Aqua Starfire

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Aqua Starfire

Postby OldsStarfire » Wed Aug 12, 2015 12:19 pm

I found this 77 Starfire on ebay a few years back and I convinced my friend & fellow Starfire lover to bid on it. He did not win the auction but got a second chance when the widding bidder turned the car down after seeing it in person. Lets just say the seller was not entirely honest. It really was a single family owned 13,000 original mile car in an amazing color combination that has not been on the road for 8 yrs. I told him if he bught it - I would get it running for him. He drove from Delaware to western Michigain and decided to bring it home.
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Re: Aqua Starfire

Postby lleelduo » Wed Aug 12, 2015 12:49 pm

Neat car! It even has the self exploding Firestone 721's on it. Huge recall when they were new. I remember those days at the GM dealership. OOPs my age is showing. :oops:
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Re: Aqua Starfire

Postby Vegabee » Wed Aug 12, 2015 1:31 pm

Carefully drive down to the Firestone dealer and demand tire replacements.
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Re: Aqua Starfire

Postby dindin » Wed Aug 12, 2015 3:36 pm

Vegabee wrote:Carefully drive down to the Firestone dealer and demand tire replacements.


:lol:
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Re: Aqua Starfire

Postby cjbiagi » Wed Aug 12, 2015 3:52 pm

Vegabee wrote:Carefully drive down to the Firestone dealer and demand tire replacements.

Ha, wonder what they would say
Clyde.........75 Monza 2+2
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Re: Aqua Starfire

Postby OldsStarfire » Thu Aug 13, 2015 1:24 pm

Was that the Ford Explorer / Firestone issue or something earlier? I still can't rent a U-Haul with my Explorer sport trac due to those law suites.
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Re: Aqua Starfire

Postby HI WINDING MONZA » Thu Aug 13, 2015 2:46 pm

Ford Explorer = Firestone Wilderness AT , ATX , ATX II

Ford Explorer = Firestone 500

Other Makes = Firestone 721

http://www.vehicletire.com/Complaint/Firestone/721

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestone ... er_Company

Doug in P.R. 8)
My Old Monza now lives in Arizona with its newest owner.

The 90's just keep rollin' along........
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Re: Aqua Starfire

Postby OldsStarfire » Sun Aug 16, 2015 10:00 am

Got the car to my place and assessed it. As always with old cars it was worse than it appeared. The seller claimed it was garage kept, but faded paint and interior showed it wasn't.
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Re: Aqua Starfire

Postby OldsStarfire » Sun Aug 16, 2015 10:06 am

We noticed this really sticky smelly crap on the trailer. Turns out it was coming from the gas tank. The gas had turned into this tar like substance that I had never seen before and had eaten thru the gas tank and was leaking. It even ate a hole in my blacktop driveway. Reminded me of Alien blood from the first Aliens movie eating through the steel deck of the ship. I pumped out the goo and turned it in on a hazardous materials turn in day. Had to find a new tank, pump and sending unit.
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Re: Aqua Starfire

Postby OldsStarfire » Sun Aug 16, 2015 10:11 am

I was able to find a used gas tank, and a NOS sending unit from a guy here on this site. He had lots of other good H-Body parts as well. I already had a NOS pump. I flushed out the fuel lines with Acetone (I think) and rebuilt the carb.
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Last edited by OldsStarfire on Wed Sep 02, 2015 9:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Aqua Starfire

Postby OldsStarfire » Sun Aug 16, 2015 10:15 am

Pulled the valve covers and finally had some good news. The engine was really clean. I could now believe it actually did only have 13,000 miles on it.
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Re: Aqua Starfire

Postby OldsStarfire » Sun Aug 16, 2015 10:30 am

Installed new valve cover gaskets, spark plugs, primed the oil pump, fuel pump and got ready to start it for the first time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWD08U3vUa4 :dance: :dance: :dance:
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Re: Aqua Starfire

Postby OldsStarfire » Wed Sep 02, 2015 9:31 pm

So now that it was running and driving we had to figure out what we were going to do with it. My buddy decided to get it painted. I told him I would restore the interior like I did on his other Starfire. To get the best results before paint of course you have to remove all the trim. We found a small amount of surface rust around the window channels and had to deal with this. I also had a paintless dent guy come out and poke out a lot of door dings and a huge dent from the drivers door mirror pushing the metal in. I had to remove the reinforcement first, straighten it and weld it back in. I did not want all this filled in with Bondo by some lazy paint shop.
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Re: Aqua Starfire

Postby OldsStarfire » Wed Sep 02, 2015 9:39 pm

And since no one makes the side stripes we had to trace them and get them reproduced. Stencils & Stripes agreed to do them and sent me the tracing paper. I traced them and sent them back. Several month went by and many, many phone calls but they never did produce the stripes. :bang: :censored:

I ended up tracing them again and having a local copy shop scan the tracings, and a local sign shop reproduce them in Vinyl.
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Re: Aqua Starfire

Postby OldsStarfire » Wed Sep 02, 2015 9:44 pm

We also needed to get the rear decal reproduced. Alan (Starfire) sent me an NOS one that did not have Starfire on it to collect measurements and sent me other measurements as well. I had another local printing company work with me on producing them, and they went out of business before we could get them right. :cuss:

The sign shop came to the rescue again. Apparently they can print on top of the Vinyl too!
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