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Weather here is still a little on the cold side, but the project is still moving forward. I am back on the frame again doing it section by section. I decided to do it one section at a time for now and paint each completed section with some rattle can paint, just to prevent surface rust from forming. Once the temps get into the 70's here we can get it outside strip the paint, touch up any spots with the sandblaster and put the finish paint on it. Here are a couple of pics of some of the other progress.
We will start with some more parts that were delivered this week. Pretty much a complete A/C setup, minus a couple of needed parts, but we will find those later.
Next we tackled the rebuild of the power steering control valve. It was pretty dirty but once the layer of dirt and power steering fluid came off it looked like new. I think it may have been replaced recently, but we're going to go ahead and rebuild it any way.
Here it is disassembled with the old and the new parts. No worry I only put the new parts back in.
Now after final assembly. Looks pretty good. I still have to adjust it so it's centered, but we will do that later when we are ready to put it back on.
More frame work this week and not sure what else we will work on, but I will update again next week. Later.......
The frame is pretty much done until warm weather gets here, then we will finish it up. Getting tired of looking at the damage on the firewall, so I started working on that. It's a nice change to switch from working on steel to doing some fiberglass work. I'm not an expert by any means, but with doing some research on here, I think I am doing pretty good so far. First we will show you some of the damaged areas. Anything that is brown is going to be cut out and rebuilt.
Rather than cutting all the damaged areas out at once I decided to to it one section at a time. There are too many angles and curves to cut it all out at once. This is the first area with the damage already cut out and the edges feathered. I forgot to take a pic before cutting it out.
We will be moving from the left side to the right one section at a time.
A couple of small areas at the top that will need work also.
Formed up the cut out section using cardboard with aluminum foil on it. I used large pieces of mat, but pulled the edges wherever they met with the old firewall, so there wasn't a clean cut edge. I used small pieces along the edges to tie in the mat with the existing firewall. Sounds good when I try to explain it, but it may not make any sense to everyone else. lol. Attempting to copy some of the experts on the board. I didn't use the masking tap trick for the edges, we will probably do that with the next section.
First pic is showing the cardboard form.
First attempt with the fiberglass.
Trimmed off the excess mat, and formed up the tunnel to the firewall. Cut a groove in the edges that connect the new fiberglass to the old, and glassed it all together.
Back to the outside. Started sanding it smooth. I still need to grind the edges at the tunnel to tie them together, and add more fiberglass.
Any tips or suggestions are welcome. I am certainly not an expert with fiberglass, so any help won't be frowned on. I'm sure we will get better as we go. The good thing is you can always cut it out and redo it if needed.
Just a quick update on the project. Things aren't picking up like I thought, with the warmer weather, just more projects to work on around the house, only on the outside. Work continues on the firewall, not much progress to show. While I'm working on that, I also started to strip the rest of the paint off of the body. Here are a few pics.
First pic is off the passenger side. This came off really easy, two coats of paint and primer. You can see the seam is glassed, so I guess maybe the panel had been replaced at some point.
This pic is highlighting the use of a white colored filler, shown in the red circle. I'm not sure what type or brand used here, but where ever they used the filler, the paint was cracked. It also had filler all along the seam which has already been removed.
The drivers side not as good. I removed at least 4 coats of paint and primer. The strange thing was it also had a clear on top. It's the only place I have seen any clear on the car, so it's pretty strange.
This pic shows the green colored filler that was on the quarter. It also has some paint stripper on it also. You can see they used some filler painted over it with the yellow and then more filler. Interesting.
Here is the pic after all of the filler was removed. It was pretty deep, all the way trough the panel in a couple of spots. We will finish cleaning this up and put fiberglass back in rather than just the filler.
Until the next time......Terre
Last edited by Johnnycyclone; 04-12-2015 at 12:11 PM.
Well, it's been just over 4 weeks from my last post and not much has happened. I have been very busy around the house with projects and parted out a jet ski to raise some money. I have everything pretty much squared away and cleaned out the garage, so it's time to spend some more time on the project. So I decided to take Thursday off to finish stripping this frame get some paint on it. Spent about 6 hours with several wire wheels, and a few more hours on paint. Here is a couple of pics, not much to show. Just one of the frame stripped and ready for paint and a couple of it painted. Hopefully we will be updating the thread on more of a weekly or bi-weekly bases.
Working on the front suspension this week. I have most everything disassembled. Just need to degrease everything, strip the paint and take care of any rust on the parts. Hopefully we can paint this weekend, but most likely it will be next weekend. Cut one coil off the front springs and dropped them off at the sandblasters along with the half shafts to get cleaned up. Just too much rust and too hard to reach some areas on the parts, so sand blasting seemed like the only option. Lastly, I ordered a new brake line kit, which was delivered today. I went with just the plain steel, since this isn't going to be a show car, stainless wasn't really necessary. Plus we have a budget to stay within. Here are a few pics of the work being done.
Front suspension tear down. Had a lot of fun with this. Spent the evening on the lower a-arms. The first bushing came out in about 5 minutes, the next 3 took about and hour and a half. Not a lot of fun, but it's done.
Based on my research one coil should be about right.
