[SD455DJ]

Originally Posted by RicksGTO

that car looks incredible Dennis, I'm enjoying watching the progress!

Thanks Rick! We've had a lot of fun tearing into this Formula to make it drivable, and a lot better than when we first brought it home. Fortunately, it was a great car to begin with, other than we wish it wasn't painted as it needs a little body work here and there to really make it nice.

Dennis

[SD455DJ]

Originally Posted by eaglesan13

You can get the fender well out without removing the fender.

Chris, since we need to remove the inner fender to install the tach lead wire and cut the grommet hole, we might as well take out the other one...then we'll need to strip and repaint them both...and, since we've made them look so nice, we'll need to remove the engine to make it look as nice as the redone fender wells with a re-gasket/reseal/repaint/detail...I can see it now...scope creep of minimal money but lots of time. But, we have all winter to do it...time to get busy!

Dennis

[eaglesan13]

I've had some experience with scope creep...

Originally Posted by SD455DJ

Chris, since we need to remove the inner fender to install the tach lead wire and cut the grommet hole, we might as well take out the other one...then we'll need to strip and repaint them both...and, since we've made them look so nice, we'll need to remove the engine to make it look as nice as the redone fender wells with a re-gasket/reseal/repaint/detail...I can see it now...scope creep of minimal money but lots of time. But, we have all winter to do it...time to get busy!

Dennis

[SD455DJ]

We picked up the rebuilt Rally Gauge cluster this morning and then proceeded into getting the car ready for the installation. We are also taking advantage of the less encumbered interior space to replace the heater core with the new one recently found. To make it easier on us, we removed the front seats, center console, and glove box today. The radio comes out next and then the gauge and dash harness swap...along side with pulling the heater box and controls (I need a new vent selector control cable as the nylon sleeve broke at the mounting flange). Under the hood we drained the coolant and are replacing the idiot light sending units with original working oil & water temp senders we've kept over the years. The driver inner fender will be removed for the tach wire hole & grommet installation. It's a heck of a lot of work to do to get factory gauges!

Unfortunately, we didn't find any cool items under the seat or carpets like we did in the '71 455HO Formula...other than a mid '70's quarter.

Dennis

[RamAirBirds]

Dennis...this is Ross....Call me on Monday and i will take my heater cable for my car thats at Jim's and go look around and see if i can find one in his stock...
I will PM you my cell # shortly....Jeff D. has it as well...
Let me try to help.....Great Car....
RA

[SD455DJ]

Originally Posted by RamAirBirds

Dennis...this is Ross....Call me on Monday and i will take my heater cable for my car thats at Jim's and go look around and see if i can find one in his stock...
I will PM you my cell # shortly....Jeff D. has it as well...
Let me try to help.....Great Car....
RA

Thanks Ross...you have been PM'd.

Dennis

[SD455DJ]

We found a new (2006 date) copper-brass heater core at a local radiator shop sitting on a shelf for the '70 Firebird Formula ($90), but also ordered a new one from Rock Auto, who had 2 listed for non-AC, so bought the one that cost a couple bucks more thinking (hoping) it would be slightly better quality of the two...who knows ($47 including tax & base shipping). Got that in yesterday, so we put the two side by side to see what differences would be obvious. I have to say we were surprised that the aluminum piece is just slightly smaller at the core perimeter and they include a foam gasket to seal tightly, and hose outlets are bent correctly for the tight bends needed coming out of the firewall behind the pass cylinder head. So, at half price, maybe they'd be OK. We'll keep the aluminum one for back-up.

Dennis

[Transamric]

Betting the aluminum one is Chinese made?

[SD455DJ]

Originally Posted by Transamric

Betting the aluminum one is Chinese made?

Transamric, You are totally correct! TYC (Totally Yucky Chinese) for a 'Camro'!

Dennis

[Transamric]

Originally Posted by SD455DJ

Transamric, You are totally correct! TYC (Totally Yucky Chinese) for a 'Camro'!

Dennis

Camro.....gotta love it. Surprised it also doesn't say Firbird.

[SD455DJ]

Got to work on the Formula gauges/tach and heater core swaps today. We needed to take the hood & hinges off to access the both the fuse block below the brake booster and the heater box nuts. Since we were replacing the non-gauge dash harness for one for gauges, we decided it would be easier to do that with the complete dashboard out of the car...not to mention, the removal of the inner heater box as well.

