I'm liking this build thread. Nice parts list you have there too. Keep up the good work and oh, keep the pics coming too.

Great story!! Nice that you had it for over 35 years. Look forward to watching your progress! Keep up the good work.

Nice 3100 in that Pontiac - was it a Grand Prix?

Yes it was. We swapped in a 2001, 3100 large port from a salvage yard. Super clean engine runs like a top.

Like the progress and your story, you are doing a great job and it will show in the end. Love those rims, how is the clearance on those 325's?

I'm jealous of your welder .... that's what I need someday!

Keep up the good work.

Michael

Thanks Sonar chief. I have been following your build as well. The 325s have about 1-Inch clearance inside and outside. My car already had the rear openings rolled with a baseball bat when I mounted my first set of wide (8-inch) wheels in 1978. I was also pretty careful to put the tubs in a little deeper than necessary. I just ordered the axles and differential so I should be able to post some photos in a couple weeks. Right now the axle ends are just tacked in case I need some last minute tweaking.

I shouldn’t have procrastinated starting this thread for so long. Getting caught-up is cutting into my project time.
It was great to get the Camaro back from the media blaster. If you live in the Phoenix area I highly recommend Patrick over at Pro Strip Media blasting. He always finishes when he says and is a very conscientious person. When I visited he was actually repairing a 55 hood that had been damaged by another blaster. I didn’t even know you could do that. Anyway the car looked great and it was odd to see it heading down the road on the flatbed

https://i.imgur.com/Moc8KgZl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/CZXjcORl.jpg

I was itching to weld something, without burning up a bunch of paint and sealer and not wasting all my time grinding to bare metal before I welded anything. I had already D/A sanded the quarters so I didn't have them stripped. The metal has quite a few scratches. When I was younger I unknowingly took a body grinder to it to strip some of the paint. I will get to pay for that little mistake when I start the body work.

https://i.imgur.com/6QqXJnal.jpg

The blasting didn’t reveal much that was unexpected. I did notice just how bad the firewall was and found some of my 20 year old braze repairs. I was a little disappointed to see in detail just how wrinkled the RH outer wheel house was. I knew the quarter was replaced (poorly), but I didn’t see all the wheel house damage because it was undercoated. You can see a little in the photo below at the bottom.

https://i.imgur.com/0LjPuXFl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/s8195B3l.jpg

I decided to keep the quarter and the wheelhouse for now. Both are solid. It will require a little bit of filler in the wheelhouse to make it visually smooth. It is going to get coated with bed-liner anyway. I guess it would be fun to have a perfect car but I sort of like the little warts and bumps on this one. Having the original (to me) quarter just sort of fits somehow.
Anyway the first task was to prepare the cross-member. I didn’t get photos for some reason but the first thing you have to do on a 67 is weld up the odd chamfer and scallop that must work just fine on a 69. This had me scratching my head and I even called DSE to make sure I had the right part. You can see where the pieces need to weld in from this photo.

https://i.imgur.com/Xm14OD4l.jpg

I capped both ends of the cross-member with some .116 material I had purchased for the filler panels. I also welded a closeout on the inside of the frame rail on the left side. The panhard bracket closes out the RH. You can see the weld marks where the inner closeout was in this photo on the left. I tacked it from below after it was all aligned and then took the cross-member out and final welded before I put the cross-member in for the last time. This made welding the inner closeout easier.

https://i.imgur.com/OzYCrVNl.jpg

I was finally able to start welding in the cross member after hours of leveling and checking. Here is where the Miller 211 came in handy. I could see where I needed to weld but sometimes it was hard to get in there. My TIG skills are probably not good enough to have completed some of the welds. It was great having the cross-member in because now I could finally get going on the tubs.

https://i.imgur.com/FL6F4bkl.jpg

I tacked the panhard bracket in but I wasn’t really happy with how far it poked out into the wheel well. I decided to plug weld a ¼ inch spacer behind it and weld to that. This part took some time. I am sure there are better ways to do it but this was the way I chose. BTW I found out my MIG skills are poor welding thick to thin material. I still have a few burn-through spots to repair.
https://i.imgur.com/1hGl2Url.jpg

I finished (mostly) welding the rear (trunk side) of the cross-member. It came out Ok but again there are some holes that need TLC. I was a little discouraged about some of the welding mistakes. Finally I realized that you just have to learn somewhere, or pay someone else who is better to do it for you. It will take some grinding time to clean-up but that is not a big deal really.

https://i.imgur.com/AFv19mpl.jpg

I finally sat down and drilled all those holes in the 4-link dog house assemblies.

https://i.imgur.com/szJ4Fe9l.jpg

Having the cross-member in allowed me to finally weld in the tubs. I used a combination of MIG, TIG and spot welds where I could save time. This was actually one of the more relaxing parts to the back-end work, because everything was clean and all the hard work had been done already. Here the speed of the MIG really pays off and most of the plug welds came out fine. I should have taken some photos with all the clamps installed before the welds. Sometimes I forget to take simple photos that I actually would have liked later.

https://i.imgur.com/tMqFjQal.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/PaAGT2ll.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/HgF2shBl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/WblHwW4l.jpg

Man the tubs and cross-member were in the car. That was a huge morale booster. Honestly this job isn’t that difficult. It does take time to get it done in your spare hours and all the starting and stopping isn’t very efficient with a few days, or weeks in between each work session. Overall I am glad I did it myself.

Wow...that's crazy clean. Great work. Thanks for the motivation!!

:D

OT - that large port 3100 should run forever. It might end up having bad lower intake manifold gaskets - and the camshaft can snap inside the block.

I have owned several of those 60* V6's - and was swapping a 3400 5 speed combo into a Beretta Z26 - then I got a job 1000 miles from Chicago, so I scrapped that project and bought the C6...

Back on topic - those welds look really good.

Where is your spot welder from?

That's great pics and detailed work,that's real good info for others to go by.Looks like it's still a solid car to start with,here in WV you would be ordering a lot of new metal after sandblasting,keep those good pics coming:thumbsup: :thumbsup: