Project ‘68 Firebird, back to my teenage obsession

In light of buying the Fit, aka "Not a midlife crisis", I decided I need a REAL project car again. Suprisingly, the wife agreed and the search began. 

I spent a good deal of time flirting with the idea of a certain '76 911 Targa (sorry Doc) or a local '56 210 / BelAir. 

Marketplace dropped this Firechicken in my feed and I couldn't help but inquire. A handful of fact finding questions and a few more pictures later, we had struck a deal. 
 

I, obviously, haven't taken delivery yet, since this is GRM, but man am I excited to be back in a Poncho project. My first three cars were a '92 Grand Am, a '76 Firebird and a '68 GTO, and I spent years rambling on about how Pontiac engines were NOT the same as a SBC. This example comes with a condition unknown Pontiac 400, which is one of my favorite engines. 

The excitement is strong! 

In reply to birdmayne :

OH!

'68 Firebird 🐦‍🔥 is peak Pontiac in my eyes 👀.

I'll be following along with you.

Vintage Poncho? One of us! One of us!

Niiiiice :D

MOAR!

1st Gen! Nice! 

There are a few Pontiac people here (including myself), so there's definitely an audience. Good luck as you dive in! 

Yes, eager to see this one as well. 

I'd love a first gen to go with my thirdgen. Keeping it poncho powered or going modern or what?

Wood and ratchet straps are a good sign.

In reply to iansane :

The initial thought was to refresh the 400, but I'm dumb and will likely change that plan at least a dozen times. 

A boosted 4200 sounds fun, but doesn't make the correct noises. I can't really say with any clarity until I get the car home and cleaned up. 

the trunk pan looks surprisingly solid! 
I can see a couple of holes in the floors, but nothing intimidating. 
 

The interior is AWOL, so I'll be researching modern donor cars for better creature comforts. 
 

it's also a 3 pedal car, but comes with a TH400. Plan is to keep the third pedal active and find a good manual trans to mate behind whatever powerplant I ultimately stick with. 

I love all the old car threads here these days!   

Those floors look sooo much better than I was expecting. This should be fun. Everyone loves a good first gen. 

I'm stuck in a bench racing state of mind until I take delivery of the car, which is usually bad for my wallet. I had a slow afternoon in the office, so I priced out more build plans than I care to admit, ranging from a full AME chassis to tubular control arms and coilovers. The largest hangup Inkeep running into is which engine will I use? I need to see the engine codes on the block and heads before I can really make any decisions. But that hasn't kept me from daydreaming and speculating. 

The suspension option that keeps coming back to mind is the Ridetech air suspension system found here: https://ridetech.com/product/1967-69-camaro-firebird-air-suspension-system/

This will ultimately be a painted bumpers car, no chrome, which IMO is perfect for a restomod. And the air ride really plays into that vibe as well. 
 

I don't recall seeing many air ride builds on here, anyone care to share some insight?

The car looked, in person, close to what I was imagining, save for a big hit to the left rocker that I had not seen in pictures. I wasn't thrilled about it, but was not a deal breaker, especially not after the 18hr day we had put it to get there. With help from the PO and his tractor, loading the car was a breeze.

The rocker hit is visible in the last picture.

Aside from that fender and rocker, it needs both doors, quarter panels, a patch in one floor, and literally everything else. 

Then, After taking the most "America!" Picture of my life, we began the trek to drag this bird home. This weekend was filled with travel soccer games for one of our kids, so it's first night as part of the family was spent parked on a side street in Tukwila (not known to be the safest place). 

All was safe and sound this morning, so we finished the soccer tournament and limped home. Unloading will happen tomorrow, I don't have the energy to bother right now. Hoping to have her rolled into her new home by Tuesday evening, then I'll start stripping what's left and taking inventory. 

Im told the 400 under the hood is from a '67, but will need to check the stamping. If it is one of the good ones (pre -'75) I will start tearing it down to attempt a rebuild. If it's not, it will get scrapped and something else will power this build. LS Swap time?

I had a 1968 400 ram air III Firebird, it was so much fun, fried the tires. 

I would suggest getting the body media blasted to get started. Nice to have a clean slate. I think unlimited products fiberglass makes a front and rear bumper that could be nice. The factory ones are really heavy. 

Good luck with the project. Keep the pictures coming! It is a great car to build. 

With the fiberglass hood removed, the engine is easy to access, especially because everything else has been previously removed as well. 

 

The good news is that it appears to be a relatively stock, YT code 400. IIRC, this would have been from a '67 GTO, and with the four barrel plenum, I assume it would have been of the 360 HP variety.

If true, I have one of the more desirable Pontiac engines! 

However, despite the spark plugs being installed and the intake taped off, I quickly found that the coolant hoses were not capped off. A quick yank on the dipstick shows a fair amount of rust, which leads me to think this YT is likely to have some serious issues and might not be worth saving. 

Either way, it will get pulled and torn apart soon enough, then I'll know for sure. 

Tukwilla? Close by in relative terms. In Sammamish so about 20-30 minutes drive time. Dad had a couple 2nd gen trans am's back in the day. So I have a bit of a soft spot for these car's.

To bad you couldn't have just stopped in Eugene and had it chemicaly dipped.

Any project that involves the following Google searches is likely to be subject to a bit of scope creep:

"DIY frame machine"

"unibody straightening at home"

"chassis jig plans"

This all sounds like it could be a lot of fun, but odds are I'll just pay a shop to pull it back to square. 

Any project that involves the following Google searches is likely to be subject to a bit of scope creep:

"DIY frame machine"

"unibody straightening at home"

"chassis jig plans"

This all sounds like it could be a lot of fun, but odds are I'll just pay a shop to pull it back to square.