We discovered that the dash and everything underneath was never tampered with all it's life...and discovered interesting assembly 'techniques' as well. Of the 5 intended nuts needed to fasten the dash pad to the core, only 3 were installed and the other 2 had no witness marks of ever having nuts installed, both above the glove box. A couple of the red harness retainer clips were also MIA that hold the wire loom as it routes over the glove box and down the far side...plus the usual half way installed screws and nuts in a variety of places...very interesting to observe and imagine that these cars were assembled quickly and they didn't stop the line because you missed a few screws.

We have the new gauges installed in the dash and are routing the new harness in and around the maze of brackets and controls. The new (old original) dash harness has enough 'memory' in the wires that most of the connectors go where they need to be connected...making it pretty easy for us to figure out. Now we just have to find a new heater control cable (floor/de-ice) which is holding us up temporarily.

Looks like the dash was made by Uniroyal (in Canada) on 4-8-70. We're not sure what the 'B' or the '84/8' chalk mark means...?

Dennis

[SD455DJ]

The heater core was the original Harrison unit that was still in excellent shape. We are going to put the new copper-brass core we found in anyway, but are keeping the original for posterity. Interesting that the original core retaining clips are painted baby blue. There was an original inspection sticker on the heater box/housing too. No mouse nests either!

Dennis

[giles]

Originally Posted by SD455DJ

The heater core was the original Harrison unit that was still in excellent shape.

If you can find a radiator shop that still recores stuff you might be able to get a new core for your Harrison end tank.

[keith k]

Cool. No doubt assembly quality was not great in those days. I sometimes wonder if the engineers knew that, and designed the dash to be held on with 2 more screws than were really required!

The bar under the glovebox (visible once it's removed) on the dash in my 70 TA was signed by a "Linda". She signed a few others as well, as I've seen them posted on here in the past.

Funny you mentioned the baby blue clips holding the heater core. When I rebuilt the heater plenum on mine, I blasted and repainted those in baby blue paint. And I remember asking myself why I bothered to worry about the "correct" color on something that would likely never be seen by anybody again!

[Transamric]

Originally Posted by SD455DJ

The heater core was the original Harrison unit that was still in excellent shape. We are going to put the new copper-brass core we found in anyway, but are keeping the original for posterity. Interesting that the original core retaining clips are painted baby blue.

Dennis

I see the heater core is dated March of '70. Likely never been touched before.

[SD455DJ]

Originally Posted by keith k

Cool. No doubt assembly quality was not great in those days. I sometimes wonder if the engineers knew that, and designed the dash to be held on with 2 more screws than were really required!

The bar under the glovebox (visible once it's removed) on the dash in my 70 TA was signed by a "Linda". She signed a few others as well, as I've seen them posted on here in the past.

Funny you mentioned the baby blue clips holding the heater core. When I rebuilt the heater plenum on mine, I blasted and repainted those in baby blue paint. And I remember asking myself why I bothered to worry about the "correct" color on something that would likely never be seen by anybody again!

I guess mine was signed by 84/8...lol. Here's a pic of the underside of the dash above the removed glove box with the missing nuts.

Dennis

[SD455DJ]

Originally Posted by Transamric

I see the heater core is dated March of '70. Likely never been touched before.

It never was apart...everything was so stuck together that we really took our time pulling it apart to preserve as much of the original insulation as possible. The light stuff above the heater box just fell apart, so had to throw it away. Both halves of the heater box were pretty clean with only a few old leaves and dust balls inside to clean out.

Dennis

[SD455DJ]

Originally Posted by giles

If you can find a radiator shop that still re-cores stuff you might be able to get a new core for your Harrison end tank.

A good friend told me about an old radiator repair shop in Ferndale, MI called Ferndale Radiator Repair that still rebuilds/re-cores old radiators and heater cores the old fashioned way. It's good to know a few still exist for our old cars. I do need to have the original 3-core radiator rebuild as it is plugged bad, so will probably take it down there this spring.

Dennis

[SD455DJ]

We got the new temp and oil pressure sending units installed (it was a real bugger getting the steel plug in the crossover out after 52 years...lots of PB Blaster & heat), along with the temp gauge jumper harness. The new dash harness is all but installed on the dash to be reinstalled this Friday. We also got the heater box with the new copper-brass heater core and replacement control cable back in. We might have working factory gauges this weekend!?!

Dennis

[unruhjonny]

I have an intake (that I have for a spare engine) which I need to remove that plug from, so I'm all ears on precisely how you pulled it!
Was it simply:
1) douce with penetrant
2) heat with torch till it stops bubling/smoking
3) try to move plug
4) repeat
??

I had my car's original rad recored about twenty years ago;
unfortunately for me, I didn't realize till later that the old guy tossed the ID tag that my rad had on it!