The weather was gorgeous this afternoon, so I gave my Tbird another much needed wash (the 4th in the past 6 weeks I believe). Here are some new pics:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/kingcars/tbirdfrontsmall2.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/kingcars/tbirdrearsmall2.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/kingcars/meandtbirdsmall.jpg)
Hopefully I can keep it pretty clean now that I dont have to park it in the gravel parking lot at school.
UPDATE: check my latest post for info on the new stereo system :dunce:
Very nice looking Bird.:headbang:
Looks good. :cool:
Where is the chrome in the front and rear rub strips?
Thanks for the compliments :) .
Um yeah...I have no idea where those are; they've been missing since before I got the car. If you look closely at the rear bumper, the car has been lightly hit in the back (the bumper bows down just a smidge near the drivers side of the license plate), so that might have something to do with it. Dont know about the front though. An old lady was the original owner of the car (I'm the 2nd) so who knows.
That's a nice lookin sport! That old lady must've kept it in a garage. The paint looks excellent.
-clean.....looks like what the 5.0 lx in my back yard supposed to look like before it encountered a truck rear bumper...
and oh, your local ford dealer should be able to help you aquire those chrome strips. if not lmk, i'll point you in the direction.....
Thanks guys. Yeah, the car is in great shape except for a couple of small rust spots on the passenger side rear quarter panel; nothing that some sanding and touching up wont fix though. And the paint does show some road grime just from being driven (she's over 124,000 miles), but overall in very good shape. The interior is even nicer:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/kingcars/tbirdinterior.jpg)
Thats an old pic, though. I may snap a few new ones the next time I clean it up. The only problem with the interior was that the console lid was bent from someone leaning on it too much, but a buddy snagged us one localy for $10. Also, she needs a radio badly; the volume control is really messed up, so a CD player and some new speakers are definitely coming soon. The windshield unfortunately developed a crack a couple of months ago as well. The engine compartment is in very good shape too, just lots of surface grime. I plan to clean that up during the HO conversion cause I'd like to take the car to some local cruise ins over the summer.
Thanks for the tip; how much do those strips cost?
Hmmm maybe it was a late 88 and they ran out of the front and rear strips? :grinno: What month was the car built (should say on the door tag)? I think I have one of the earliest production 88s as mine was built in September 87.
Im liking the firebird in the backround
I havent looked at the tag, but right near the hood latch, there's "4-28-88" written in black marker.
And that you see in the background is dad's 85 Trans Am. It's a T-top car with a 305 in it. Unfortunately, it wasnt very well taken care of like my Tbird, so it needs some TLC. Still very fun to drive and handles like a dream on mountain roads :cool: . My Tbird after the HO conversion will be almost exactly as fast as the T/A (although I will have a ~20hp advantage) so dad and I wanna go to the local dragstrip over the summer and race em.
In our driveway, we have 2 Chevys, a Honda, a Pontiac and a Ford. We're not very biased :grinno: .
Looking good man....your interior is almost identical to mine :)
Hey guys, just hooked up my new Sony XPlod CD Player today. My dad woke me up at about 9:30 and we got right to work. 5 hours and $50 later (spent on an amp and RCA cables), it's up and running. And sounds daaaaaaaaaaaamn good. :cool:
Dont worry, I got plenty of pics comin from during the process and the finished product. No dash modification was needed either! None, zero, zilch. I'll post the pics when I get home from work. WOOO :grinno:
wow, i must be pretty seasoned... i ran all my stuff down the center and under the carpet in about an hour..
pics are a must..
and you gotta love not modding the dash... its awesome isnt it? my pioneer is actually free standing in the hole its just held back by the radio bezel.. redneck anti-theft if you will.
i used all the factory brackets and it has a little gap at the bottom but i never notice it.
That's either a really big Thunderbird or you're a really small fellah :D
Nice 'Bird - if it had 10-holes it'd look just like mine, especially after I finish swapping the blue TC interior in (still have dash, carpet, headliner and door panels to do)
Hahaha yeah, I'm a small guy. (5' 2", ~100lbs) :dunce:
Ok, pic time... :grinno:
My dad hard at work running some wires...
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/kingcars/dadwork.jpg)
Here's what I worked on while he did that; drilled some holes to mount the amp onto the factory plate...
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/kingcars/ampwork.jpg)
Here's the amp all plugged in and ready to go...
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/kingcars/closeupofamp.jpg)
The CD player itself...
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/kingcars/farview.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/kingcars/closeup.jpg)
And yeah, it took us 5 hours thanks to a few setbacks. First, the Haynes book didnt have the right wiring diagram, so I went lookin around the community sites and found one on Sams Thundercats. Then our printer was screwed up for a while. When lookin at that site, he recommended to just install an amp since its so easy on the system I have (premium w/out eq), so we drove all the way to Best Buy (my decision...a bad one) and the cheapest amp was $72. Since I wasnt gettin any speakers, there was no use in an expensive amp, so we drove back and I picked up a $40 amp at Auto Zone and we used that. Then we did most of the work from 1-3pm. But it works now, and sounds awesome. Just cruisin home from work chillin with some Red Hot Chilli Peppers :cool: .
not bad at all, my pioneer had that extra space on the outside around the bezel.. you can take the bezel off and push the radio WITH the trim ring back and install the bezel.. it looks factory in my car :D then again im sorta a perfectionist...
looks good keep up the good work.
Looks like a pretty clean install, small amps fit nicely anywhere, huh
Thanks guys. Yeah, the install went quite smoothly once we got set up and didn't require any hacking or chopping. Still gotta fix a couple of bugs, but it's great.
That's great man. It's cool that your dad helps you with stuff like that too.
You will probably get tired of your factory speakers after that amp loosens them up a bit. ;)
Yeah, new speakers and maybe a small sub are planned down the road, but for now I'm shifting my focus back to the engine and HO conversion. :)
Sweet! nice work. Reminds me of when I tore into my car to replace the system.
Agreed on the speakers. They will make a world of difference. I got a set of pioneer 3 ways for the back and front on sale at wal-mart. :D They sound incredible even 3 years after I bought them.
Thanks :) . I'm still trying to figure out whats causing the irritating engine whine in the speakers...just installed a ground loop isolator and that didnt fix it. I think it might be bad wire placement behind the dash, because we checked all of our ground connections and everything.
the factory wiring is .
I had that whine when I put my first radio in... that was before i ran new wire.. no more whine
keep up the good work.
Thanks. Which wires did you replace?
i ran new wire from the deck out.. deck to the 6x9's and from the deck to the doors
still need to run wire up the the dash speakers.. after i buy some new ones :D
the wire ford uses is really small... ive got 12gauge running to all 4 corners.i do say... it sounds quite nice.
It depends on whats getting measured... :flip:
Then you need to be worried......:nkhk: