[unruhjonny]

I saw this and figured I might comment (even though you made a decision on the matter):

Originally Posted by njsteve

... Due to how faded out the original grills were, I never actually noticed if they had a black inset. From photos on the interweb it appears that the last inch of the grill (including the slats) on some models were all blacked out to begin with. Was this the same across the board in 75 from base model to T/A? I'm beginning think the Esprit had all-silver grills? ...

I believe that 1975 was like the prior years;
The grilles on base and Esprit models were left silver, and the Formula and Trans Am were blacked out;
The surrounding part of the grille inserts were always left silver.

Some angles might make it appear as though the whole grille insert was blacked out, that was never the way they were painted for the assembly line.

[img]http://pontiacformula.free.fr/photo/histoire/firebird75.11.jpg[/mg]

Originally Posted by njsteve

And another part on order. The original dash speaker stopped working recently for the factory AM/FM mono radio. I pulled out the A/C ducting and accessed the wiring. I was able to confirm the bad speaker by using a jumper wire to an old Kraco 6x10 speaker.

I ordered a replacement speaker from Electro-Tech. I have bought their 4x10 oval replacement speaker before and it worked very well and fit perfectly into the factory under dash bracket. They are the correct 8-ohm rating that will work with the factory radios, versus all the 4-ohm replacement versions out there that will fry your original radio eventually.

With shipping it was around $59

http://www.turnswitch.com/speakers.htm

Thanks for this tidbit!
I will make a mental note of it!!