find a bad wire or ?
Beyond that, you know Fords and they good cars.
So are these.
They will leak at the T-top (ask me about my old 1974 T-Top Corvette & Leaks!).
You have R-12 AC
AND they are usually "slow" but peppy & kinda fun.
It's a good old GM car.
Needs a good tune up and if over 50K miles? Replace timing chain as in any good old Ford!

 

Thanks. Any others?

 

I will say that the serp belt tensioners get funny after 90K. No biggie, 30 bucks and 10 minutes. I like that they will not just "give out" when I repaced mine and released the tension on it, parts fell to the floor, but when tension was on it it was fine.

They are good reliable cars. I have taken mine on 7 1100 miles one way trips with no probs. Mine has 113K now and the starter is begining to act funny too. I think its just the selinoid though.

Yes the t tops leak like a sive, so get new weather stripping. Check the rear hatch weather stripping too, sometimes they have probs.

The 'Birds headlights are always a pain to deal with. alot of times its a bad ground. If not that then the motors bad.

Ocasionally the EGR can act up. Just take it off and clean it.

I would say if the car has over 100K try to get the distrib rebuilt soon. But other then that its a good cheap low insurance car.

 

Welcome to the board! There's no abnormal problems I can think of offhand; GM did a few major upgrades to the auto trans in '87, so that 700r4 automatic should last a while. Headlights, you can find 'em in junkyards, but you'll have to get them from an '87-up Firebird. Those use two-wire actuators (aka headlight motors), where the 82-86 models used a three wire actuator. Look up "lonsol" (do a search for his username, upper right hand corner of this screen, click search), he makes repair kits for the flip up headlights.

You & your son might want to throw a major tuneup at it, if a tuneup was recently done, then use my message as a checklist, and do the things that were missed: https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...threadid=62882

Advise your son STRONGLY against running the tank on fumes- and I don't mean because it would suck dirt into the fuel lines. The fuel pumps burn up if they suck air, they count on the gas to keep themselves (A) lubricated and (B) cool. In fact, it'd be a good idea to at least have 1/2 tank of gas all the time. The pump hangs in the middle of the tank, and when it's submerged in gas, the gas keeps it cool. You guys don't want to change the pump. I've done it twice already; it's a complete pain. This dying fuel pump is something common to GM... don't know if it goes the same for running an electric pump on air for other car makers, but I assume it does. Clogged fuel filters can also hurt a pump; the pump works extra hard to push fuel thru the filter, and it wears the pump out faster.

 

Thanks Tom. Those are all things I have done to all my cars over the years. I worked in the auto industry as a wrench-head before going to the "Silver-Birds" of AA.

Would you happen to know the spec's on compression readings?
Most manuals will give you a 10-15% variation of high cyl to low cyl as "good" and then suggest the follow-up test of a wet vs. dry cylinder (drop or two of oil).

I have'nt actually taken delivery of the vehicle yet. Will fly to Charlotte and drive back to OK. I know most people would be spooked about this, but I know my limitations (read here changed fuel pumps on Bronco while stuck in the mud on duck-hunting trip, changed thermostats on highway 40 miles from nearest town, nursed a 4WD truck down the road after rear u-joint failed and disconnected rear drive shaft, etc., etc., etc.)

How do I post a pic of the ride in my message?

 

Compression is easy answer for me.
I set valves by compression gauge, works perfect.
For my 44k 3.4 I swapped into the Firebird I had 185-200 all six cylinders.
For my 211,500 2.8 I pulled from my Blazer I had about 50 each cylinder.