Transition Camaro
 

Since it’s customary to name a car project I’ve been thinking about what I would name mine. Growing up with a drag racing family in the 70’s and 80’s I saw a lot of awesome cars with cool names and cool drivers like Don the Snake Prudhomme and Shirley Muldowney. Although I admit, as a kid, I was drawn to the Jolly Rancher wheel-stander fire truck as much as the top fuel cars. I’m sure it had to do with the candy they threw out to the crowd! I’m not creative nor am I witty so I’ve chosen Transition Camaro. The name seems to fit as I move on from motocross (R.I.P. MX145) and loss of my best friend and brother to a new chapter.

I’m really excited to get back to wrenching on cars and seeing the fruits of my labor. Thinking back Its hard to believe my dad trusted having his boys working on his race car. I don't know how he had the patience to teach us and keep an eye on us while he was thrashing to make the next event. Luckily the worst thing I did was forget to plug in a harness and burned up an ignition box. But still, we had the motor and tranny out of the car all the time to tear down and refresh for the next event. He kept the extra critical stuff for himself but I remember being a school kid with his guidance finishing assembly, putting the intake on, setting valve lash, or whatever else my dad would let us get our hands on.

As luck would have it I ended up buying a 68 RS from a nice family in Sandy OR last October. This happens to be the same year my brother was born which makes it even more fitting. The car was in decent shape but has a long way to go to be resto-mod worthy. It’s originally a California vinyl top car but sat outside for a number of years on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington before making its way to a enclosed shop in Oregon. Still has the original CA plates. The roof was so rusty I had to pull off the freeway twice to remove pieces to keep more from flying off. The rest of the car wasn’t to bad other than the front floor boards, bottom rear window and windshield cowl area.

My plan is for a garage built big brakes, upgraded suspension, nice driving car that I can hopefully autocross and take to events to hang out with my dad with his 62 Corvette. I ultimately would like a LS motor and T56 but it’s not in the budget. I’m keeping it in mind as I make modifications to hopefully make things easier for a later upgrade. Initially I’ll be putting in a 383 with Vortec heads and a Super T10 connected to a Ford 9”.

Should be a great project. :thumbsup:

Originally a 327 Automatic, Matador red, standard interior. I haven't decided on a color yet. It's going to be wearing black SPI epoxy until it's a runner and I work out a lot of the bugs.

Thanks Jody! I was hesitant to post a build as there's so many high end cars on here but I want to keep a chronological history and have something to refer back to. I've already lost track of a lot since October so I need to get to posting.

I want to thank Dave AKA Flash68 for the encouragement on the thread and help! Thanks to Cris@JCG, Will427, James-OLC, Jay Hilliard! All these guys have already helped me out answering PM questions. This is an awesome community.

You know Dave? Sorry to hear that......... :lol:

Ryan, glad you posted... as I said many of us enjoy reading the back-stories about projects and family stuff. Yours was fun to read. Working on dad's race car in grade school.... priceless.

He knows me just enough now to maybe get himself in trouble. :D

Jody good luck with this project,it does not have to be a high end build for us to follow along and enjoy with you,keep pics coming.

Thanks guys!

Original quarters and factory deck lid off another Camaro didn't quite fit right and needed work.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...aro/null-5.jpg
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I was hoping to keep the factory quarters but found more body filler than I expected. After stripping the paint it looks like the car was once a ping pong ball. Front, rear, and both sides had damage.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/.../null-19-2.jpg
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I also found the passenger quarter inside support that the door latch bolt ties to was bent up so off they came.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...o/null-1-1.jpg

Trunk floor and dropouts weren't too bad but since I've gone this far they're getting replaced.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...aro/null-9.jpg

I was able to straighten the support with the BFH. You can see how the door is still tweaked.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...o/null-7-1.jpg

The inner structure needs cleaned up but is in good shape.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...aro/null-8.jpg

The wheel wells don't look to good but they're coming off for new outers and DSE mini tubs.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...ro/null-31.jpg
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/.../null-16-1.jpg

I test fit a used Golden Legion quarter I picked up a the Puyallup swap meet but I wasn't happy with the trunk gutter fitment. Maybe this is why the last guy really gave up on it and went with OEM's. I was able to get the rest of the quarter to fit fairly well.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...ro/null-35.jpg
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After screwing around with it for hours I decided to buy some new metal from AMD.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...ro/null-45.jpg

Going through the process of bracing, making reference measurements, and cutting out the bad metal and cleanup.

