1984 Pontiac Firebird build thread?

[theking11863]

Well it's been a few months since I blew the head gasket on my '90 4Runner and I've realized it may be awhile before I get her fixed. I found out yesterday that I blew the oil feed from the block, which according to my source, is common in BMW's too. So some of you may be asking what am using to get myself around in? What am I fixing up instead of the beat up old Mudrunner?

The answer?

This beautiful 1984 Pontiac Firebird I picked up back on Labor day weekend!

This pic is off the original ebay ad (yes I said ebay. There are nice cars if you look!) As you can see the previous owner has a 5th gen 4Runner in the background. Now I'm kind of wondering if he's a member of this forum...


This isn't a super fancy Trans Am with 305 V8 unfortunately but its still a nice car to own. Gets great gas mileage and is still very fast. As far as future plans go with this car I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do to it. I will probably do an engine swap and other performance upgrades but that's far in the future. Other than that I think I'll mostly leave it alone, so this is probably going to shape up to a pretty crappy build thread since I won't do much to it but hey, it's something to keep me busy. Feel free to drop any questions you guys have. I'll probably drop links to other forum pages that this car is on because that'll be the main forum home for this car but I'll try to keep this updated too!

The garage page for the car is located here

 

[ran]

I think mine was a 83? Same 305 V8 with 5 speed, some T/A numbers. I sold it with 40K on it. It was a weekend car, as I drove my company truck 24/7. As soon as my new wife realized, it did not have air bags she hated it.
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2007 SE V6 Titanium

 

[theking11863]

Wow that sounds awesome! I wish mine had the 305. I can only imagine how awesome it would be. Sorry to hear you had to sell it. The no airbags doesn't bother me since none of my cars have ever had an airbag. i

 

[ran]

It was some special edition with a factory numbered plaque on the dash. I want to say it was #38/500. All the same same silver paint and I have only seen one other one. The all carried the same 305 with 4 bbl. The suspension was a T/A number. stupid rims. Seeing I was driving work trucks and vans, slipping down into this every weekend was a blast.

 

[theking11863]

The Daytona 500 25th anniversary edition?

 

[ran]

NO. not Daytona. I know I have a picture of the decal somewhere. I sold it before leaving CA and the owner shot it gloss black. Maybe 'Special Edition". that will take some looking. I think the 5-speed and suspension were the only T/A numbers. what years are your generation? maybe mine was a 82.

 

[theking11863]

Hmm. Maybe it was an '84 15th Anniversary Edition

 

[theking11863]

NO. not Daytona. I know I have a picture of the decal somewhere. I sold it before leaving CA and the owner shot it gloss black. Maybe 'Special Edition". that will take some looking. I think the 5-speed and suspension were the only T/A numbers. what years are your generation? maybe mine was a 82.

Did you ever figure out what year/edition yours was? And the third gen firebirds ran from 82-92 but they went through a decent amount of changes. If it had a bumper similar to mine it was an earlier one

 

[ran]

Not positive, 82-84 guessing, the previous owner is out of the country right now. The Front end was just like yours, except I didn't run a license plate there. Because there was an S/E then, it's hard to find my model listed anywhere. only 500 made, who knows how many are left now.
when he had it, something dropped on the hood, so he got a large Firebird decal to cover it, looked great the first time he was in town and I saw it. When he offered it to me later on, I jumped at it. If I can find a picture, I will know more on what to call it.

 

[theking11863]

Possibly a "500 limited edition"? Sounds like a pointless special edition but I need to research it. Theres a couple pics of one here

 

[ran]

Wow, that looks like it. Not sure that is the same body decal. I know I didn't have that 500 sticker on the lower side. All on mine were the same body colour that silver that fades away in fog or rain. great search!
I feel for that guy, putting headers in that tight engine compartment.

 

[theking11863]

Wow, that looks like it. Not sure that is the same body decal. I know I didn't have that 500 sticker on the lower side. All on mine were the same body colour that silver that fades away in fog or rain. great search!
I feel for that guy, putting headers in that tight engine compartment.

Did some reasearch on it. The 500 LE doesn't seem to be very special or anything other than the fact only 500 were made (possibly per year. Not sure. I saw links for 83's and 85's) Different spoiler rims and decals seem to be the only difference between it and a regular one. Still a cool car though.

 

[theking11863]

Wow, that looks like it. Not sure that is the same body decal. I know I didn't have that 500 sticker on the lower side. All on mine were the same body colour that silver that fades away in fog or rain. great search!
I feel for that guy, putting headers in that tight engine compartment.

