Let the good times roll! :biggthumpup:

Steve
Your car looks Awsome!!!
Paul

I have the Gramma car back at the local shop. He had an opening for some quick work and told me I could bring her down after i pulled the fuel tank out. The original inner and outer rear valance panels were rusted at the bottom flange from winter use by Gramma back in the 1970's. It was a terrible design that just trapped the salt and mud from the tires and held it in place with no real access for a hose to flush it out.

When I had the car painted 25 years ago the repro panels were not available. So I had to wait a couple decades for parts availability to catch up.

Happily, Santa brought me these two panels a couple Christmases ago. The shame is that we only needed the lower six inches or so of the tail panel so 75% of that $300 panel is going to waste. He was able to remove the inner panel at the factory welds and was installing that as of today.

I am getting all the underside stuff done in advance of a future paint job. This way when it comes time for paint, it will just involve sanding, massaging, and painting and no rust repairs. (resulting in a briefer sentence in bodyshop prison I hope).

With as clean as Gramma car appeared, I am quite surprised it had such extensive rust back there--you gave a good reason/explanation though.
Thank you very much for the repair pictures, and if you get any more, maybe close-ups of the welded edges/seems, I'd like to see them for future reference.

Thanks for sharing Steve.


P.S. I think it's about time for you to post up a cruising video to give us a chance to see how well she drives. :)

Does this count for a cruising video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptAubfuN8N4

The rust really isn't "extensive" at all. On the entire car, it is isolated to only those two rear sandwiched panels. These cars were known to evaporate rapidly once exposed to salt. We rescued it from daily winter driving after only a few years of use by Gramma and then my brothers. The lower portions of the rear frame rails are beautiful on this car - another major rust prone area to look for in case you're ever shopping for a second gen F-body. The other area is under the lower corners of the windshield where the water sits and puddles on top of the cowl.

The body man has the new outer panel installed today. Working fast!

----Have a complete Pypes exhaust on my 69 SJ Gran Prix and love it. Although not the 390hp HO (just the 370hp, but I breathed on it a bit when we went thru it), I switched to HO exhaust manifolds......Bill S

Go granny go!!

Great video! It hooked nice

That lays a great patch!

Yup, Got a great angry sound! Sounds kind of like the dragon "Spot" who lived under the stairs at the Munster's house on 1313 Mockingbird lane. :-)

Today's progress on the rear panel. Should be in primer tomorrow and hopefully painted blue on Monday. And after all that work, it's all gonna be hidden behind the tail lights and the body colored rear bumper assembly. But at least I'll know it's all fixed now. :-)

Spent the weekend reassembling the back end of the car. I had pulled the new leaf springs I installed last spring in order to get them de-arched one inch to drop the back end down a little bit. The week before, I had swapped the original set of rusty leaf springs back in for the week it spent at the body shop getting the rear panels installed. That gave me time to bring the springs back to Stengel Brothers Springs in PA to get them worked on. They have a special press that can squash the leaf pack down to a specific measurement. Worked like a charm.

I then spent yesterday swapping in a new set of front coils since the one inch drop that I ordered for the custom springs was not enough. They built me a new set at half price that were 1-7/8" drop.

New fender lip height is 27-1/2" front and 28-1/2" rear. Before these new modifications, it was an inch higher on both front and rear.

Here is how she sits now. I think the stance is just right for this set of wheels now. They fill the wheelwells nicely. Though if I had it to do over again (again) I would get a slightly smaller set of front tires instead of running the 255/50x17s all around. Maybe a 235/55x17 front.

That sits real nice! :cool2:

This was what it looked like before this weeks "adjustments". An inch makes quite a difference...

Absolutely perfect stance. That car looks like a dream, Steve.

Thanks!

I spent last night at my buddy's garage replacing the front to back, underbody fuel line. When putting the tank back in I noticed the last few inches at the tank end were seeping due to old salt corrosion. The hard part is finding the correct line. 1975 was a really weird year for Firebirds and Camaros. It was the first year of catalytic converters so the fuel, vent and return lines kept getting changed in production to route around that super hot contraption on the passenger side underbody. This car has the 3/8" fuel line running down the driver's side of the car and the 1/4" vent and return lines running down the passenger side. You'd think that would be simple to describe in the catalogs but everyone has them backwards. They also describe my setup as having the fuel line on the "B side" of the car. What the heck is the B-side? Wasn't that the other song on a 45 record?

