MORE pics nao!!!!
More 1969 Firebird Goodness
- Thread starter Torch10th
- Start date
Definitely need more pics of those wheels. That single pic is not enough. Looks good though.
I'll get some more pics this weekend once the glass is in and the other wheels are on!
Those wheels will look great on it!
Thanks guys! This has been a long time coming, but that light at the end of the tunnel is finally starting to get larger.
oh man i gotta see more pictures of this car. She's gorgeous.
One more teaser 
Wife is working late tonight, so I got the rest of the wheels mounted and checked for clearance. No issues anyway. Going to a 26" tall tire, I did lose another half inch of ground clearance though.
Glass company will be out tomorrow, then I'll get it out for some pictures with a quality camera.
Wife is working late tonight, so I got the rest of the wheels mounted and checked for clearance. No issues anyway. Going to a 26" tall tire, I did lose another half inch of ground clearance though.
Glass company will be out tomorrow, then I'll get it out for some pictures with a quality camera.
Ugh, quit making me want to restore another classic....TOO MUCH WORK!
A lot of work, but the results make it all worthwhile.
I really like the wheel choice. A lot! Looking forward to seeing more photos. :thumbsup:
I really like the wheel choice. A lot! Looking forward to seeing more photos. :thumbsup:
Congrats man! I'm envious.
Glad to see that you chose to continue building the car!
Some more updates from over the weekend.
Front and rear glass + moldings are installed,
You can see in the upper right hand corner of the rear molding that it's lifted a bit. The weld-on stud the holds the retaining clip broke upon installation. It's not going anywhere, but it looks a little goofy. It's pretty much impossible to install a new clip stud without removing the glass, so I'm probably going to have to live with that for a while. Not a show car, so I'm not too worried about it.
I had promised a good photo shoot, but unfortunately I was unable to get the car on location. For the past couple months I've been dealing with intermittent start issues. This is part of the reason why.
As you can see there's a rats nest of old and cobbled together wiring under the dash. The previous owner wasn't a stickler with this car so he did a haphazard job on his wiring. Anyway, I'm losing continuity between the battery and the S terminal on the starter solenoid. About three volt drop on average.
I cleaned up the under dash wiring as well as I could given the materials I had on hand. I also replaced the forward light harness and installed the parking lamps and bezels.
Testing the lights, this led to the discovery of more wiring mess. When the emergency flashers are engaged, instead of blinking the park lamps, they remain lit solidly. Over time the passenger side bulb gets brighter while the driver side bulb dims. Another weird side-effect of that is that I lose signal from my fuel sending unit when the flashers are on.
So there's issues going on with the turn signal harness which is also part of the ignition switch. This morning I'll be ordering a new ignition switch, turn signal harness, neutral safety switch and ignition barrel/key. That should allow me to tackle the engine harness next weekend and fix the starting issues going on. If that doesn't fix it, the only thing left would be the solenoid itself.
Front and rear glass + moldings are installed,
You can see in the upper right hand corner of the rear molding that it's lifted a bit. The weld-on stud the holds the retaining clip broke upon installation. It's not going anywhere, but it looks a little goofy. It's pretty much impossible to install a new clip stud without removing the glass, so I'm probably going to have to live with that for a while. Not a show car, so I'm not too worried about it.
I had promised a good photo shoot, but unfortunately I was unable to get the car on location. For the past couple months I've been dealing with intermittent start issues. This is part of the reason why.
As you can see there's a rats nest of old and cobbled together wiring under the dash. The previous owner wasn't a stickler with this car so he did a haphazard job on his wiring. Anyway, I'm losing continuity between the battery and the S terminal on the starter solenoid. About three volt drop on average.
I cleaned up the under dash wiring as well as I could given the materials I had on hand. I also replaced the forward light harness and installed the parking lamps and bezels.
Testing the lights, this led to the discovery of more wiring mess. When the emergency flashers are engaged, instead of blinking the park lamps, they remain lit solidly. Over time the passenger side bulb gets brighter while the driver side bulb dims. Another weird side-effect of that is that I lose signal from my fuel sending unit when the flashers are on.
So there's issues going on with the turn signal harness which is also part of the ignition switch. This morning I'll be ordering a new ignition switch, turn signal harness, neutral safety switch and ignition barrel/key. That should allow me to tackle the engine harness next weekend and fix the starting issues going on. If that doesn't fix it, the only thing left would be the solenoid itself.
No pics right now, but just a quick update.
In an effort to diagnose the non-start issue the car has been having, I set out to install the new engine harness. What I found while doing so was incredibly worrying. The previous owner had spliced (quite lazily I might add) into nearly every section of the harness. Bare exposed wires, missing grounds, you name it I found it.
Fortunately I got all of that solved with the new harness. I ended up breaking the starter solenoid terminals in the process, so I installed a new starter and solenoid for good measure. On the plus side, the engine bay is wrapped up and much cleaner now and the non-start issue has been corrected.
I then moved on to trying to diagnose tail light issues which are also effecting the dash lights. Same story here. Patched together fixes, shady electrical work etc. I'm positive there's a missing ground or two on this circuit which is causing the drain the car always had. I even started a brief electrical fire! SO the next step is acquiring a dash harness and rear lamp harness. A bit on the expensive side, but having the car completely rewired will be piece of mind.
In an effort to diagnose the non-start issue the car has been having, I set out to install the new engine harness. What I found while doing so was incredibly worrying. The previous owner had spliced (quite lazily I might add) into nearly every section of the harness. Bare exposed wires, missing grounds, you name it I found it.
Fortunately I got all of that solved with the new harness. I ended up breaking the starter solenoid terminals in the process, so I installed a new starter and solenoid for good measure. On the plus side, the engine bay is wrapped up and much cleaner now and the non-start issue has been corrected.
I then moved on to trying to diagnose tail light issues which are also effecting the dash lights. Same story here. Patched together fixes, shady electrical work etc. I'm positive there's a missing ground or two on this circuit which is causing the drain the car always had. I even started a brief electrical fire! SO the next step is acquiring a dash harness and rear lamp harness. A bit on the expensive side, but having the car completely rewired will be piece of mind.
Good work! Keep it up! :beer:
Car looks awesome! Such a pain with all the wiring issues, but like you said, the peace of mind you'll have by correcting all of it and doing it yourself will be worth it. Can't wait to see more pics, keep it up!
This thread has made me realize how amazing Firebirds look. This is right up there with the charger and challenger. Damn, love it man
You're getting to fix 46 years of people hacking into the factory harness. I've been there, done that. Ditching it all with new is a PITA, but WELL worth it!
Agree, such a great looking car that you don't see too many examples of.
I agree that the wiring re-work is a blessing in disguise. Imagine if you went to all the expense and time of re-storing the Firebird only to have it potentially destroyed by an electrical fire. Great peace of mind now.
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