68Firebird

[68400BIRD]

Originally Posted by MaxHarvard

Needs minitubs!!

I wish I had done them while I was half way already in there. I would hate to undo everything that I already did. But I might at a later date.

[68400BIRD]

I guess I'm a little behind on any updates. I have not had a lot of time to work on the car over the last year so projects have been small and pretty rare.
I dropped all of the front end brackets to get powder coated that were on the last page at a good friends house.
Here they are not back at home.
Front bumper brackets.

Rear bumper brackets.

Seat tracks.

Wiper arm assembly.

Headlight assemblies.

[68400BIRD]

One picture of most of the parts.

Rear interior arm rests.

Drain plugs.

Installed with black silicone.

Wiper arm assembly installed.

[68400BIRD]

The next project took a lot of time but no money. I like those kinds of projects. I had a two speed power glide shifter that I wanted to convert into a three speed ratcheting shifter.
I took the original shifter and a early 70's shifter and combined the two together to make what I wanted. It seems that the mainbase of the shifters is the same from 68 to 81. The main difference is that the mounting brackets to the floor change from car to car and the 68 has the neutral safety switch on the shifter and not on the column.
I started with drilling out all of the brackets on the lower portion of my 68 shifter. I would need these welded onto my 71? shifter.



These are the 71 brackets that I removed.

Welding shifter back together.


Neutral safety switch bracket.

I now have a ratcheting three speed shifter that will bolt into the stock console. I can also use a push button knob or the T-handle.

[68400BIRD]

Next on the list was to convert the center caps on my American Racing V500 rims to accept the stock PMD cap.
Here is the stock cap.

The backside of the PMD cap. I need to add longer studs.

Centering spacer that fits into the hub of the rim in two spots.This helps keep the cap centered on the face of the rim.

I don't have any pictures but I had to flatten out the dust shield caps to make a little clearancing room.
Spacer on PMD cap.

Final product. Please excuse the smudged up rims.

[68400BIRD]

I had talked with Tobin at Kore3 several times about solving some of my brake issues. It seems that the master cylinder that I had was not a good fit for the front brakes that I wanted to upgrade to.
I have a 12" kit in the back and I wanted to upgrade the fronts to at least that size if not one size larger.
I have to say up front that Tobin knows his brakes and was very patient with all of my noobie questions.
We settled on a Wilwood master and adjustable prop valve along with a C6 brake kit.
I almost forgot about the hubs that also needed to be machined for the kit. Tobin had all of the measurements and drawings on line to help with the project.
It seems that I gave my drum brake hubs away a few years ago so I had to find some again. It ended up with me receiving two sets of hubs. I had that all machined down so I would have a extra set for who knows what.
Four crusty hubs.

The rotor face turned down.

Bearings and seals removed, and a sand blasting to clean them up.

New seals,races,bearings, and studs. They needed to be a little longer than the stock ones. Also put on a fresh coat of paint.

Drivers side all mounted up.

[68400BIRD]

Kore3 mounting brackets for the C6 upgrade.

Kore3 calipers.

Wilwood master and prop valve.


Rotors purchased from Jegs. Compared to the 69 front disc brakes that I had installed at a earlier point.

Fill out the rim very nice.

[MaxHarvard]

Looks good!

[68400BIRD]

Thanks Eric. I really need to get over to your place before Car Craft. I would love to see your car in person.

[67rstbkt]

looking great! Glad to see this one back on track. I've been in the same mode on mine, just trying to get a lot of the smaller pieces together.