And why the heck do the manufacturers spend all that time making a correct replica of the original line to then go ahead and bend it into a pretzel to fit in a big box? They could at least mark the line to tell you the location and direction to bend it back into the correct position. But nooooo!

Anyway we put the car on the lift and manhandled the new line into place while removing the old line. The fuel line runs alongside the brake line and uses the same retaining clamps. I noticed the wire protective coils on that line were a bit crusty as well.

And in true "Give a mouse a cookie and he'll want a glass of milk..." fashion, I decided to order the underbody brake line section and the vent and return lines. Of course they only sell them in the big kits that have all the other sections that you don't need. (the vent and return lines have a second section that goes from the subframe to the front of the car.) These never rust and rarely need replacing but you can't just order the back halves of the set. Oh well, that will be next week's fun.

Anyway, She sure rides nice now and sits right. I also ordered some carpet samples to replace the JC Whitney sewn-style carpet I installed back in the 1980's before anyone made molded carpet sets. The only problem is that Auto Custom Carpet lists a dozen possible colors for my interior: Beige, Doeskin, Buckskin, and Saddle with a light, medium, and dark version of each one! So for $1 apiece they will send you a sample swatch of each. At least I have the 1973 SD455 sitting next to Gramma's car so I can try to match the sample to an original carpet. The only difference is that the 73 has loop style and the 75 uses cut pile material. Oh well, we will see how that goes next.

Stay tuned!

I finally found a shaker decal I liked...and it is actually for a 1975! These came on the 455 powered Trans Ams that were available in 1975 with a low compression 7.6 to 1, 200-horsepower 455: the same one in the big family sedans. It was a 455-HO in name only.

But the decal looks cool in the three-dimensional, blue color that accents the car's color.

And since the 1970 455 block in the car has parts from a real 1972 455HO inside it, I guess no one will really complain that it has twice the horsepower as an actual 1975 455-HO. :-)

Now I'm wondering how the 1973-75 tri-color blue, fender accent stripe would look on the car. They were available on the base Firebird, Esprit, and Formula. Anyone have any photos of the blue version of the stripe? Here's a couple photos of a '74 maroon car with the orange tri-color version of the stripes.

Those decals look right at home!!!

I vote for the side stripes too!!

Ryan W31

I believe the blue version of the side stripes are in the exact same color scheme as the shaker decals.

Go for it!!

Ryan W31

I love it!


Jason

I bet it would look good.

I went ahead and ordered a set of the blue stripes based on all your peer pressure. :-)

Did you also spring for the blue bird decal that was found on the back spoiler? That would just finish it off.

No. I left that out of the order. The car was completely stripped of emblems when I painted it 25 years ago. That tail bird would let on to what it is. I like to retain some mystery.

One of the guys on the PY Forum posted this photo of the factory order guide color plate for the stripe, on blue paint, no less. Looks like a match for the shaker decals!

I just found a photo of a blue 74 with the stripe! I like it!

Nice choice. :headbang:

I had mentioned that I ordered the brake lines and the passenger side vent/return lines. The order arrived yesterday.

This is what I ordered from The RightStuff via Jegs:

FIN 7401 front-to-rear brake line
FGL7502 2-piece pass side vent line 1/4"
FGL7503 2-piece pass side fuel return line 5/16"

What showed up was:

FIN 7401 front-to-rear brake line
FGL 7501 2-piece driver's side fuel line 3/8" (same one that I already installed last week)
FGL 7502 2-piece pass side vent line 1/4"

They are shipped directly from Right Stuff so they were the ones that messed up, since the invoice showed I ordered it properly but they boxed up the wrong parts.

I called up Jegs and they told me to box up the FGL7501 and return it to them on their dime. But they aren't shipping out the 7503 until they receive the return. This is kind of pain in the butt since I have to replace the vent and return lines at the same time as they route together with the same clamps. So that job is on hold for the time being.

So What I did today was replace the driver's side front to rear brake line which was kind of crusty looking. I also replaced the rubber brake hose that goes from the rear differential to the steel line. I bought the AC/Delco replacement. The car still had it's original hose and it was not gonna budge from that fitting. I pulled the entire line out with the hose attached and then had to place it in a vice to get the hose off. This was so I could recover the bracket that bolts to the frame and secures the hose assembly. All in all it took a leisurely four hours including brake bleeding.

Looks great.

