[LeighP]

I found a 71 Firebird Esprit that had been sitting around in storage for 20 years, partially restored.
You don't often find straight, rust free small back window cars here in Australia, so I jumped on it. Car had a poorly executed partial right hand drive conversion....something that isn't necessary these days as it can now be registered left hand drive here.
So first order of business is to reverse the conversion and go back to left hand drive. I've been spending some time tracking down missing pieces, calling in favours from Pontiac friends etc.
Picked up a nice Formula hood the other day, plans are to externally copy the look of a Formula, but its going to be a littel custom inside (I've got some late 80's Corvette seats andam using aftermarket instruments in a T/A dash bezel). I've got a 455 that was going into my 77 T/A...and a couple of TH350's here that I'll get built to handle it.
heres the car when I first found it....


I got into cleaning the fuel tank today...since it was sitting on the floor right in my way. About 1/4 inch of undercoating and at least two coats of different red paint....what a mess. Who'd have thought a nice clean tank was hiding underneath? I'm taking it down to get repaired tomorrow...the neck has come loose from the tank. then I'm thinking about getting it painted silver....or maybe just clear the natural finish....not sure yet.

[tdavidl]

cool, another "project" thread...i'll be checking in for updates, don't us down leigh...

:-)

[Formulabruce]

NICE!!! Hope we can help with parts, although everything I ship to your "Island" always takes a month and cant insure them. Good luck, keep the pics comming!!

[LeighP]

Thanks....I ship my stuff out of the US to a guy in Long Beach who is a freight forwarder...makes it easier to ship stuff as people in the US (and I can't blame them) don't need the hassles of trying to ship overseas. Yeah, can end up taking two months to get stuff depending on how the containers line up with when I order stuf...lol.

[LeighP]

Finished off the fuel tank this afternoon befoe going to work. I've had the tank down to a radiator shop for a clean out and repair the filler neck which had come loose...they also soldered the vent tubes again just to be sure.
Was going to get it painted professionally, but I'm trying to conserve $ for parts so I thought I'd just clean it up and clear the metal to protect it. Polished the tank with a metal polish paste first, then a fine liquid metal polish and steel wool. Came up pretty clean and nice...can't get a couple of marks off where the tank straps sit, but they'll be covered when its installed. Sprayed with clear coat paint.



Tested the sender unit, seems to read pretty close to what its supposed to so its getting refitted after I clean it up.
Ordered new rear inertia reel seat belts, but the ones I chose were not really going to work when they turned up and I got a good look at them....so I've re-ordered some others that should work much better. Lucky the parts guy at the local dealer is helpful. 8)

[LeighP]

Fuel sender wasn't 100%...seems there was an open circuit where the sender wire clipped to the pick-up....bit of a strip and clean and
re-assemble and shes back together.
But....now the bad news....after checking all over the car, underneath, inside, cowls, firewall etc....I finally found the rust.





Honestly, still worth restoring? Or should I part it out? I don't know.....38 years old, you'd think they'd have built them a little less rust prone than this.....
Guess I'll stick with it......

[Norwood]

If you cover the shippping I will give you 500US for it LOL

[Hawk397]

I say stick with it! Don't see anything too terrible here. I had a ball doing my 71 Esprit up as a custom.

Mark

[x-bird2]

very common areas, a few little patches should do it. Stick with it, an Esprit is a do-as-you-wish ticket with very few who'd ever criticize you for modifying it. i'd put it on stands, pull the rims and check the wheel openings and trunk drop offs to make sure nothing else on the quarters is hiding.

[LeighP]

Thanks guys....was just kidding. This is without doubt about the cleanest bodied 2nd gen I've ever come across...its even cleaner than my 77 T/A, which is saying something. I count myself real lucky to be starting with something as good as this, considering where I've seen others start from.
And I'm glad its an Esprit as well, means I can have some fun and build some thing with the touches I want, without worrying about modifying a more collectable model.

[LeighP]

Still progressing. I've made up a cardboard version of the top backseat belt upper mount for a guy I know to fabricate (I can't weld to save my life, lol)....I need two of them to mount the inertia reels into the rear parcel tray like a late model car (sit down almost flush). I'll have them back next week.
Restored the handbrake mechanism, made up the bottom stud to mount it and redrilled the holes in the firewall where they'd been previously welded up....all mounts nicely. Next week I'll get the forward park brake cable inner replaced (its frayed), then the handbrake set up is all ready to go. Cleaned up and painted the wiper regulator arms etc...they'd been painted with the awful purple metallic paint that got sprayed over everything attached to the firewall (firewall is now all stripped of parts ready for painting).
Now I'm working on the seat tracks....they were rusted and stuck solid, so I'm in the process of sandblasting, painting and reassembly...hope I get them back together right, lol.

[LeighP]

Ok...so the seat tracks are all done. (Grrrrrrr....deceptively simple things that take hours to get working right again after you pull them apart) They are back in the car temporarily so I can make adapter plates to mount the seats.




I've mocked up a seat roughly in position then sat in it......I estimate it'll give me over an inch of extra head room...which is good, I'm 6'3".
The seats are late 4th gen Corvette seats I picked up off ebay super cheap some time back.....just what I want to hold me in the seat a bit better than the stock ones do.




I'll be working on having these mounted this weekend and then its on to the heater/demister.....none of the stock heater system remains.