*Some of my pics are out of order as I came back to document the build. While removing the quarters I purposely cut around and left the front side of the quarters in the door jamb area until I rebuilt the door hinges and was able to maintain an accurate body line for reference.

http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/.../null-23-2.jpg
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/.../null-20-3.jpg

The inner structure is cleaning up nice. The rockers look good top and bottom.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/.../null-35-1.jpg
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The package tray filler area will have to be patched where it meets up with the trunk gutter.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...ro/null-14.jpg

Looks like someone installed the rear speakers with an axe. Hopefully I can find the awesome stamped/recessed 6x9 patch panels I've seen on some Lat-G builds somewhere.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...aro/null-9.jpg

The front floor boards have seen better days. The dash is good and tunnel is salvageable.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/.../null-22-1.jpg

The top dash panel was shot all along the bottom windshield area. I'm going to have to replace the upper 2" of the cowl across the entire windshield area as well.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/.../null-24-1.jpg

Anyone know what the slot is cut out for on the passenger side cowl? It looks like a dealer/aftermarket install as the cut-out looks like it was done with a chainsaw. Whatever mounted in there looks to have been bolted to a factory installed bracket. Something for CA emissions?
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...ro/null-21.jpg

The doors are worse and will have to be patched as well. Here's a pic after I cut most of the shredded metal away. I sure hope it wasn't a stereo shop that did this.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...o/null-755.jpg

dealer installed ac. I've seen some done with an 1/8" drill bit.

The inside rear fenders are some of the best metal on the car. I felt bad cutting them out but have to make room for the DSE mini tubs.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...ro/null-49.jpg

I took the good areas down to bare metal, prepped and epoxied. I didn't prep and spray everything to save work and material. I can't say enough about Barry and the crew at SPI. Those guys would fit right in here. I also bought a new 3M Accuspray primer gun with PPS cup system. I can't believe I didn't buy one of these sooner. Its the cat's meow! Way less work and material to clean up.

http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...ull-30-1-1.jpg
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The inner cowl and firewall cleaned up well.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/.../null-1192.jpg

The rear floor and seat area are in good shape.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/.../null-54-1.jpg

The package tray cleaned up and got coated along with the inner structure.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...ro/null-64.jpg
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/.../null-53-1.jpg
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/.../null-52-1.jpg
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...ro/null-65.jpg

Tail pan inner structure
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...ull-17-2-1.jpg
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/.../null-11-1.jpg

It's been a mystery for months around here. Thanks Vince!

Drivers side door gap looked great. Hopefully I can get it right with the new quarters. I took measurements of door gaps, fender placement and trunk gaps, adjusted the doors and left them in place while replacing the quarters. My intention is to leave as metal in tact and brace as much as possible. Since I don't have a body jig Im supporting the weight of the car with the front tires and rear end on jack stands or tires.

The passenger side cowl box has to be replaced but the drivers side looks pretty good. Just need to patch the bottom and put the new outside pieces on. AMD didn't sell the parts individually so they hooked me up with the whole assembly for the price of the outer!.

Firewall is in good shape other than where the e-brake mount tore through.

Not sure whats up with the passenger side windshield pillar. Seems like a strange place to drill holes. Maybe it was metal termites. :). I welded up all the holes when I repaired the cowl.

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Whoever packed this for Amazon wasn't thinking. A gallon of body filler shipped on its side. What a sticky mess! UPS gave it the usual treatment. I called Amazon for the first time and didn't know what to expect. As soon as I told the customer service rep why I was calling he apologized and placed a new order. Didn't ask another question. Great customer service!

Seems like I fit the quarters, tail pan, deck filler, and roof 20 times! Things were lining up pretty well so I welded the drip rails in for good.

