[mgarblik]

Small update. Finally have the interior finished on the car. The door and windows were the final area that needed attention. As the F-body guys know, getting the doors to fit just right and the windows to seal properly is a huge challenge. They fit horribly from the factory and I can attest personally to that. When I worked at the dealer as a technician from 1979-1981 I performed new car prep on many Firebirds. I can't remember a single car we didn't have to take the door panels off of to refit the windows. Some had 1/4"-1/2" gaps between the glass and the seals in the door cavities. Most doors needed striker adjustment and many needed the door hinges loosened, shims added, door shells jacked up with blocks of wood and re-fitted. This was on brand new cars!. T-top cars were the most difficult. The Cincinnati Zone allowed us an extra flat rate hour to fit these cars when new over the regular dealer prep because you just could not get them right in the tiny time allowed. Anyway, back to my 73 car. I had a friend who specializes in 2nd. gen F-bodies come to my shop on a Saturday to fit my car. He spent about 3 hours perfectly fitting the doors and glass. They both open and close perfectly with 1 finger closure. One door lock, passenger side, would not turn with the key. I had to take it to 3 locksmiths to find an old gray hair guy who knew anything about the old Briggs and Stratton locks these cars use. He took it apart quickly, cleaned it up and put it back together. It works perfectly now. It's all a matter of finding a person with actual skill.
I applied power to the dash harness and checked some circuits. AM-FM stereo works in all modes, front and rear speakers, even the 8-track player works great. The best of the Grass Roots 8-track sounds like 1970! Even the OE clock wound up and began working again.
So now I finally get to move on to things I enjoy. I have some final detail work to do in the engine bay and then the engine will be installed. Hope to have it in place by early November. Thanks for coming along for the ride. Here are a few pics of the interior finished. I left the driver seat out for best access temporarily.

[Held for Ransom]

Originally Posted by mgarblik

Anyway, back to my 73 car. I had a friend who specializes in 2nd. gen F-bodies come to my shop on a Saturday to fit my car. He spent about 3 hours perfectly fitting the doors and glass. They both open and close perfectly with 1 finger closure.

I need one of those friends for my car.

[HWYSTR455]

I disassembled my doors prior to going into paint jail, and on re-assembly, I had issues with the 2 plastic retainers that retain the 'U' rod for the lock knob did not fit well, and it wasn't clear how they installed into the door. The plastic clip has 2 possible ways of being installed.

A closeup pic of those would be very helpful to me.

Those things need to line up almost perfectly or the rod binds, not allowing the key to operate the lock rods. I actually ended up enlarging the holes in the clips.

Skip Fix - Those glass alignment 'gauges' are repopped in ABS, I was able to find a set by a search. Attached a pic, and should be easy to search.

I rebuilt my doors with a mix of NOS and repop parts, and am dreading installing and aligning the glass. I had a NOS driver manual regulator, but was missing the passenger side. The repop window regulators use the wrong rollers, which are a hair too large to work in the guides. And finding replacement rollers that are correct was a nightmare. I think I created a thread for this, but not sure.


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[HWYSTR455]

I had an issue with the door and roof channel seals too, the repops don't fit for crap. I actually ended up buying a second set from a different source and vendor, and it still wasn't 'perfect', but much better.

I had OE replacement stuff in it before, have replaced them at least twice, and never had a problem until now. It was all in the molded ends that I had issues, and the on the door, the length was slightly off.


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[HWYSTR455]

I did do a thread on the regulators/rollers:

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...d.php?t=878550

I need to update that. I did find rollers that would work, they are threaded on the shaft, and require the hole to be drilled out larger.

I now have a wide selection of window rollers of all the ones that didn't work. They had roller diameter measurements posted on the listing of most, but only 1 was actually the size of the listed diameter.


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[mgarblik]

You guys just make me realize how extremely lucky I am to have a car that still has about 95% of it's original content in good working condition. Something as complex as a door with all the moving parts and interconnections would be a total nightmare to make fit and function correctly with aftermarket parts. There are so many individual parts, all having to fit and move together just one simple item like a roller that is .015" too big or too small or a window slide/guide with a mounting hole punched off center .030", would throw off the entire fit.
I have great respect for anyone who can start with an aftermarket door shell and build the door with all aftermarket parts and actually make the door and window fit. They were bad enough when they left the factory with all GM parts! My car with mostly OE parts and NOS replacements bought in the late 1970's early 1980's was enough of a challenge for me. Still, I needed some help to really get it right.
I have watched several long videos by experts who have started with those Dynacorn complete muscle car bodies and built "new" cars from them. Hundreds if not thousands of hours to re-drill almost every hole in the body shell, slot, cut, weld, modify almost every inch of those things to make a decent fitting project. Several experienced builders said it would have been easier to just start with a rusty OE hulk from the acid bath and fix it as needed rather than start with a reproduction body where everything is wrong? I am not a body and paint guy but as an informed observer, it looks like a nightmare.
I am very happy to return to the mechanical restoration portion of the project now. Good luck to all of you still fighting with body, interior and fit items. My least favorite work on a car.