Do you still like the Summit cam you chose? I have an old Ultradyne 288/296 and a new RAIV cam with Rhodes lifters, can't decide which one I want to use in my 9.5:1 455, but I'm inclined to order the Summit cam instead.

I do like it. Great price. Great low and mid range power and lopey exhaust sound. Much better than the 455HO 068 cam. The RA4 cam would need higher compression to get good power, and at a higher rpm range (something a 455 doesn’t really have).

The stripes arrived yesterday and I put them on with some soapy water and a squeegy. The hard part is trying to get them symmetrically located on both sides. That took a couple hours. I think it worked out rather well in the end. Nice and subtle. The stripes seem to fade away in direct sunlight but in the shade they really pop.

Looks sweet!

Jason

I think they add to the car without being flashy.

Looks great

Ryan W31

Can you give a rundown on how you located them? Look great Steve.

I used the lower window trim on the door as a guide and measured 2 inches below that line for the main section of the door stripe.

And another part on order. The original dash speaker stopped working recently for the factory AM/FM mono radio. I pulled out the A/C ducting and accessed the wiring. I was able to confirm the bad speaker by using a jumper wire to an old Kraco 6x10 speaker.

I ordered a replacement speaker from Electro-Tech. I have bought their 4x10 replacement speaker before and it worked very well and fit perfectly into the factory under dash bracket. They are the correct 8-ohm rating that will work with the factory radios, versus all the 4-ohm replacement versions out there that will fry your original radio eventually.

With shipping it was around $59

http://www.turnswitch.com/speakers.htm

I spent a couple hours today installing it. You have to drop the steering column and remove the gauge pod to access the speaker and get to the screw that holds the speaker bracket in place. Removing the A/C plastic ductwork really helps also. At the same time I replaced the non-existent foam seal on the main A/C duct. The original had turned to dust decades ago, leaving a 3/4" gap between the heater box and the main duct. Got everything buttoned up and now the front and back speakers sound just like new (like 1970's new, that is)

I saw a write-up where the guy installed two modern 4" speakers in a modified tray that fit nicely into the center speaker bracket thing. http://nastyz28.com/threads/how-do-i...y-dash.210474/


I think when I get to working on my future-firebird project I am going that route.
I spent years on the fence about tearing into door panels for higher quality 6" modern speakers, because most jobs I've seen just really kill the awesome interior of these cars. However I don't want a car with a stereo that sounds that old, so I think I will end up doing door speakers anyways.
Two 6x9's in the rear, 6" in the doors, two 4"s in the center. Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe a small 6" subwoofer suspended from the package tray to stay out of the way. At this point I'll probably also have to factor in a small amp.




I am not a stereo guy whatsoever, and this hypothetical car doesn't even exist in my life yet, so I've got a while to think on it.




P.S. One of my first theories was to substitute the door speakers by stuffing them under the dash on each side of the dash....But I don't know if they have anywhere to go.

The other day I spent a few hours trying to solve the "bent nail puzzle" of removing the original transmission cooler lines and replacing them with new ones from Inline Tube. Quite an entertaining conundrum of turn, twist, pull, (curse) and repeat X10. Eventually got it all done with only a minimum amount of tranny fluid on the floor.

The original set had some bad kink/twists where they were over tightened onto the fitting at the transmission case decades ago. I was worried that they'd spring a leak one of these days at the least opportune moment.

So I now have successfully replaced every corroded steel line in the car over the past couple months. What did I win?

(piece of mind, I guess) :-)

By the way, I did not use the front sections of the driver's side fuel line that goes from the front fender well to the pump, and both passenger side vent and return line sections that go from the back of the subframe to the charcoal canister, and the fuel pump. My originals were still perfect from being covered in grease all those years. Does anyone need those lines? I believe they are unique to the 74/75 to 81 cars?

Added three gallons of 100 octane leaded avgas to the tank today and took her for a cruise. Chirps second gear quite nicely without even trying...and the exhaust smells so nice.

Looky what I found!

A NOS set of the same brown/tan/orange/yellow-ish "Plasticolor" floor mats that my Gramma bought for the car when it was new. The original set got rather chewed up by four and a half decades of foot travel.

Found them on ebay for $115. I have been searching for years for a set and got the search alert on Saturday morning at 6:30 AM. I immediately ht the buy-it-now button. They just arrived today.

Just need some scrubbing and cleaning and they will be fine.