Cut out the old trunk floor center section because It had some pin holes and a couple bad spots. I'm glad I went that far so I could clean up the gas tank supports and inside support for the tail pan.

The trunk patch from Classic Industries fit well but was a little thinner than the factory 18ga. Not a big deal but the AMD stuff was as thick or thicker on every piece I've touched so far. Unfortunately AMD doesn't have this piece. The center floor section patch works really well when installing a DSE like rear crossmember. I kept the factory side edges so the weld would be hidden inside the frame rail from below.

Since I had to primer the tank reinforcements and frame rails before they got covered up I decided to make a patch for the bottom cowl box and epoxy it along with the firewall.

*Coming back to look at my build thread I realize I should have posted more pics showing each area of the car as it was fully prepped before painting. I didn't just paint over the rusty gas tank supports below. Haha.

The cowl was rusty around the bottom of the windshield where the top of the dash held water. The rest of the cowl is good so I'll come back to it later. The upper dash piece was a throw away. The cowl isn't too bad but I want to get as much rust out of the car as possible.

The floors from the seat pan back are good. Both the driver and passenger side foot area is rotten. The rest of the main structure cleaned up nice.

The passenger cowl box had too much rust to realistically make a patch for. I decided it was a better use of my time to replace the whole thing. Also gave me an opportunity to clean up the inside kick panel area. Both sides are now treated and prepped for epoxy.

I think I measured a dozen times before cutting the floor and frame for the mini tubs. I didn't think it would be a big deal since I've had to cut so much else of the car for rust repair but I guess this was a little more intimidating. I laid my lines out in tape which seemed to help me cut straight as I went over all the various elevations.

Pair of 1st gen air shocks. Not quite Ridetech so they're going to go!

Also started laying out the crossmember. It was nice to see it fit as I kinda guessed on the front length when I had the industrial supply bend it for me. I'll trim the bottom side flush with the floor later.

I used the DSE templates to cut the frame but I decided to make my own closeouts as I wanted to tie as much of what I had in front of me together. Not sure how the various years differ exactly but I wanted maximum strength and least amount of water possible.

First part to not fit well. I'm guessing it's not an AMD part based on the high quality of everything else I've fit so far and it came in a generic box. The passenger side cowl box wasn't close to fitting so I cut a pie out of both sides and filled them.

I also decided to fix the toe board at the bottom of the firewall.

Jumped back to the crossmember and mini-tubs. I started welding in the crossmember now that it fit how I wanted.

Fit the drivers side closeouts to tie everything together on that side as well.

Welded the new trunk dropouts in and finished welding the trunk floor to the crossmember.

Also got the drivers side drip rail on.

Thanks tubbed69. I have about 6 months of pictures that I'm going though. It would have been way easier to start this sooner. Haha

Ryan, cool project how long have you been working on it? You seem to have a lot of the hard part done already.

Believe me there are way more home built cars on here the you think. And the more that are posted the more it helps the others guys that think hey if they can do it I can to!

Keep up the great work!

Hi Rick. I've been working on it for about 6 months. It's become my refuge. I wish I could work on it more but I'm trying to maintain balance so I stay married and my kids remember who I am. ;)

You have a good point. Reading others build threads has definitely been an inspiration to me not to mention a wealth of knowledge!

Put my son to work marking spot welds so I can match up the new to the old.

Went back over the car with 80 grit before the final epoxy on areas that will be covered up by the roof and quarters.

Stripped the inside edge of the drip rails and the edge of the roof panel to accept the 3M panel adhesive. I set the roof on blocks to give me room to apply the adhesive to both pieces before dropping into place and clamping. The AMD root panel fit great. Didn't require much fitting at all.

Pictures are a little out of order as I'm trying to catch up my thread.

Got the roof, tail pain, quarters on and welded. I chose to sheetmetal screw and clamp the roof to quarter seam while I skipped around plug welding one hole at a time. The quarter to under body was a little faster as I just clamped and welded.

Also got the trunk hinge supports reshaped and back on the car so I could remove the bracing. This took a lot longer than it should have but turned out ok. The supports tied into the original inner fenders at a different point on the curve so It took some time to reshape for the DSE inners.

