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Restoring my 1995 Bird..

Just thought I would post my progress on my current project. I am restoring my 1995 Bird.. It started life as a Formula. I purchased the car, brand new, in February of 1995 when I was stationed in the Marine Corps in Beaufort, South Carolina. It had 4 miles on the odometer. It served me well as a daily driver until early 2001. I blew the motor and the transmission was shot..

The car sat in my garage for several years. I began saving a little money and in roughly 2005, I had enough to start the restore process. I arranged transport to a friends shop where it sat on a lift. The LT1 and 4L60E was removed and everything was COMPLETELY rebuilt from the ground up. While the motor and transmission was out, someone (possibly teenage kids) broke into my friends shop and vandalized EVERYTHING. There were several vehicles in his shop (including his 2 week old brand new Chevrolet 2500 truck).

They broke out all of my windows (except my rear hatch window). They smashed in my T-Tops, busted my side mirrors, threw cinder blocks through my windshield (and cracked my dash), smashed up my hood, kicked my side panels, etc.. It was completely trashed. I was devistated. I began saving more money but tragedy struck. I fell deathly ill and nearly died. I was out of work and had to dip into my savings to help support me and my family. So, I was back to square one.. I had to begin the savings process all over again.

Every paycheck, I tried to buy something, or fix something, pretty something up, etc.. Well, it has been a long time coming. I am finally at a point where I am almost done with this long time project. I tried to spare no expense on restoring my LT1 Bird.. My Formula died. RIP. However, since I had to purchase almost every single body piece, I did the Trans Am conversion. The ENTIRE interior has been completely gutted and completely re-done. I purchased all new interior pieces and converted it over from my factory TAN interior to a Dark Grey / Corvette Yellow colored interior.

Lots of stuff will probably not get mentioned here, but chances are it was either "fixed", "removed", "repaired" or "replaced". Let's start with a few pictures of the way my car USED to look:

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...0Car/Mycar.jpg

Here is the car sitting at the shop (after it was vandalized):

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...r/DSCN1193.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...r/DSCN1185.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...r/DSCN1178.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...r/DSCN1186.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...r/DSCN1187.jpg

Nothing a little TLC can't fix.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ss.slp.ls1 (Post 11510821)

Nothing a little TLC can't fix.

Oh yes.. Tons of TLC and lots of $$$.. haha. Here is a shot of the rear end.. pretty sad looking.. lol

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...r/DSCN1190.jpg

So, I began by gutting the interior..

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...r/DSCN0592.jpg

...and pains takingly began applying a sound deadener (Fatmat Extreme):

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...r/DSCN0598.jpg

I took a local trip down to Wolfe Racecraft, about 15 minutes from my house.. I ended up buying a 6 point roll bar (uncoated). I loaded the roll bar up in my truck and drove 10 minutes South, to Kennedale, Texas, where my powder coaters shop is.. I dropped it off and a week later, viola.. (sorry for the upside down bad picture, but trust me.. it looks Sweeeeeeet)!

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...r/DSCN0944.jpg

These pictures are taken from Wolfe's website but it will kind of give you an idea of what their roll bar will look like when it's fully mounted inside an F-Body..

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...rPodmount1.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...rPodmount2.jpg

very very nice so far. keep us updated

nice work bud. Keep it up.

Lots of hardship and blood and work into that baby!
Keep it up!
You will LOVE the outcome

wow....keep going! this is awesome

Nice progress. Are you going for the quietest interior cab for a fbody street/strip car??? How much weight did you add?

I personally like how he used sound deafening stuff.. Makes the car a bit more refined; sadly at the cost of heavier.. but to each is one's own and the car is making amazing progress!

Curious also as to how much weight in total it added and when you get it on the street again how does it sound compared to usual.. even tho its been 5 years or so i think lol

also curious as to how much weight was added. the seats threw me off a bit but when i saw the cage it looked MUCH more at home. gonna be sweet

I'm a huge fan of that roll bar, the powder coating looks slick. How much was the roll bar and the coating? I'd love to have it match my car when I install one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ss.slp.ls1 (Post 11516342)

Nice progress. Are you going for the quietest interior cab for a fbody street/strip car??? How much weight did you add?

Quote:

Originally Posted by marc97taws6 (Post 11517041)

Quote:

Originally Posted by itSSlowZ28 (Post 11517733)

also curious as to how much weight was added. the seats threw me off a bit but when i saw the cage it looked MUCH more at home. gonna be sweet

Wow! Thanks for the feedback! The sound deadener that I used is called Fatmat.. It's obviously got some weight but really, it's not THAT bad. Here's the companies info sheet:

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...nez/Fatmat.jpg

Quote:

Originally Posted by lov2xlr8 (Post 11518618)

I'm a huge fan of that roll bar, the powder coating looks slick. How much was the roll bar and the coating? I'd love to have it match my car when I install one.

I believe the final cost to powder coat the roll bar was about $200. The roll bar itself was $625 I believe.. (I think for $50 extra bux, Wolfe uses their own company to powder coat their roll bars Black).

Speaking of powder coating, I am getting rid of my factory rims.. 16x8's (245 50 16's). I am now the proud owner of some Corvette ZR1 rims.. 17x9.5's (275 40 17's) up front and 17x11's (315 35 17's) in the rear. They have also been powder coated to match my overall "theme".

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...r/DSCN0947.jpg

I take it the car will be yellow? Should look awesome when it's done!

Quote:

Originally Posted by RSbeast (Post 11519266)

I take it the car will be yellow? Should look awesome when it's done!

The body is green but the accents are corvette yellow. I really wanted to keep my car, the factory Green color. So, I went to photoshop and started playing around with different color schemes. After about 2 weeks of trying different combo's and colors, I was very impressed with the Green body and yellow accents.

Going with the John Deere theme eh? ;)