1967 Firebird - From Sprint to LS Pro Touring

[Rexenator]

Hi everyone,



I've been a long time lurker on here for a while now. I've been looking for a 67-69 F-Body car for a pro touring build for over a year now. Last week I finally found the right car, a 1967 Pontiac Firebird Sprint. I got a pretty good deal on it since the 6 cylinder cars aren't terribly desirable (although the story behind the Pontiac OHC-6 is pretty neat). I picked it up from the previous owner on Wednesday, and after a short ride on a caul hauler it is finally in my garage. I have some pretty big plans for this car, but I'll post those up later. For now, here is the car:


I did some initial inspection to see what exactly I had. This was originally a Regimental Red car (currently painted some other red color) with a deluxe black interior. It had the sprint package with a 3 speed on the floor transmission (still intact). Other than that, it was a pretty basic, no option car (apart from power steering). Four wheel manual drum brakes makes for an interesting experience when trying to stop........

While taking a look under the front carpet, I found a good stash of leaves and poop. I also noticed that the padding was wet, which led me to investigate further. I ended up finding out that the front left footwell is pretty much rotted out, which ended up worrying me quite a bit. Well a few hours later, and I've gutted most of the interior. It turns out that the rest of the car is actually really solid. I'm going to order up a partial floorpan to repair the rotted out area, and prep the interior for rust inhibitor.

Once I have a solid car, building can begin. I'll talk about my plans for the car in the next post.

[Phil_L]

Nice car man! Can't wait to see the transformation. I have a 1969 firebird that I plan to build a pro touring. Good luck!

[DroptopJ]

Cool! Another First gen Firebird

[1965gp]

Very nice- I would have a hard time not putting a turbo 6 in that car!!

[Rexenator]

Ok, I just wanted to give everyone a quick idea of what I'm thinking for this build. I'm really going for modern performance with period correct (mostly) looks, so you won't see any modern aftermarket interiors or crazy bodywork attempting to modernize the vehicle. Here's what I am planning for the long term:

• Detroit Speed or Speedtech subframe and matching rear suspension
• LS3 (480 or 525) with T56
• 12 bolt rear end with TrueTrac
• Digital Gauges and hood tach
• Power windows/locks
• Big Brakes with hydroboost
• Mini tubs
• 17x9 front wheels and 17x11 rear wheels (or maybe 18s)
• VintageAir
• Reduce amount of chrome/polished trim
• Repaint (Regimental Red with Black Stripes/Accents)
• Perhaps a roll bar/cage

That said, this build will not happen overnight. My goal for the short term is to repair any rot to preserve what I have then to get the car back on the road. The tires I have now are over 30 years old, the four wheel manual drum brakes suck big time, and the engine starts and runs, but could definitely use a tune up. The interior also needs some work, and the exhaust is rusted completely through.

Hopefully by the end of the week I will have removed the rusted sections of my floorpan and ordered some replacement sheetmetal.

[Tim john---]

Them Pontiac Sprint motors were way ahead of their time, quite spunky. I really like them.

Tim john---

[XLexusTech]

My 2 cents DSE vs speed tech would go DSE ... the 480 over the 525...

Some things I wish I knew ahead of time... brakes and wheels and tires need to be in hand for mini tub and rear end sizing get all of those before you start cutting

from the looks of those toe boards you are going to be in for a one piece floor and inner rockers you may get really lucky but these cars are pretty predictable

[Rexenator]

My 2 cents DSE vs speed tech would go DSE ... the 480 over the 525...

Some things I wish I knew ahead of time... brakes and wheels and tires need to be in hand for mini tub and rear end sizing get all of those before you start cutting

from the looks of those toe boards you are going to be in for a one piece floor and inner rockers you may get really lucky but these cars are pretty predictable

Thanks for the input. It would be a real shame if I had to go with a full floor, the rest of the floor is solid. I do agree that I will probably have to replace the left inner rocker, there is some rot in there that requires more than a small patch. Oh well, I won't really find out until I get in there and cut some of the bad part of the floor out.