Got the deck filler under structure prepped, metal on and what seemed like 50 plug welds. The trunk gaps are as good or better than the factory. Looks like the bracing and trial fitting paid off. Can't say enough about the AMD quality after seeing what some other guys have had to do and what I've done with other brands myself. The passenger side of the deck lid is tweaked and bent up extending past the quarter a little. I will replace the decklid later but wanted to keep the same one in place while the quarters were off so I could keep my measurements. All of the damaged metal (beside the temporary deck lid) is gone so the car is pretty straight now. The quarters, taipan, outer fender to quarters are looking much better.

Came back to the upper cowl area. I could have patched a few sections but couldn't live with the thought that theres rust between the panels in the seam area. I decided to patch the entire width of the windshield in 3 sections. I hammer and dollied it to match the curve of the factory metal figured out my shape, traced, and got to cutting. Cleaned up and primered the seam area as well.

Also filled in the dealer add on AC (Thanks Vince). Couldn't figure out what that hole was for. Was a bit of a challenge shaping the patch to simulate the factory rolled edge and match the curve. Things came together well as the replacement top dash panel fit.

Picked up a used Vortec 350 from a nice guy down in Napavine. I have a 4 bolt main block out of a 72 GMC if this block is bad. I mainly wanted it for the Vortec heads. I'll be changing most of the internals anyway. More on that later.

Took every clamp I own but I finally welded the passenger side cowl box on while I waited for the kevlar/fiberglass reinforced filler to dry on the trunk and cowl patch seems as well as the quarter to roof seems.

Started on the Ford 9" housing out of a 70's pickup. Cut the brackets off and ground them down. Also cleaned up the main section of the housing. I'll be narrowing this thing up once the 18" Fikse's show up so I can measure. I also picked up a Posi center section with 3.50 gears at the Puyallup swap meet that I'll be rebuilding and throwing in there. The center section out of the truck is in good shape but it's an open diff.

The ospho gives the metal a funky purple hue.

Now that the quarters on welded on in the proper place I took the doors back off so i could rebuild the hinges and clean up the surface rust. These things took what seemed like half a day but man it was worth it. I tighted the gaps between brackets so they are smooth and tight on the car. No slop at all. I can't believe these had all plastic bushings except a single bronze from the factory. These doors seem too heavy for plastic bushings. I replaced all of them with bronze and new springs and tension rollers.

I need to take a final picture. Here they are as they're coming apart

Media blasting seems to get everywhere but doesn't take care of the hidden areas so I'm glad I'm pulling the seat pans to replace the floor halves. The floor pans fit ok but they are about 1/4" too narrow (for my car anyway). I had to hammer and dolly the entire edge that gets plug welded to the rocker. I got the passenger floor panel in place and screwed it down along the toe board in the front and rear seat area and a couple places along the tunnel. Once I had it where I wanted, I scribed the tunnel line, removed the floor, and cut and reinstalled for final fit and welding. The beads that were stamped in the floor were off. The radius was way too small to match up to the factory metal. Seems like It took every round punch and radius'd hammer and dolly I could find to rework them. I would have had the same issue with the Classic trunk floor patch panel except I installed a suspension crossmember which broke it up. The cross member is in between the beads in the patch and the beads in the original floor.

I took the opportunity to figure out my subframe connectors while the floor was out. Measuring it out, a 5 degree angle was what I needed to keep the connectors as tight as possible to the floor. I decided to make the bend at the same location as the floor bend. I don't have a tubing bender so I cut a small pie (not much more than a 1/16 cutoff wheel) ouf of 3 sides and tacked it to verify fit. I was able to notch the tubing to fit around the torque box and meet up with the rear frame rails. The frame rails are narrower than the 2x3 tubing so I'll shape the end to match up later. Same on the subframe side but opposite. I'll have to add material on to the connectors to make it as wide as the subframe. Since I got it to fit I welded up my 3 seams and set them aside for final install after the floor is finished.

