[Babes sweet 79]

my husband bought me a 79 formula but i wanted a 70-73. so we want to change the nose to give me the car i wanted. will this work. will the fenders need to be changed or the radiator support? i would appreciate any help i can get. thanks Danielle

[bjohnsontx]

It can be done. There is some wiring to be done to change from 4 headlights to 2. Here is a pic of a guy on the forum who converted his 1981 TA to a 73 front end. I can't find his contact info but he was very knowledgeable.

[Colin]

Im pretty sure the fenders you have now will work. I remember reading somewhere that the bushings between the radiator core support and subframe are different and that the earlier ones should be used, not sure if there is any truth to that though. I think you can get the wiring harness for the headlights new from some of the vendors.

[Matt Danger]

My friend has done the conversion. Besides the nose and lower valence you will also have to replace the hood, shaker, and front fender flares. The fenders will not have to be changed. There's the headlight electrical conversion, and I'm not sure what he did but whatever he did his headlights are not very bright, so look into that. Also, make sure you get all the correct brackets, spacers, and shims for the nose. He doesn't have the fender-to-core support cross supports so when he jacks the car up the nose will lean forward and separate from the fenders. Mine does this also on my car, but his don't always go back to normal when he lets the car back down.

It's not a hard conversion as long as you can find all the parts and get things lined up.

I'll look for some pictures of his car.

[FLYNLOW]

That poor car. I wonder if it was ever found as it was stolen a while back.

[firebirdcrazy1959]

its very easy to do

[P@blo]

Those early front clips always did appeal to me. looks killer

[speedshopmike]

i'm teh guy with teh 81 to 72 front end; there are others also.
several threads with excellent info exist on this board already.
if you need anything, feel free to email me.
i wouldnt call it very easy to do - at least not correctly, but it's hardly rocket science.
all 3 headlight wires must be repinned if you want everything to work properly, including the "brights" indicator in the dash.
you'll need to remove the bottom of the oem nose cover supports in front of the fenders, and find some valance support brackets that've been carefully removed from a donor and either epoxy (my choice) or spotweld them into your fenders, etc etc.
good luck, be patient, nothing will fit worth a damn at first.
mike

[firebirdcrazy1959]

fitting IS the hard part.if you can get the header with the rubber upper's that bolt to the rad surport,makes the header a little easyer to fit.i just changed the 70 header to a 73 header[hit a deer].its heavyer then 70-72 headers.the valance was not that bad.i used 77 t/a fenders also.but now i have 7 70-73 fenders to chose from.they have the right brkts for the valance.heres a pic after i replaced the bent parts.it looks crappy now.

[Scarebird]

I plan on doing this also, but using an aftermarket fiberglass nose piece. Anyone do this already?

[TTAJay]

SpeedShopMike,
is that a '79 front spoiler on that car? How well did that bolt up? I also have a one piece fiberglass '70-'73 front end I plan on putting on my '79.