After a 6 month Hiatus, my 1992 Firebird 3.1 V6 was back on the road this past Saturday.

It blew a head gasket last summer, and then had to sit while I worked on other projects that were more pressing. I finally started tearing it down in Novemeber. I was only able to work on it on weekends and when the weather was nice.

Sent the heads off to the machine shop in December, and got them back in January. I was able to clean out a spot in the shop for her, and thus able to work inside on it after mid-January.

I spent about $350 on the whole thing, including doing some things that I wanted to do for preventive maintenance because of the car's age.

Here's what I did to it:
(1) had the heads reworked with new guides, seals, reground valves and seats, and also had it decked 0.010" just to true up the surfaces
(2) Replaced all the gaskets and bolts in the exhaust system with new bolts from GM, replaced the bolts and gaskets in the EGR system as well
(3) Rebuilt the distributor, including new pickup coil and module. Every part of the ignition is new except for the coil itself
(4) had the injectors cleaned while I had them out.
(5) installed new water pump and gaskets while I had everything apart
(6) installed new hoses, new belt, and new fittings where applicable

It really was not that hard to figure out how to put it all back together. I had everything labeled, but after taking it apart carefully, it really wasn't that big of a deal getting everything back in the right place.

The biggest pain in the butt of the whole thing was scraping all the old gaskets! These were all the original gaskets, and they were as hard as bricks after all these years. That slowed me down as much as anything, that and the fact that my daughters and my wife have all been sick a lot the past month!

After getting her started up and finally getting the timing set correctly, she purrs just like she did when new. I have 210K miles on her, and I expect to get another 60K or more out of her.

Once I got everything put away, I just went out and drove it for about 30 minutes. I really missed driving that car.

 

Congratulations on getting it back on the road again.!!

 

thats awesome!!!! had mine sitting for 4 months over the winter, and just put plates back on her last week - its a great feeling!!! congrats!

 

The other big benefit is that this is my daily driver, and will save me a bunch of money on gas! My 2000 model K2500 crew cab truck has been averaging about 13 MPG around town and from work to home. My 1992 Firebird 3.1 liter has always averaged about 25 or 26 doing the same thing. I figure that I will use almost exactly half the fuel driving my car instead of the truck.

Next step for the car is to purchase new seals (T-top, door rear hatch, etc...) and then paint the car and install the new seals. The clearcoat is flaking off in a few spots, and it is really starting to look raggedy on the outside.

 

i'm feeling ya!!!! in nov, i transfered my plates to a 1990 gmc 1500 xcab 4x4. it has the american racing rims, and a jasper crate 350 engine in it with only 60k on it. i was only gonna drive it through the winter, and transfer plates back to the camaro, but i like the truck so much, that l just bought brand new plates last week so i can start moving the camaro around between bouts of snow. i figure it'll be good to keep the truck on the road for camping and stuff, and save the camaro some wear and tear as well