Tucked up pretty well underneath. This picture isn't reflective of the final install. I matched the top of the connector with the top of the sub frame. 1/2" below the floor based on 1/2" DSE body mount bushings.

Started laying out the 4-link. Took me some time to get things packaged as I wanted as there's not a lot of room to work with retaining the rear seat floor and utilizing the front leaf spring mounts.

I was originally going to run a bushing end on the car side and a heim on the rear end but I found 5/8 hole 3/4 shank heim ends with teflon/kevlar liner so they hopefully don't rattle. I'm going to build aluminum bushings to center the link in the brackets so I can change to the poly bushing style link if it doesn't work out.

I'm held up a little waiting on the wheels. I need to mock this up with real parts to double check my measurements before I cut the 4-link brackets and narrow the rear end. I want to make sure I have the anti-squat and ride height I'm looking for when its said and done.

It's looking like I won't be able to re-spline the 31 spline axle's on the rearend due to the offset center section. Based on my measurements I have to narrow the rear end 4" or more each side to safely re-spline. Not a problem on one side but might not work out on the other. Ordered 18x11 wheels with 5-1/8 BS so we'll see when they arrive. I designed the suspension around a 4" stroke Ridetech coilover. My dad offered up some 6" stroke coilovers off his vette but I can't seem to get them to fit in redesigned brackets with proper stroke centering.

BTW if you're looking for CAD software Draftsight is free and awesome! The 2D stuff is a lot like AutoCAD. I haven't done any extrusions/3D modeling with it but 2D works great. I imagine they steer the 3D stuff towards products like Solidworks. (Same company). I haven't used AutoCAD for years and wasn't looking forward to the cost of buying new software to run on my Macbook.

While working on the floor I realized something wasn't right on the subframe. The seat pan frame bolt was off center with the floor section. I decided to pull the sub off and measure it all out. It came out within spec's but had some cosmetic damage due to a previous accident. Turned out the subframe was sitting crooked in the car. (Probably from the impact). My father and I straightened out the core support and the subframe to make it look cosmetically better in line with the rest of the car. I'm not 100% sold on it yet as I still have work to do on it. If it doesn't look great by the time I'm ready to do the coil-overs I'll look for another. It just has minor surface rust so it's worth messing with compared to what I've been seeing for sale in the local area.

Some of the damage is hard to see in the pictures. We tack'd a bolt to various points on the crossmember and used blocking and a bar to run a nut up against. We tightened the nut down pulling out the dent and hammered the bottom flange flat as we went. This 1/8 stuff took some time to move compared to 18ga. We also fixed the front crossmember that had a rise in the flange. I cut off the formed tie between the two crossmembers. This piece had the most damage. While discussing how to fix the formed piece my buddy Ron came up with a great idea of running a piece of 2x3 tubing between the two. It shouldn't look out of place with fabbed coilover mounts and some of the other work on the car. Hopefully I'll have some "after" pics to post soon.

I found some rust across the front flange of the inner seat pan structure. (The piece that the subframe bolts to). I cut off the rust, treated and primed the rest of it and built a crossmember to run between both rockers to give the seat pan a good support to weld to and stiffen up the car. The gap in the crossmember fab pic is the bad lighting and cell phone camera. I chamfered the edges of all the pieces before I welded them.

Since the floor was in I permanently installed the passenger side connector, seat pan inner, and outer.

The crossmember fits great at the same height as the finished seat pan and sits about 1/4" below the floor on the bottom side of the car. I don't like how high it sits in the middle but wanted to error on the side of clearance for a t56 hopefully in the future. After looking at it in the car I'm going to slice the center section and lower it about 1/2 to 3/4". The bottom will stay in the same location but the tube will be about 1 1/2 or 1 1/4"x3 instead of 2x3. This should look better and still be high enough on the front side for the new higher transmission tunnel when the time comes.

Hey Dave. Good to see you on here. Nice to see Jody give you a hard time. Sarcasm goes a long way with buddies! I posted a few pics. Almost caught up to what I'm currently working on.

Nice job it looks great.

Man great catalog of pictures! Great job and keep it going. You have some nice skills there. :thumbsup: