Nice job on the brackets. Its coming along.

Thanks, Wayne!

I got a little time in today (anniversary weekend- I had other priorities, ha ha) so I finished up the radiator installation and am recycling the washer fluid bottle as an overflow tank. I also spent some time sanding down my plastic grille pieces, but the painting was a disaster so I need to sand them down and try again.

I've also been "sponsored", so to speak. My coworker gave me an exhaust cut out kit he bought for his 5th gen camaro and decided not to use. I'll make good use of it...

Happy Anniversary ! And those priorities are called Keeping the peace. Nice cut outs.

Thanks again, Wayne! Yes, there is wisdom in keeping that peace. Some of us take longer than others to learn this valuable lesson, and I'm still learning every day. :p

So I snuck into the garage after work this past week and installed the front bumper. It still needs a tiny bit of adjustment for my bumper/ passender fender but I'll wait to do that until after I put the hood on. The bumper went on fine, but then, of course, the garage door wouldn't close, so I had to carefully use 2 floor jacks to lift the car and push it back. (still no wheels yet) I kept the jackstands near the frame rails to help keep it balanced. This weekend I installed more wiring...

Nice cutouts, digging them. It's finally starting to take shape, that's nice ;-)

All of my project go like that I can never catch a break with mishaps like that. Nice car by the way! I had a 67 convertible as my first car. can't wait to see yours done.

Thanks! I'll need to start figuring out my exhaust soon. I still have some wiring to do, including the engine wiring, and I have a catch can set up that should be arriving soon, and will install that next.



Yeah, silly things like that happen to me a lot, too. Much more often than I post, but I thought that pic was worth a laugh.

I can't wait to be driving it. It's been 4.5 years since I ripped it apart and that's a long time to go without a "fun" car. However, for me a car is never done until I sell it. My plan is to drive it in this "raw" level for a time, tuning it, enjoying it, etc, and when I have the itch (and $$$) to work on it again I can tear it back apart and have the bodywork done right/ painted, etc. Maybe.


This weekend I helped my coworker remove a 2 barrel 289 out of his '68 XR7 Cougar. The car started life with a 390 and a previous owner took that out for this mild v8. (apparently a trend in the 70's gas crunch era) He's returning the car to its former glory and then some by having another 390 built with aluminum heads and a T56 Magnum. I think he's going to have a traction problem if he doesn't add more meat in back- a good problem to have, imo.

I have always loved the Cougars they have such a cool look.

Yea, this is a clean one. He got lucky as it was local and reasonably priced, too. Very solid car, and it's an original 390 XR7 car.

I have been working on my car, but it's mostly been wiring. Nothing much to show yet. I got distracted this weekend with building my wagon- more on that here:

https://lateral-g.net/forums/showthread.php4?t=47229

Looking really good!

Okay the wagon Rocks

Love the little Wagon :) I bought and modified slightly one for my girls, they liked cruising on it at the car show after a lot of walking :) Great swap meet parts hauler too :)

Thanks, guys! Yeah, that wagon is definitely for the swap meets. I'm getting tired of grunting all my parts around the aisles at Pomona, and, as those who have been to it knows, it's a big show. I painted the chassis red today. It's rough up close, but that's OK. I don't want to over obsess on this thing.

Looking good !

Thanks, Wayne!

Still plugging away on my wiring, ha ha ha... So I'll share some pics of my progress. For the most part- under the dash is done. (still have a few lights to wire in) I mounted the computer underneath the pass side of the dash along with the fuel pump relay. One day, if and when I put a HVAC system in this will all need to change. I have the wiring for the cluster all set, but I can't put that in until my replacement light socket arrives. This one little socket is the only piece I can think of so far that I have lost during the entire build of this car, which, is pretty good, actually.

In the engine bay I have the wiring harness mostly on the engine (minus the obvious not yet installed parts) and the wires mounted on the firewall. I also used an LT1 style junction block (in the far left corner, it's red, and barely in the pic). I really like these parts as they have a plastic cover helping to protect the metal and two posts for mounting wires. GM seemed to discontinue them on the LS cars. Not sure why... Still need to wire up the fans and lights. Speaking of which I picked up a set of tinted BMW style headlights. I'll have some fab work to do to get these to fit. I'm thinking I may need to pull the bumper back off to make this happen. These lights are deeper (especially the projectors). I'm hoping I can simply remove these and modify my firebird sockets/ plate and use this set up to mount the new lights. It would be best as this will locate them properly as opposed to trying to modify the BMW mounting assembly as that is way different and would take a lot of fab work to modify.

I also had some fun removing a plug on the passenger side head for installing a temp sender. Unfortunately, the plug was rounded so I ended up using these stripped bolt extractors I forgot I had. Worked awesome. I'm so glad I had them. I just tapped it on with a hammer and off it came. It wasn't even tapped on squarely... I'll recommend these from now on. I'm sold. Of course, once I did get this off the sender I have is the wrong size, so I'll need to get another one of these, ha ha.

This weekend I finished up my fuel line, and made some LED lights for my interior. I wanted to make a soft glow for under the footwell area in the interior. Not to be confused with christmas tree lighting seen in some tuner cars... This will be subtle so I added some resistors to weaken the LEDs. I also started working on blending the BMW headlights into my car. This has definitely been a project of learning what to do by doing everything wrong first. So much so that I've had to order a second pair of lights (a $300+ lesson)

It appeared that I had a choice of either adapting the BMW lights to my Firebird brackets/ assembly, or using the BMW assembly. I started with trying to use as much of the Firebird assembly as possible to ensure proper placement of the lights. This was the wrong approach. It didn't work and I made one of the lights unusable for the BMW assembly in the process.