[Rexenator]

Just spent the last few days removing the rust and other nastiness with a wire brush and my angle grinder. The undercarriage was poorly coated in a stone chip like material, which took me a while to remove. I kind of wish I had a rotisserie or body stand for some of this work, but my race ramps work pretty good at giving me enough room to move under the car. The good news is only that one panel is bad. The bad news is that there is a lot of bubba work that needs to be fixed.

My entire electrical system is spliced together with twist on lamp connectors and tape. Also, it looks like all of my brake and fuel lines are hand bent (as in without a tube bender). Also, I'm 99% sure my clutch cable and parking brake cable are not run correctly. They cross over and through the subframe, and the parking brake cable hangs on the floor pan. Exhaust is shot, more holes than metal left. I was planning on replacing this stuff anyway, but it's still frustrating to see such poor work.

Also, are there any good reference books that give a clear description of how the car is supposed to be assembled? I have the Pontiac service manual (and supplement) as well as the Body By Fisher manual, but a lot of info I need is either not in there or not clear.

[Rexenator]

I just wanted to give everyone an idea of what I'm working with. Most of my wiring is pretty nasty, I can't believe someone would wire a car this way. I took out a pretty decent amount of wiring which was never properly terminated, or taped together. It looks like I don't actually have any original wiring left in the car. Once I get it all out of here I am going to replace the entire harness with something like what Painless Performance offers.

Also, it turns out when the car was painted last that the interior was not removed, nor was the interior masked off. So now 90% of my interior trim panels are not reusable because they are covered in paint.

Another thing, it turns out my drivers side inner rocker needs to be replaced. I was grinding off the stone chip underneath and found a poorly welded on patch covering a pretty nice rusted out hole. I also found a few more holes on the passenger side floorpan while removing the stone chip, so now I'm leaning towards a one piece floor pan and inner rockers. I've done some reading, and it looks like the full replacement isn't much harder than welding in a bunch of patches. Also, since my toe boards are rotted out, and I'll be switching to vintage air anyway I might just go ahead and replace the firewall with a heater delete version. I've checked the regular places (AMD and Dynacorn) and these parts are readily available and reasonably priced. All of that should leave me with a rock solid car

Lastly, I think my trunk pan is installed incorrectly. The sides have a huge gap which isn't welded or glued to anything. I'm going to investigate further, but it looks like I may need to replace that as well.

[Rexenator]

Been a slow few days with the car. I ordered some 10" RaceRamps wheel cribs to give me some more room to crawl around. Today I ran the engine for what will probably be the last time it runs in this car. I took some video to document the engine so I can try to sell it (anyone want a Pontiac OHC-6?). I'll post the video here in a couple of days.

Back on the restoration side, I removed the exhaust tonight. At first I tried removing it the "correct" way by unbolting the flanges and separating everything. About 30 minutes into removing rusted on nuts and bolts it occurred to me, why am I trying to save exhaust that has 12 or more large holes in it? After that I got out the old body saw and chopped the rest out. Tomorrow I'll start taking the front end off (bumpers, fenders, etc.) so I can begin prepping to pull the engine.

[Rexenator]

I thought I'd post a quick status update. I have all of the front sheet metal off the car, but I still need to get the special tool to remove the windshield wiper arms so I can remove the cowl. I also started keeping track of what I need to replace, so far the sheetmetal I need is:

• Floorpan (Full)
• Firewall (heater delete/smooth)
• Dash Panel (To convert to A/C Car)
• Passenger side inner fender (maybe repairable)

I'll start disconnecting the fuel lines/brakes/steering tomorrow in preparation to drop the subframe. I am still deciding which method I want to use to remove the subframe. I have considered pulling the engine/transmission, then dropping the subframe, or leaving everything, putting the car on jacks and raising it off of the subframe and rolling everything away. Does anyone have any insight to which method is easier/preferred?