Headed out on Saturday in search of a new power plant for the project. I found a good candidate in Ohio, fresh build with only 5 hours of run time. But I wanted to talk to the owner in person and check out the paperwork. Ended up bringing this one home. It's a mid 80's 350 with 4 bolt mains, and bored .030 over to make it a 355. It has a new rotating assembly including a SCAT crankshaft, Eagle rods, and Speed Pro forged pistons. He had receipts from the machine shop showing the machining work and the new rotating assembly. It also has a new cam and lifters, oil pump, harmonic balancer, chrome timing cover with adjustable timing tab, chrome oil pan and water pump. Unfortunately no receipts, but not a big deal, I was only after the short block anyways. The heads are just 194's nothing special, which I don't need either. The bonus in the purchase was the intake. He didn't know what it was, but it was an early GM aluminum dual plane intake with the oil fill in the front. I ran the numbers and it came back as a 67-68 factory 302 intake for the Camaro Z/28. They sell on Ebay in the $250-450 range. I'm going to sell the cam, lifters, heads and intake to recoup some of the cost, and put in a roller cam and my GM top end. Over all a good day and a good buy at $1200.
Last edited by Johnnycyclone; 06-07-2015 at 09:06 AM.
Continuing work on the front suspension. Got the front coils and the half shafts back from the sandblasters, and ended up taking in the rest of the front suspension parts for blasting. Their rates are pretty reasonable and I don't seem to have the time to spend cleaning up all of the parts, so I will be sending some in from time to time. Applied a few coats of chassis black to the parts and they are ready for install.
Also started working on cleaning up some of the brake hardware. Started with some of the bolts. I will finish these up this week and hopefully start putting the brake lines back on the chassis.
Getting the trailing arms ready to ship out. Removed the rotors and they are ready to box up.
Later......
Last edited by Johnnycyclone; 06-07-2015 at 09:07 AM.
So what's the color going to be? The plan was always to do yellow, with some black striping, but I really don't like the original shade of yellow. It's not what I would call a true yellow. Yesterday I think I found the color. The guy I bought the engine from was working on a 79 Camaro, but after having to listen to his wife complain about all of the parts taking up space in the garage, he decided to sell the car and all the parts. After the car was sold he went out and bought this as a replacement. This is the color for my project, 2010 Rally Yellow. I love this color.
Work continues at steady pace. Here are some pics of what's been done.
Starting fitting up the brake lines, and ran into a small problem. The line going from the drivers side front was missing a bend, or two. I called the vendor and they shipped out a replacement line, no problem, and it fits much better. All the lines were test fitted, then painted, and are ready to be installed.
Finished stripping and painting the hardware for the brake lines and for the fuel lines. Just another pic of the finished bolts. I also have he rest of the clips done. Now we can install the brake lines.
I picked up the suspension parts from the blasters and put some paint on them last night. Just finishing up the dry time hanging in the garage. We can start putting the front end back together pretty soon.
Although the engine was a fresh build with only a few hours on it I decided to do a complete tear down and reassembly. Here we are with a stripped down block ready to start the rebuild process.
Your doing a excellent restoration. Great attention to detail.
I don't blame you for tearing the engine down to be 100% sure it's perfect. You got a good price, no reason to put a motor in the car with a possible defect .
Your doing a excellent restoration. Great attention to detail.
I don't blame you for tearing the engine down to be 100% sure it's perfect. You got a good price, no reason to put a motor in the car with a possible defect .
I like the original Yellow btw.
Thanks LS4, doing the best we can. Impatience is one of my biggest problems, but I know that a good restoration is all in the details.
The biggest issue with the engine was being opened by the PO and not kept clean. He didn't do much to keep it clean. We will also check ring gaps and bearing clearances also, but it certainly needed a good cleaning.
Keep in mind the pictures don't show the true color of the cars. In both pictures, the color looks a lot lighter than it actually is. The actual color of the Camaro looks more like the color of the Corvette in my avatar picture, and yes I love that color.
Got to spend some more time on the project this afternoon. Decided to start working on the fuel tank. It's actually in pretty good shape, just some light surface rust. The wire wheel did a nice job of smoothing out the tank, and removing the rust. I shot it with some paint I had laying around from another project, John Deere Winterfrost II. Here is a quick look at the before, during and after.
Been working pretty hard this past week, but not much progress, or so it seems. If you have done a restoration you know how much time is devoted to cleaning rusted parts, and painting them. Even the new parts need cleaned and painted to prevent rust. So the past week I have been doing a lot of prep work, and some assembly. I've seen other restorations where the parts are all prepped before final assembly, where as I like to prep a few parts, then assemble, prep, assemble. That way I can see some progress and I don't have to prep parts what seems like forever. So here are a couple more pics of some progress.
Received a care package from Summit. I ordered the gaskets needed to assemble the engine, and also ordered a new cam and lifters. I went with a Competition Cams Xtreme Energy hydraulic flat tappet cam, part number XE274H, grind number 12-246-3. This should be more than enough cam for what I want. This will mean I have to do a gear change though.
Cleaned up and painted the mounting straps and the filler neck. The fuel tank is close to being installed, just need to tighten down the straps. I will be ordering the fuel lines this week, so I can finish that up.
Last edited by Johnnycyclone; 06-30-2015 at 09:19 AM.
03-23-2015, 06:27 PM
Project continues