So I started to adapt the BMW mounting to the Firebird backing plates that hold the lights. Fortunately I have (had) 2 sets of these because I measured wrong and ruined the first plate I started to modify. With the second plate I got the lights where they should go, and then made the passenger side even better (practice makes perfect..) After making the passenger side better I decided to remake my driver side again (a third time) as I realized the holes I had to make could be much smaller and retain more metal for structural support.

I also had to pull the bumper back off to remove material around the headlight areas to allow the new larger lights to fit. I can finish this project up after my second set of lights come in, hopefully next weekend. Stay tuned.

Sat night update
 

Normally I save my updates for Sunday night when I capture the entire weekend's worth of wrenching, but I was happy with the result today so I thought I'd share.

I finally got the headlights mounted in my car. What a job this was. I went through two full sets of these aftermarket BMW lights. Absolutely ruined every extra light in one way or another. Two sets of Firebird mounting brackets, and one Firebird headlight bucket (technically still usable, just lightweight now, ha ha)

I've included two pics of the before/ after of the plastic frame modification, as well as the modified mounting bracket in case anyone else is interested in trying this type of modification or just curious to see what it took. Tomorrow I'll work on wiring this and taking better pics of the car without the silly washer fluid bucket and blanket on the engine..

If anyone is curious- installing the projectors on the inside would have required rebuilding the bumper mounting brackets, at least with these lights. Also, keeping them on the outside retains the original lighting sequence.

Nice job they look like they were from the factory.

Thanks, Wayne! Of course, who knows where they are pointing right now, ha ha

Didn't finish the lighting wiring today, as I forgot that I needed to find out if the Ron Francis wiring system I have would provide sufficient power for these lights (I'm doubting it) or if I need to set up relays with power from the battery. So I reinstalled my horns, finished wiring the inside for now (the parking brake light isn't hooked up) and will call them tomorrow.

And I took some better pics of the car today...

Great work on the headlights!! Love the look

X2! It looks awesome and I am really looking forward to seeing more.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

It's looking ridiculously Awesome!

Thanks, guys! I appreciate the kind words. Now I'm just waiting for my taillights. I have a friend building me some LED lights for them (traded labor for some welding and fab work) Just need him to finish up so I can install those.

Your car is turning out really nice.

Small updates this weekend. I got the headlight wiring finished up, and I installed the AC cover panels, even though they will need to come back off again for me to install the rubber pads, and later adjust the headlights, but it looks nice seeing them on there. I also have part of my RC catch can installed. I need to figure out where a few of the hoses still go- their instructions are not clear on a complete installation of this. I also had to make an extension for their optional air breather as it didn't clear the coils, and rebuild their bracket as it didn't fit my car. I pressed the extension on and then brazed it with some aluminum brazing rod I picked up at Pomona to seal it up. Cool stuff, especially since I don't have the tools to weld aluminum. All it took was a propane torch...

Part of installing that catch can assy included blocking off the pass valve cover tube, and I had to pull the valve cover to get a nut that dropped down while doing that, so I took a pic of the shiny rocker arms. I can't wait to hear this engine run

Definitely looking good my friend. How long before you think it will be before you try to fire it up?

At the least I need the radiator hoses (I took measurements yesterday and will soon start figuring that out), a battery, the air intake assy (install the MAF, air filter, etc) and I believe a driveshaft to hold in the trans fluid. I wouldn't want to run that dry... I "should" also fit an exhaust system on, not for me, but for my cranky old neighbors (not you, Brett!)

It would be good to have wheels and tires so I could roll it (or drive it) outside to not smoke up the garage.

It's getting close, though!

Nice build how long has it been that youve been building it

I'll be watching so I can enjoy your success!

Way too long... 4.5 years. I starting tearing the car apart in Jan 2010


Thank you, Wayne! It'll still be a little while though. Money is tight

Just a quick update- I received a nice gift last weekend- a Flowmaster exhaust system for my car. Maybe next weekend I can do something with it..

Awesome build! I can't wait to see the car finished. Keep up the great work!

New parts are always good!

Thank you!!


agreed, especially when they are a gift!

At my work they are showcasing projects of employees who build/ make things this week, and I have participated by showing the build process of my Firebird. I've made 6 or so presentation boards with highlights of my project over the past few years, and I was asked to bring the car in to supplement the presentation. To do this I needed to borrow some wheels and figure a way to get the car and back. I was fortunate to receive help from Brett (Fab53) on both tasks. Thanks, Brett!! We put the car on wheels on Sat, and it sat like, well, like a Mustang! ha ha So we quickly lowered it and got it to a more respectable stance. The spacing/ offset is still narrow for my car, and measuring this will help me dial in the rim sizes I will ultimately need to buy. I also need to get new springs for my shocks, as the ones that came in the DSE kit won't work for the stance I want.

It will be unveiled on Tuesday. I can't wait!

Very cool! Talk about motivation to get the project done. The car looks great!

Sweet ! it looks good already with those wheels.

Thanks, guys! Yeah, it was definitely motivating... then I looked at my bank account and remembered why it's still on jack stands, ha ha

I had some time and worked on mocking up my exhaust. With exception of my cut outs (these will locate at the first bend of the exhaust for a "Straight through" fit), I have it roughed out now, and next weekend will hopefully finish it up, paint it and loosely install it. I'm so glad I made those exhaust cut outs in my floor. they provided enough room for me to get the exhaust up and out of the way. I won't torque it down until after the drive shaft is in, and I have my drive shaft hoop built.