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Since my car just rolled past 87878.7 miles, I should probably finally make a post here about it.
I got my ‘87 base bird back in April of ‘21 as my first car. My mom has a 1966 Mustang that served as my entry way into a love of cars. After a few months of browsing, I went to check out a black ‘87 base Firebird within an hour away from me. I knew very little about cars (Still don’t anything!) and wrenching. I hadn’t even really seen a third generation firebirdbefore. As soon as I saw it, I thought it was the coolest car I’d ever seen. The exhaust was nice, it ran and shifted well, and only had 67k miles on it. That’s not super low, but not bad for a daily. It was an auto V6, but that made it a nice daily (better MPG than my friend’s newish wrangler) and also easier to convince my dad since I wouldn’t have a V8 to wrap around a tree. I bought it, and I was uninformed to say the least. I had never really worked on a car before, and didn’t know any of the ins and outs of the 82-92 Firebird.
Now you’re probably thinking, that’s a bad decision. And you’re right! But if I had to do it all again, I would still get it. Yes I knew nothing about working on cars, but now I’m tackling stuff I never would’ve tried before. I’ve learned so much, from this site in particular. It’s a great resource and I’m so grateful to everyone who has answered my (sometimes quite stupid) questions to help me get the car back on the road. For a daily, it really hasn’t been that bad. Yeah stuff breaks, it always does, but it’s turned over pretty much every time and it survives the winter just fine (except when there’s salt, then it’s tucked away in the garage).
Buying this car has been one of the best experiences of my life, and even if it’s put me out of money I could’ve spent somewhere more responsible, I’m very glad I bought it.
Thanks to everyone on TGO who’s helped me, it means a lot. I intend to keep this car for as long as I can and hopefully eventually give it the V8 it deserves.
good stuff . Can relate to getting stuck into projects on my car that I'd never thought to take on in years prior, with thanks to the various threads on this site but also the various members that continue to support it. Your car looks clean; I'm liking the uncluttered styling of firebirds and formulas more and more (I have cladding laden 91 TA)
Very nice! Glad to see that someone in this day and age take a chance on a classic car to use for a DD. Instead of looking at the money spent, look at the money saved as you don't have a high $$ payment every month. I thought about buying another third gen and using it as a daily myself. I work only 2.5 miles from work and really enjoy driving my Camaro. There is a guy in my hood that drives an 80's Volkswagen Rabbit GTI on a daily basis, i see him about 3 times a week and I think that would be so cool!
Very nice! Glad to see that someone in this day and age take a chance on a classic car to use for a DD. Instead of looking at the money spent, look at the money saved as you don't have a high $$ payment every month. I thought about buying another third gen and using it as a daily myself. I work only 2.5 miles from work and really enjoy driving my Camaro. There is a guy in my hood that drives an 80's Volkswagen Rabbit GTI on a daily basis, i see him about 3 times a week and I think that would be so cool!
Honestly, my car has been pretty dependable after the 1st year. 1st year was mainly typical stuff like the distributor, water pump, spark plug wires, etc. If I’d been more experienced when I bought it, I would’ve fixed it all myself. But I wasn’t, and now my mechanics could probably retire comfortably by now.
2.5 miles, I would definitely DD a third gen if you have the time (and money lol) to take care of it. One of my friends is really into VWs, never got the appeal until I saw his mom’s MK1 rabbit
Passed 89k miles on the way to college today, still running great. Need to figure out what I’m gonna do once the odometer rolls over and I have a “new” car. Not sure if the car would appreciate me throwing it a party.
Still keeping it stock until I have enough money to put it up for a while and get a real power plant under the hood. Although, some of the sniper nitrous kits are stating to look more and more appealing….. 75hp shot and I just might be able to keep up with commuter traffic (just kidding, no nitrous on the street in VA. At least it’s not California)
Friend of mine and I replaced the old factory u-joints the other day, talk about a pita. Didn’t get any pics of the old joints (or, the remains of the old joints) so here’s a pic of me wishing I could chuck the front plate in the trash from after we were done.
Looking at new paint or a wrap (still deciding) in the new year along with some other fix-the-car parts, so hopefully I’ll get to some make-the-car-fast parts, uh, make-the-car-less-slow parts later in ‘24.
Small update, car has been running fine. Finally tracked down a mystery oil leak (distributor) and I’m hopefully about to go get my alignment situation sorted out tomorrow. But lo and behold, a few days ago my SES light randomly came on while highway cruising.
Got a reading with my trusty paper clip and it read the dreaded code 32. Grabbed some pages from the service manual and read the section here under the how-tos, I’m sure I’ll need them as I’m going to be trying to track it down over the next few days. Wish me luck!
Nice DD..
Check engine light coming on intermittently with highway driving is usually EGR relayed and your Code 32 confirms that. Not a difficult task to address. Can be a pia to get to the egr valve on a TPI engine, not sure about the v6. The good thing is the parts are not expensive. Good luck!
Nice DD..
Check engine light coming on intermittently with highway driving is usually EGR relayed and your Code 32 confirms that. Not a difficult task to address. Can be a pia to get to the egr valve on a TPI engine, not sure about the v6. The good thing is the parts are not expensive. Good luck!
Thanks! I ended up getting super lucky as it was just a broken vacuum hose. I guess I thought that was too easy, because I accidentally broke another one of the 40 year old plastic ones while fixing the first one. They’re all fixed up now.
09-26-2023, 04:43 PM
. Can relate to getting stuck into projects on my car that I'd never thought to take on in years prior, with thanks to the various threads on this site but also the various members that continue to support it. Your car looks clean; I'm liking the uncluttered styling of firebirds and formulas more and more (I have cladding laden 91 TA)