Oh and you're right. Working under that hood can be a b*tch. Have you ever done the belts? I did mine the other day and hated every second of it.

 

[ran]

I remember the rear spoiler was a larger than stock unit. Other Firebird owners asked me about it. So I guess that is it. 4bbl carb instead of the new type injection, 5 speed, stickers and plaque. fun ride after sitting high in work vans.
Because of this and other Toyota truck forums, I know more about my truck than I did about that ride. it sure had some stupid rims.

 

[ran]

OK! the side decal is the same, got a hold of the previous owner. The lower strange decal was not on those. He misses that 5.0 also. have fun!

 

[theking11863]

At least you guys have the 5.0! My engine isnt nearly that big but its still a fun little toy. Still miss my runner though

 

[ran]

If I could have two, It would be my 4Runner and a fun car.
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2007 SE V6 Titanium

 

[theking11863]

That's kinda what I have going on except my runner is dead

 

[theking11863]

Updates as of 11/15/2015 Part 1

Been pretty busy with school lately so I haven't had much time to do much but I do what I can here and there. Even if I had more time there isn't much that needs to be done to this car since its in such perfect condition.

On 10/20/2015 I busted a mystery belt that I couldn't figure out what it did. Didn't affect the car running so I wasn't too worried about it. After doing some investigation I found out it's to what's called a smog pump, which pretty much pumps fresh air into the exhaust. Other than making it easy to pass smog (would definitely explain the amazing smog score it got) I don't think it does much for saving the environment... Still, if it helps a car pass smog I need one for my 4Runner!



After looking at it I realized my power steering belt was upside down. Another case of what was the last guy thinking!? So I got my hands on some belts and threw them on. Found out the smog belt is jammed up real tight, possibly with chunks of the broken belt as it was pretty stuck in there when I removed it. Not an immediate problem but won't be able to pass smog without it. After this I had problems with my alternator belt being too loose and squeaking all the time but after buying a set of pry bars and breaking a 1/2" socket I finally got it tight on like the 7th attempt.

Next on my list was replacing the hood struts. The old ones were holding up the hood but not all the way. There were days where it was really sketchy to be under them without extra support. It was time for them to go!

While I was removing them, one of the old ones actually broke due to rust and aging. In reality, I only needed to replace that one because once I did the hood was able to be supported by the other old one and a new one but I decided to just go ahead and do them both.



New struts hold up incredibly well. Once I unlatch the hood and lift it about a foot the struts take over and lift it the rest of the way. After doing this I helped [MENTION=115148]Schmiddyboy[/MENTION] install his new stereo into his 4Runner. For that story click here to read his way less awesome build thread! :flipoff:

Now some of you may notice how dirty this thing is in that pic. If it were the Mudrunner this would be acceptable (actually it wouldn't be acceptable because it isn't dirty enough for the Mudrunner!) but for the Firebird? HELL NO. So the next day I ran off to the car wash and went to town, washing a car for the first time in years.

Before:


All soapy!


Next thing on my agenda was fixing the dome light. I was really missing some of the "luxury" items of the 4Runner (it feels weird saying that lol) The item I was missing most was the interior lights so I finally got around to ordering a light and pulling apart the housing to figuring out what was wrong with it. I had also noticed there were some housings under the dash to illuminate the floor boards. After pulling mine apart and doing some research, I discovered my Firebird didn't come with them because it was the base model. So I decided if GM wouldn't give them to me I would put in my own.

Went to a local junkyard later and ripped some out of some pretty gross Firebirds. Unfortunately, this is the only place close to GCU that I know of that has any Firebirds so I didn't have much choice.




After searching around I finally found what I was looking for in the white '85 in the back of the second pic. I was SO excited because I also found a gauge cluster that had the cool grid style background and a speedo that went up to 140! This was awesome because the design would look cool with the jet like interior styling of my bird and because my speedo only goes up to 85, so I never know how fast I'm going.

After I got back to GCU I instantly tore apart my dash, putting my interior light project on hold, as I felt the new cluster was way more important. After a few hours of work I came across the unfortunate discovery that my sweet new cluster was not compatible with my car...


Crappy pic of the disassembled cluster sitting INSTALLED in dash. The thing fit perfectly. It was only disassembled because I went through the trouble of resetting the odometer to match mine down to the tenth of a mile. This required me to rewind it by over 50,000 miles. I was beyond annoyed. The cluster was pulled off an 85 and it wasn't compatible in an 84!:redbrick:

So I through my old cluster back in and retreated to my dorm in frustration...

 

[ran]

And look at all that space you have without a big V8 in the way! cleans up nice