pro-touring '68 firebird...on a budget

**LeighP** · 06-26-2012

As far as seats go....I used a pair of mid to late 80's Corvette buckets....they have a flat bottom that makes adapting them to factory rails easy, and they sit low to the floor - I gained at least two inches of headroom in my 71.
Other advantages, the seat foams come pre-covered in a huge range of coloured leathers and just clip into the seat frames...no paying a trimmer to fit the covers. They are also slim line in the back, so there is more rear seat leg room as well.

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**68firebird** · 06-26-2012

Originally Posted by LeighP

As far as seats go....I used a pair of mid to late 80's Corvette buckets....they have a flat bottom that makes adapting them to factory rails easy, and they sit low to the floor - I gained at least two inches of headroom in my 71.
Other advantages, the seat foams come pre-covered in a huge range of coloured leathers and just clip into the seat frames...no paying a trimmer to fit the covers. They are also slim line in the back, so there is more rear seat leg room as well.

awesome, thank you. I'll have to look into those.

**68firebird** · 06-27-2012

Hey michael, I need some of your knowledge! If I were to pick these up from radio shack to use as turn signal indicators http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...ductId=2062569 would I need to put a resistor to absorb some of the voltage in between the led and the power source? It says in the description of the led that its a 12v led, and I'm assuming there is 12v going to the signal indicators. I'm doing research on this now and I wanna make sure I buy all the stuff I need to wire it up properly. thanks.

**68firebird** · 06-27-2012

Think I found the answer, it has the resistor built right into it.

**Buryingthesun** · 06-27-2012

I like where this build is going! It will be nice for your car and my car to meet some day in a parkinglot lol

**LeighP** · 06-28-2012

Originally Posted by 68firebird

awesome, thank you. I'll have to look into those.

Found a couple of pics....

**dusterbd13** · 06-28-2012

yup.

on the origonal harness, if i remember right, it just provided a hot side to the bulb. youll have to give a good ground, or the LED wont fire.

and thise are the exact same ones i typically use. god bless radio shack.

**68firebird** · 06-28-2012

thanks leigh, those do look like they fit really good. I'm gonna have to scour craigslist to see what I can find. those would be soooooo much better than the stock firebird seats.

thanks Michael, thats what I was thinking, that I'd have to just ground them out somewhere.

**dusterbd13** · 06-28-2012

if youre coming south, ive got a pair in similar condition in storage.
(can you tell i never throw anything away???)

**68firebird** · 06-28-2012

Originally Posted by dusterbd13

if youre coming south, ive got a pair in similar condition in storage.
(can you tell i never throw anything away???)

hahaha, thanks but I'm not coming south anytime soon, closest I have to family down there is in myrtle beach.

small update, got my hotchkis/bilstein shocks in today, man these things are stiff!!! took the rear drums apart to put new shoes and hardware in, but I don't think the drums and wheel cylinders are useable, I'll have to pick some of those up.

**dusterbd13** · 06-29-2012

i like the beach......

and weve got kin in richhmond VA that well be going to visit soon.

and once you go bilstein, even your daily driver work truck winds up with them. theyre that good.

**gtalum01** · 07-01-2012

I also have Corvette seats in my 68 Bird, from a 90 model. They were power but the motors were trashed but I found if you use the original seat tracks they fit very well, you just need some steel spacers in the front and rear. But it was a simple install and the fit is great as far as plenty of clearance as well as side bolsters are so much better than the originals. just my $.02.

**68firebird** · 07-01-2012

Originally Posted by gtalum01

I also have Corvette seats in my 68 Bird, from a 90 model. They were power but the motors were trashed but I found if you use the original seat tracks they fit very well, you just need some steel spacers in the front and rear. But it was a simple install and the fit is great as far as plenty of clearance as well as side bolsters are so much better than the originals. just my $.02.

awesome, thank you. I'll have to try and keep an eye out for a pair of corvette seats then. that sounds good.

**68firebird** · 07-01-2012

Just placed a small order with summitracing.com:

5 inch autometer phantom in dash speedometer
2 1/16 inch phantom fuel level guage
2 rear drums.

quick $270 gone LOL.

**68firebird** · 07-03-2012

summit order will be in thursday night sometime, after that I can put the rear brakes together. last night I started into something I've been not wanting to do, try and fix this mess!!

this is the mess of wires I have to figure out, some of it I know what its from because I had put the 3 gauges in, but I have to put black wire for the negative wiring, I didn't do that on initial install a few years back. The nest behind the radio I have no idea what's what yet.

all that was on this pic below was some electrical tape, and it wasn't even a good tape job, kinda scary LOL, and of course of the course of a dozen years the tape started to fall off. I'm not that best at this and I could have done it better the first time around!

and there's some wires that I had just thrown some blades on for the gauges a few years back and wedged them on the side of the glass fuses, I have to figure out whats the best wires to splice into for the power to these gauges now that I have a tad more knowledge than I did back then.

should be fun!

Is there a company out there that just makes a blade fuse block to put in place of the glass fuse block? I'd love to get rid of the glass fuses.

**67rally** · 07-03-2012

Painless makes a fuse block without the wiring, if you're looking to re-use your current rat's nest: http://www.summitracing.com/parts/PRF-30001/

If you want to redo the whole wiring system, I've heard better things about the AAW kit than the Painless kit. I'll be using the AAW kit this winter when I re-do the rest of mine.

**68firebird** · 07-03-2012

I've seen those generic ones like that but was unsure if that would work. I'm very new to automotive electric and just want to make sure what I get will fit and won't require rocket science to figure out how to wire it up.

**68firebird** · 07-03-2012

nothing really too exciting, but I got the rear brakes together, waiting on the drums which come in thursday. still have to order the master cylinder, should be very soon. I wanna pull this out of the garage and into the driveway to do interior work, lighting sucks in the garage!

**68firebird** · 07-04-2012

Ordered gas struts and ball studs today to do the trunk mod that someone linked to me on teamCamaro.com. My torsion bars are crap.

here's the link to the thread. http://www.camaros.net/forums/showthread.php?t=169354

**68firebird** · 07-05-2012

got the speedometer and tach in, they look good. I've figured out how to run the led's for the signals, just gotta find the best place for them, not much room here for that, LOL. also got the drums painted and on. The fuel level guage will go in once I get a chance to make a 4 gauge holder. can't seem to find one, the biggest I can find is 3.

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