Here's what I'm working with. My uncle did all the body work himself. It's pretty much done. Now the mechanical side needs to be done:

Here is the before........





And what he has done...







I havemuch better pictures somewhere. It's a 1980 Firebird, V6 Auto.

 

he must be a hell of a body man!

its a good start, and a cool car...

 

Thanks. The beauty of it is that he will give it to me. He is at the point where he was going to just junk it because he just got tired of working on it. He doesn't want to just let it go since he put so much work into it.

And I was wrong; obviously it has the square headlights If anything, I think it would be a cool car to fix up and turn into a hot rod for my wife. My wife loves muscle cars and hot rods. I thought instead of getting a second car, I would just fix this up for her instead.

Also, the engine still runs perfectly, and the transmission is also good. I don't want to swap to a V8 until I learn a little more about engines, so I would just keep the V6 in there and mod the hell otu of it until I blow it (if i blow it) and use it at the track in the bracket races you got me all geeked up on now.

I think that's the best way to learn and not kill myself.

 

Anothing thing also, alot of those panels were not bondo'd, but replaced. He replaced both of the doors and alot of the body panels, then sanded and primered them. It's the chasis that was bad supposedly. He put that rust stopper black paint on the entire bottom side oft he chasis. He said he doesnt trust it and would be afraid it may fall apart. He said alot of parts he had to fill in with steel panels because there was nowhere left to weld to for the replacement panels.

Here is what he said about the brakes:

"It has NO BRAKES AT THIS TIME, needs new back brake hose lines and master
cylinders.
OH...IT HAS DRUM BRAKES IN THE BACK, DISK UP FRONT. The master cylinders are
those small ones that go in the brake area and have the seals in them. I
ALSO BOUGHT A BRAND NEW
PRO BRAKE BLEEDER THAT I HAVE NEVER USED! LOL Mighty VAC or something.
But it lets ONE GUY BLEED THE BRAKE SYSTEM. Could probably fix the brakes
for under 100 bucks."

So, it might not be as bad as I thought.

 

That one door looked like cheeze bro. whew. The pics sure make it look like great body work. What you have here is the ROCKFORD FILES machine Jimbo. Like my 3, went for the plain Jane look, minimal bling. You are on the right track with the brakes, you can do it easy.

 

nice starter car Mike, with the right motor/trans and a few goodies that car will run. My first car ever was an 84 trans am and my first street/track car was a silver 1979 Trans am with the 400 big block and a 4 speed manual. It even has the ws6 package with 4 wheel disk brakes...WAHOO!!! That car was really fun....I beat the hell out f her and she never left me stranded. I have poloroid pics in my desk, I'm gonna have to scan them for ya.

 

Thanks. You know, I really don't like bugging people for things, but I may need all of your help with this. I've never worked on a car that was NOT EFI so this carbeurator stuff is new to me. I'll just wait until I actually have it in my garage to start figuring out where to start. Obviously the brakes are first.

 

carbs are easy...as long as you don't go with a flo-jet, quadra-jet...whatever those damn POS things are called.[:'(]I hated tunig those damn things. Easiest thing to do is buy a new edelbrock carb in the size you need, they come pretty much ready to run, just remove old one and linkages, scrape off old gasket...install new gasket and carp, hook up lines and linkage....start car. You may have to tweak some adjustments...but not much!!

 

first rule of working with a carb motor...

buy holley. the easiest to work with, in my experiences...that, and i have quite a bit of experience working with holleys and holley knock offs/similars, such as barry grant and proform race carbs. i had a carter for a while, and the holley is so much better to work with..easy to tune with, etc.

once you spend some time under the hood of a nice simple carb motor, you will hate working on EFI engines. im no austion coil, but im always here to lend as much advice as i can. my dad has taught me to tune a carbed car track side, with nothing more than a spark plug socket and a ratchet set. these EFI guys carrying laptops and things around with them to tune their cars at the track can keep that crap...laptops are for forums and ****...



*edit..i didnt read impys post before i posted. if he knows edelbrock, then go for that, but if you need holley advice, im here. i find that its easier avoiding the metering rods and such...as with the holleys you can tune to fix problems at half track or launch...

i run a 750 BG holley with a proform center (looks like a dominator), flowing to 800cfm...running big jets and small pissers...[8D]

 

I always thought the hardest part about tuning older engines was getting the carb set up properly. At least when I used to watch my uncle work on cars when I was a kid, that's always what he had the most problems with.

Here's a better before and after pic:



Keep in mind, he didn't just buy this car to fix up, it was his daily driver for a very long time. He may be only the second owner, so mechanically the engine and drivetrain are perfect.

How hard is it to swap the auto trans for a manual?