69 Camaro Makeover
 

With the ever growing vintage and pro-touring market, it is now easier than ever to find decent 'restored' vehicle as a starting point for a project.

Vehicles with older (80's and 90's era) simple restorations can be purchased at a fair price when compared to a completely new 'from scratch' pro-touring car build. This creates a much more enticing and affordable long term project for those on more of a strict budget.

At our shop, we are seeing more and more of this type of project: vehicles arriving in good running order, nice paint, simple interior and drivetrain. The owners are happy with the cars, but are seeking the ride comfort and quality of a newer vehicle. With a good foundation for the chassis and handling, many upgrades (such as bigger brakes, audio, wheels and tires etc) can come over time or as the project evolves.

As an example, I thought I would post up a thread on the makeover of this '69 Camaro we currently have in the shop. The aim, to help illustrate how the average builder can build a fun and competitive car without starting from scratch with drastically improved handling and ride quality. We will be removing the existing factory subframe and rear rails, doing the necessary modifications to the floor and installing one of our FAST TRACK full frame chassis. (info on chassis HERE)


This is our starting point. A decent and clean '69 Camaro with good paint, standard interior and a healthy little small block with a built TH400 which, at this point, the owner still plans to re-use.
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The first step is to completely wrap it to protect the paint and start dissassembly and removal of the original suspension.
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Okay! This will be fun!


I absolutely agree with you... there's plenty of guys out there with pretty decent cars that just want to "upgrade" the ride/handling/braking without
the complete custom re-do and it's costs. Good for you guys for being willing
to take it on!

I'll be watching for more.

After pulling all of the suspension, exhaust and underpinnings out... we cleaned up everything and did a full inspection to see what we have. It turns out that the Camaro is as solid as it looked. The only item up in question is if we use the factory gas tank or go with one of our new stainless tanks. The OE tank will work just fine with the Fast Track chassis but this one looks to have some possible rot issues.

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At this point we can go ahead and start removing the rear rails and outlining the portion of the floor pan to cut for clearance for the new chassis rails. On the 1st gen Camaros it is pretty minimal cutting and pan work. The tape marks here make it appear larger then really is so I will post up some images of the pan after we finish trimming it out.

Start removing the rails by drilling out the factory spotwelds

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Rear rails completely removed to make way for the new chassis rails

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This rear portion of the rail remains in place and becomes another anchor point for the rear of the chassis

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These rear marks to cut are to gain clearance for the rear four-bar frame bracket. It will slightly protrude through to the rear seat pan area.

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I like this approach a lot!

yep, find a finished car! I tell my customers to find a "quality" older restoration and let's update it. No paint jail and they get to get out and enjoy the car.


How 'bout the 66-7 Nova frame? Can you keep the stock floor pans with your chassis?

Chris, The early Nova's like the 2nd Gen Camaro unfortunately didnt make as good as the first gen did and requires more pan work.

Here is a good shot of the floor cutouts required to clear the chassis rails. The forward trimmed portion only effects the rear foot well pan to where it rises and meets the seat base. The rear cutout is the very rear of the rear seat pan.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8385/8...f0b34577_z.jpg

In order to design the chassis to accept mini tubs and up to a 345 series rear tire. The frame rails had to be brought in slightly. In doing so we have found on most cars we have done here with the factory trunk pan, that you will need to relieve the front side and corner of the suitcase well to allow for clearance. There are many ways of doing this small detail from a dead blow hammer to how we prefer to do it :D . We start with two cuts. The vertical cut starting where the bottom of where the pan contours up and the horizontal cut at the top transition of the pan effectively creating a "T".

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8249/8...1d8e84b1_z.jpg


Now we can join the body and chassis together for our prefit. This is where you want to double check your clearances and take measurements to make your and fit your floor cover pieces.

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It looks right at home in there. Nice!

Time for another quick round. We are now to the point of fabbing up and fitting the filler panels where we trimmed the floor for clearance. This first panel is being placed where we clearanced for the four bar bracket in the rear of the rear seat pan.
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After we tacked the pieces together creating our box, we pull it up through the bottom of the pan giving us the flat flange portion as a place to tack in place and then fully weld on the inside.

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