[Dark Pursuit]

If you are going to recondition your original subframe, It is a good idea to dis-assemble the front suspension with body and engine in place. Then you can the subfarme and roll the body off. Just make sure that you plan the room to roll the body back. Then you can hoist engine and trans and just drop the subframe clear of the power plant. The subrame without suspension will then be under 200 lbs and manageable by 1 man.

[hiflyr]

My 2 cents DSE vs speed tech would go DSE ... the 480 over the 525...

Some things I wish I knew ahead of time... brakes and wheels and tires need to be in hand for mini tub and rear end sizing get all of those before you start cutting

from the looks of those toe boards you are going to be in for a one piece floor and inner rockers you may get really lucky but these cars are pretty predictable

Just curious why the 480 over the 525?

[Rexenator]

If you are going to recondition your original subframe, It is a good idea to dis-assemble the front suspension with body and engine in place. Then you can the subfarme and roll the body off. Just make sure that you plan the room to roll the body back. Then you can hoist engine and trans and just drop the subframe clear of the power plant. The subrame without suspension will then be under 200 lbs and manageable by 1 man.

I don't plan on re-using this subframe, and I don't currently have an engine hoist which is why I thought leaving the engine on the subframe might be easier. The plan is to get the subframe off the car, and sell everything (subframe, engine, transmission). I kind of like the idea of rolling the body away from the subframe though, what would you suggest using the prob the front up with to help roll it out?

[Rexenator]

Got some more work done on the car today. I pulled all of the parts for the heater, a pretty easy job that didn't take me too long to accomplish. I will be converting to VintageAir, so all of these parts go into the "sell" bin.



I also got a chance to try out my new angle grinder today. I wanted to see how hard it would be to grind down the firewall spot welds when I'm ready to remove the firewall. The grinder has plenty of guts, so it should help make easy work of anything I need it for. Sadly, while I was crawling around under the car I noticed a patch on the drivers side rocker that looked like there might be rust under the paint. So I busted out the angle grinder and did a quick grind and found this:



There was about an inch thick layer of bondo piled up on top of a huge dent in the rocker. Either this car was in a very minor accident (possible) or someone tried to jack the car up from the rocker. Based on the weird mangled bend in the pinch seam right near this very spot, I'd say someone tried using a floor jack for a tire change and messed it up. But who knows, maybe it was t-boned by a motorcycle or something. I ground the rest of the bondo down, and am left with this:




You can kind of see in the second picture where the lines of the rocker dent inward. The rocker will have to be replaced when I start repairing everything. To be positive, I'm just glad it wasn't filler to cover up a huge rust problem. Oh well, add an outer rocker to the sheet metal I need to replace. And now the teardown can continue!

[xsboost90]

nice project. Saw one of those at the track as a kid that was all built up- running like 10's or something. Badass. I had a 69 firebird a few years back with a Bischof race motor 355sbc that was very quick. Miss that car.

What part of Ohio you in? Im from cincinnati but now live over the Ohio Ocean in NKY.

[Rexenator]

nice project. Saw one of those at the track as a kid that was all built up- running like 10's or something. Badass. I had a 69 firebird a few years back with a Bischof race motor 355sbc that was very quick. Miss that car.

What part of Ohio you in? Im from cincinnati but now live over the Ohio Ocean in NKY.

I'm just outside of Dayton. I've got an uncle in KY, he lives just outside of Lexington. He got me interested in these cars a few years back. He owns a bird/Trans Am from almost every year they were made. He keeps them in a 30 car garage that he calls "The Birdhouse."

[Rexenator]

I got a little further with the teardown last week. I removed the steering column and gutted the remainder of the interior. My driver's side inner/outer rockers showed up from AMD (note gigantic box currently stored on top of the car).




Unfortunately, after I ordered the driver's side rockers I decided to check the other side, and now it looks like I will need to order rockers for the passenger side as well.



Also, I spent a lot of time this week learning to weld. I put together a few practice projects, and am now much more comfortable knowing I am able to complete this restoration.

[Motown 454]

Your moving along nicely. Keep at it.