[LeighP]

Well, seats are now mounted in the car. I'm very happy with how they've worked out. I've got an extra 2" of head room over the stock seats in my 77 T/A and the seat back measures pretty close to the same distance from the dash as my 77 seat does. In the 77, I've moved the drivers seat back 3". In this car, because the seats are a bit thinner in the back, I've only moved the drivers seat back 2" more than the passenger side seat.....gives me some good leg room. I can tell you though, I'm going to have to go easy on the underlay beneath the seats....I've got them set so low that the seat pan just clears the floor.....maybe just enough room for carpet...lol.



here you can see the leg room....heaps. :-D


next its onto the heater/demister

[LeighP]

Still working on the heater/demister....I've got it worked out how to fit it (going to be laying on its side) and how to duct air where needed. I've got the heater core out having the inlet and outlet tubes extended 2" so they poke through the firewall enough. All should work well.
Mainly though, I've been spending myself poor....got orders of stuff from a few suppliers on their way...including a big order of stacks of Pro-touring Fbody suspension and steering gear....early Christmas time.
There was a car sound equipment sale on at a dealer near me that I've had top service from before....picked up a few more items for the entertainment side of things....I've got Pioneer 6"x9" for the back parcel tray powered by a 2 channel Clarion amp. A pair of Pioneer 6 & 1/2" for the doors (going to use Year One's one piece trims) and 4" Clarions for the dash speaker grill.....both doors and dash will be powered by the head unit.
I've got my panel and paint guy coming over on Wednesday to give me a quote and see when he can fit the car in for some work...mainly firewall and around the screens at the moment....we'll do the rest later when it gets painted.
And I have to get stuck into the subframe as well.....things to do on that.
I'll post some pics when I do something interesting....lol.

[LeighP]

Heres the pics of the heater...modified to suit the application. I've cut a couple of the outlets off, sealed up with sheetmetal and urethane adhesive. The pics show how it'll sit in the car...the hose over the top will supply demist air. The top vent on the RH side will supply the passenger dash vent, the lower vent will flow on the passenger footwell. Luckily, I don't need heat on my side...this is mainly to keep the girlfriend happy (heat) and the registration authorities happy (demister).



I've also got everything I need for the modern seat belts....full lap/sash inertia reel assemblies front and back, the ones in the rear parcel tray will be partially set into the tray so they get concealed by the trim as in a modern car. The fronts use a drop link to correctly position the top part of the sash over your shoulder, and a special inertia reel thats designed to be mounted forward of the upper mount rather than vertically below the upper mount as in most modern cars.
Car goes into the panel shop for some work at the end of the month when I start holidays.

[WarbirdTA]

Congrats Leigh!
I don't get over here much lately, and just saw this.
Did you sell that 50s Pontiac you had?
Looks like you are having fun with your new project, keep it up.

George

[LeighP]

Hi George,
Yes, when I found this, the 52 Chieftain had to go...nice old thing, but it wasn't a Firebird....and a chance to have fun building one of the best looking cars of all time...well, who could resist?

[LeighP]

I cut the holes this morning in the rear of the chassis for the early body mount locations.
There is something I noticed that everyone using solid body mounts should check....the doubled section of the frame where the two sides overlap forms a high point around the body mount area....this wouldn't matter when using rubber mounts as the rubber would flex around it. Solid mounts have no give, so the lower bush holds the whole bushing assembly at a slight angle, lessening the contact area of the bush with the chassis and also side loading the bolt and body mount nut etc...causing unnecessary loads on the floor and mount. I cut a small rebate into the edge of the lower bushing to allow it to sit straight against the chassis rail.

1. New holes cut



2. Incorrectly seated body bushes due to the lower bush sitting on the inner surface of the double section of rail.


3. Rebate cut into edge of lower bushing


4. Correctly seated lower body bushing

[LeighP]

Well, car is off to the body shop tomorrow morning. Its down off jack stands and ready to push on the tilt tray.
Plans are -
fix the firewall so its back to left hand drive configuration
repair any rust issues around the front and rear screen
fit the custom rear seat belt mounts into the rear parcel tray
paint the dash top and the firewall and around the front and rear windows
Then its back home for me to play with it for a while......and spend more money....

I'm off on holidays for a little while, knowing panel shop guys, it'll still be in the shop when I get back, so I'll get some pics of the work in progress.

[LeighP]

Well, seems theres no power on earth to get a body shop to move any faster than they want to...lol.
My car is slowly being worked on...I'd hoped to have it back some time ago.
On the plus front, stacks of parts have finally arrived.....all I'm waiting on is the suspension, a DSE selecta-speed wiper kit and some other bits and pieces to finish the head lights off.
While I'm waiting for the car to come home, I bought a small grinder unit and converted it to a buffer so I could clean up trim etc. Tried it out on the grill surrounds, and they came out pretty nicely....so I continued on and finished the grills off. A combination of silver and charcoal grey looks "factory"...not sure if its correct, not that I care since this is not a "restoration".
The original grill badge fell to pieces when I pulled it off the grill. I picked up the trunk lid PONTIAC script from a G8 and made a bracket to hold the script....I'm going to use this script on the tail panel as well.





I can't believe I was lucky enough to get two undamaged grills with this car when I bought it....they just looked very average indeed. Much better now.