71 Firebird Project

The wheels are 17" Boyd's and show alot of the brakes so I had to clean them up some.

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After I cleaned them up a little. If you plan on painting your calipers I highly recommend you use the brush on paint. I did the spray on the vette and it's no where as thick as this stuff. I put 3-4 coats on and only used about 1/8 of the can so there is plenty to do the four on the vette.

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The BFG G-Force tires that were on the car had some dry cracking going on between the treads so i repalced them with some new Nitto 555's the fronts are 255/45/17 and the rears are 285/40/17's.

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I've got the front two rims pretty muched polished out, still have to do the backs, the person that decided to start building rims from billit aluminum never polished these f :censored: n things :big grin:
 
I'm going to clean up the engine compartment while I build the poncho motor. I can't have it looking bad so I'll do a little dress up as I find cheap stuff for the olds motor.

Found some Edelbrock valve covers for $25 on eBay. Excuse the dirty intake, I had it all cleaned up but when I changed the t-stat and flushed the radiator the rusty soup stained the manifold. Also the PO had to short of bolts for the t-stat housing and they stripped out, so I had to re-tap them and get longer bolts to get it to seal good.

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Got a piece of the rust cut out of the floor and routed the amp wire thru the channel instead of just under the carpet like the PO had. He even used duct tape to hold the amp wire to the floor facepalm2

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Next time I'll have to cut a bigger piece out, because I think the metal in that area was to thin as I'm getting alot of blow thru. I'm thinking on the next area to just cut the rust out them make a over sized patch plate to weld over the top. I know that sounds like the lazy way:beer:
 
Got a little work done, finished welding in all the patches for the floor boards. So all the bad areas were cut out and replaced, it's taken a lot longer than I thought because I'm teaching myself how to weld along the way. The floor was primed with rust type converter paint then Rustoleum (sp) over that to seal everything up, then I used Boom Mat as the insulator and will finish off the rest with insulating material I got @ Home Depot.

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I clean up the trunk, but it's just temporary there is to many bad spots and I will eventually have to replace the center tub section.

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Anyone see any issues with mounting the fire extinguisher here?

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coming together nicely!! Only a passenger will mind the extinguisher there :) perfect spot
 
Thanks! I don't like the cheesy plastic bracket that came with the extiquisher so I'll look for some other type of quick release mechanism.
 
thanks Marc! I've seen that one, and by the time you buy the flat mount and clamp it gets a little spendy for what it is. If I don't find an alternative in the next couple weeks I'll probably drop the hammer on that style just for the cool factor.:thumbs:
 
Carpet is almost done, and got the back seat re-upholstered and installed for a test fit, I'll get the plastic panels re-dyed next week and install them.

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Had to make the rear package tray as the other was water warped and faded. I made it from tile board and painted it flat black, and re-installed the padded vinyl from the original.

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I know the holes for the speakers are not perfect but they are hidden by the speaker bezel.
 
Would love an old Poncho like that. Very nice find. I would be partial to the big Poncho 455 too, but the Rocket 455 is nothing to sneeze at.
Since you're looking for the Pontiac block, I assume you're not too worried about all the numbers(?).
Also, as far as your dash is concerned, a Datsun forum I'm in has some tips on restoring original dashes. I was blown away to see some of the results. If you can't find a replacement and want to give restoring yours a stab, let me know and I'll link you to the site.
 
clutchdust said:
Would love an old Poncho like that. Very nice find. I would be partial to the big Poncho 455 too, but the Rocket 455 is nothing to sneeze at.
Since you're looking for the Pontiac block, I assume you're not too worried about all the numbers(?).
Also, as far as your dash is concerned, a Datsun forum I'm in has some tips on restoring original dashes. I was blown away to see some of the results. If you can't find a replacement and want to give restoring yours a stab, let me know and I'll link you to the site.
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Thanks for the offer, but I have another dash now. Pick one up locale for $120, after I found the used one a couple months later the repops were finally available:smash:

I've looked up the numbers on the Olds motor and it's nothing special, 74-75 smog motor with small valves but it does move pretty good. I've got the poncho 455 now and will start building it once I finish up all teh other little projects I have planned for the car.
 
Brief (for me) story. Back when I was in high school some kid I knew was selling a Bonneville 455 for his dad, it had been totaled in the back end. Anyway, I bought the 455 and TH350(?) tranny for about $100. I ended up swapping the slushbox for a T-10 and when I worked for Comp Cams I bought all top of the line stuff and had RHS do all the machine work. Even found a decent set of 6x heads. I had all this stuff together and just needed a couple minor parts to put it all back together when I went into the service. So the engine sat in a storage for a couple years and I made the biggest mistake of my life, got married. I ended up selling this really nice combination for about $500 to pay for a move.
Two weeks later I found, and bought, an '81 TA complete with shaker scoop and big chicken on the hood. It had a 305. :(
 
Got the carpet installed, and re-dyed all the plastic panels Landua black. The seats are also installed although I'm going to redo them as I'm not happy with them. The current project is to redo the arm rest section to complete the door panel installation.

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Ok I've been slacking lately on getting anything down since i got the car on the road. I guess it's more fun to drive it than work on it.

The original armrest are in pretty bad shape, but the aftermarket ones are about $90 each so I'm making an attempt to repair them. I've got one done for now.

Here's what they look like before;

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Here you can see how warped they are

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I cut a piece of 1/8" aluminum and used a flush mounted bolt through the original mounting hole to pull the plate down to flatten out the warpage.

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Here are the plates installed, I guess I didn't get a good side shot afterwords.

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Here it is with the vinyl installed, I got a few wrinkles and I had to cut and splice one corner but I think it looks a hell alot better than before.

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It pic looks like there are air bubble under the vinyl but those are just 40+ years of dents.
 
Sure does look a lot better. Maybe if you have a very thin needle and poke through where a bubble is you can get the air bubbles out?
 
Thanks! I know it looks like air bubbles, but that's just the dents in the panel. The panel looks basically like it was pressed board and it's been wet so they are in pretty bad shape.
 
Oh ok, well it certainly looks a whole lot better now an d I bet you wouldn't even notice it once installed.
 
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