[dgb100]

I'd love to get a hold of your vinyl if your willing to sell it. Both front seats need redone, the back only have rips along the seems by the back window deck, may or may not be repairable (but I'm thinking not, but there is a lot of useable material left). The biggest problem is finding a blue dash, and blue interior panels. Some of may be restorable, but some has cracked. The back of the seats are pretty horrific too.

You're are correct, if I went with a custom interior black would most likely be the way to go, and black.

On the other hand the carpet is pretty decent as is the center console.

None of the important Ram Air III parts were replaced, they are all there.

The fellow that did everything other than the engine rebuild was a family friend so he charged me wholesale cost for all the parts. At the time the only original RAIII manifold either of us could find was $300 and not in terribly good condition, and at that point I was just ready to get the car back, and I didn't want to take up any more of the guys time since he cut me such a good deal, he only charged me $10/hour labor as well (he is a professional mechanic and restores cars in his spare time. He had an absolutely beautiful 72 Chevelle SS he restored from a rust heap) So I sold the other manifold to some one on the forum and went with the headers. No fancy chrome finish or anything. I think he got Pypes for me at around $250.

I'm not terribly concerned with the block stamp right now, just want to get the car looking and running great. So it runs great, now I just got to get it to look great.

The interior will probably be the toughest challenge. Is there any product out there than can restore dry rotting panels, or at least make it look less horrible?


Thanks for the advice,

Originally Posted by unruhjonny

You can get the interior restiched in the original vinyl.
Really, in my opinion that's the only way to go.
If you do decide to go to a custom interior, I'd guess that just about any kind of blue cloth interior would look cheezy very quickly - especially in a '70-73 TA. If you do go cloth, I'd really suggest converting the car to a black interior, because typically black looks the best over time, and takes away much less value than any other colour.
I actually have in my posession some correct blue vinyl for your car - I bought it from a local interior shop for cheap becasue it was leftover from a '70 Firebird they did.
Keep in mind, if you have an upholsterer redo your interior, the labor is exactly the same - it's only the cost of the material that changes - so in theory stiching it in the correct colour vinyl would cost the same as cloth.
You're in the same boat as a fair percentage of 70-73 Firebird owners - I too have to get my ('73) interior redone by a shop, because the fabric pattern & colour was not nearly popular enough for the aftermarket to mass produce.

You didn't mention if anything else on the engine (eg: intake/ heads/ carb/ distributor) was changed out at the time of the rebuild...
Presuming you reused all those components, having a '70 T/A with everything underhood except for headers and a replacement shortblock is not a huge detractor on value.
You could one up yourself by keeping an eye out for a date coded correct '70-400, and if you don't want to have a "wrong code" block in there, you could just machine the front of it (to remove the block code & engine number, as well as remove any corrosion that is typically observed around the water pump passages), that would put you dead even with a replacement block - just please don't pull a "corvette" and attempt to restamp your block - I would never advocate or suggest such a practice.

Replaceing '70 RAIII exhaust manifolds aren't nearly as expensive as a set of headers - so I don't know where you got that from (I had to replace my drivers side one, after repeated "repairs" put it to the point of being unfixable)...
I found one via the classifieds on classical pontiac. for a very good price (I actually bought a set, and sold the one I didn't need to another gentleman).
You can also use any 1968-1969 model year GTO D-port RA manifolds, I cannot recall the differnces in using the early manifolds in a '70 Firebird auto vs stick car... I did run a '68 model year GTO manifold in my Formula for a while (it was a loaner!) - it was definatly tighter than the OE part, but I got it in by removing the starter, and messing with it for a while to figure out how to angle it in just right. (I did not have to disconnect motor mounts and/or raise my engine to get the '68 model year part in place.)

'70 T/A's are definatly gaining in value - so doing the car right would be the only route I would suggest for you.