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SlowProgress Project Introduction
67 Camaro SlowProgress ( Project in process)
I finally decided to start a build thread. Hoping it will keep me and others motivated, without slowing the build down even more. I will post it up in sections to try and get caught up to the current status over a few weeks and gradually add all the more recent photos and then try to keep up. There is some risk this will be one of those projects that drags out for a long time but I hope it can wrap up in the next two years so I can drive the car on its 50th birthday, a goal my son came up with. Because some people won’t want to read the boring background story here is the top level plan so far. It will be a low end to mid-level build with most of the work done in my garage. Pretty good chance I will have the painting done by someone else, but I may take that one on as well. Typical DSE stuff
Ride Tech True Turn in front (I am still sentimental about the stock front clip) Ride Tech muscle bar Rushforth Livewires all around
Engine – LS7 ( 75% sure at this point)
Paint color – Not 100% sure yet but probably will paint it similar to the high school red color Interior will be mostly stock because it is just fun that way. Probably will upgrade the seats a little using TMI kits or something similar (may do leather?) Open still and looking around to finish final plans
Recent History It all got started when I met Jason Rushforth at Goodguys to talk about wheels and he and I collaborated on a simple rendering. I was sure I wanted to use his wheels and it was fun to see how the car will look when finished. I was sort of stuck on how to proceed and going through the rendering process created a good starting point and really got me going with ordering some parts, starting with the Livewires. For now it will be belly-button “Camaro Red” because it has always been that way. Here is the rendering. https://i.imgur.com/3SPkmwL.jpg I have been waiting (lurking) and learning on this site for a few years now. This 67 was bought used as my first car in 1978 for $800. It was faded purple with side pipes and pretty cheesy Z-28 strips in white. The body filler was flaking in spots and it was pretty clear the fenders and tail panel had been whacked and the right quarter had been replaced using some sort of primitive chisels and clubs and about 20 lbs of brazing rod. My parents were pretty sure I had been taken but it was a typical Southwest solid body car which was great, even though it was pretty worn for an 11 year old car ! It also came with the bonus of about 300 Coors pull tabs under the seat and a couple recreational pharmaceuticals still in the ash tray. I saved parts up under my bed to build up a decent iron 12:1 compression 427 with a big solid cam. Coupled with some 4.56 gears out back, it was always a blast to drive. Gosh I have no idea how many times I fished through the gears with the original wide ratio Muncie transmission. Working at the local Firestone I managed to save up my nickels for some used Keystone Classics and finally a quickie paint job from a local painter. https://i.imgur.com/oR8CxFJ.jpg https://i.imgur.com/h28dN9C.jpg I polished up the chrome and got all the electrical circuits working and drove it daily for several years, hauling friends around and cruising Fridays and Saturdays around the local Sonic drive-in (those are great memories). I added some skinny Centerlines up front and always intended to take it to the strip but never really had the time or money to do that. https://i.imgur.com/KEYMYyj.jpg Eventually I went back to school, got married, had a son and life changed directions. For some reason I hung onto the car, always intending to repaint in and leave the rest more-or less alone. In the early 90’s, just before my son was born, I took it all apart and freshened the engine painted the bottom, firewall, sub-frame, door interiors, dash, door jams and trunk edges preparing for the final bodywork. The paint was shot and peeling on the outside by that time. https://i.imgur.com/r3cS8hvl.jpg I sold the original fenders which were rusted in spots and full of lead in the fender lip area and stuck on some reproduction fenders (more on that later). It sat for a while when my son was born and having recently moved to Arizona I found out the cruel intentions of the state to force emissions on my old hotrod. Putting it through emissions was a trick at best. By the time I got it tuned to pass the yearly emissions test the engine would barely turn the dyno rollers and was seriously intimidating to the emission technicians who had never driven a lean, high compression 427 that would buck and spit fire out the carburetor at times. The yearly emissions grind, oppressive Summer temperatures and working to pay off the house meant the Camaro sort of just sat in the garage most of the time, fun to drive but a hassle at the same time. I occasionally drove it around in the cool mornings to keep the fluids circulating, but the more frequent downtime meant there was always a dry seal, leaking carburetor needle and seat, dead pump, low tire, or broken switch that got in the way of a really fun cruise, not to mention the blast furnace air that would lead to boil-overs. This engine always ran hot and I never did really figure out why. I was having fun taking it to the drag strip occasionally and did manage to get it down around 12.40s at 114 MPH, nothing stellar but fun at the same time. Problem was I still had to drive around with skinny tires and a less than road-friendly 12:1 compression engine. Around 2008 I started looking on the Interweb for cool ways to have fun with an old Camaro. That’s about the time I came across the Pro-Touring and Lat-g websites. I really liked what was happening with the old musclecars, improving their handling and driving them looked way better than having a garage blockage. I wasn’t sure I wanted to cut up a perfectly good 67 to perform all these handling mods but I decided to start on the body repairs while the ideas sort of percolated a bit. I really liked all the wide tires and low stance of the g-machines. Of course there is no way I am going to spend $4000 on wheels. Guys that do that must be crazy (more on that later). |
Always cool to see a long-term ownership car get radically transformed...even more so IMO the ones that have been set aside for awhile, for one reason or another. :thumbsup:
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Thanks for starting a build thread. I like the plans you have. Glad you stopped lurking too.
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:G-Dub: :clap:
Welcome to the site. I also love to hear the back stories about the old cars, that to me means a great deal. As you can see it takes quite a bit to put one of these cars back on the road both from time and money spent on them, but I know it will be worth it in the end. Keep up the motivation and remember the pain is temporary, the memories last forever... :flag2: |
I've always envied those who kept cars from their early years.
I certainly wish I had kept a couple of mine. Take your time, after all a forty year build is not unusual for this site! :lmao: |
Great cars with even better back stories are cool. Thanks for sharing. Welcome to the site!!
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Today
Thanks for all the encouraging words.
Here is a quick shot from today. I will post up the "how I got here photos" soon ! Scott http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r...6d772faab4.jpg |
Tail Panel update
The rear lower valence was always wavy on the car and when I put the backup lights in it was obvious there was a lot of filler. Besides being wavy, one side was flat and the other rounded. It gave the valence a real wonky look that just felt wrong. That was one of those little things that always bugged me.
When I stripped the paint this time around I bought a stud gun to pull the panel out thinking it would be a really easy to fix the lower valence. https://i.imgur.com/rBNLCpml.jpg The metal was really stretched on one side and it was just beyond my skill set to fix it. I was a little discouraged and set that aside for a while. In 2011 a friend had a left-over tail panel that he gave me. I was able to cut off the lower valence and weld in a new one. It was good I did because the backup light holes were punched wrong from the factory. One side was ¼ inch higher than the other. I was able to fix it by lining the mis-punched hole up with the inner valence and now everything is lined up properly. https://i.imgur.com/ssIOEbyl.jpg Also there were always two holes burned around the hole beneath the license plate. I always assumed it was something the painter did. When fitting the valence I noticed the center hole would not sit flush because the inner valence was not trimmed correctly. The factory could not get the panel to sit flush so someone bridged the gap with a stick welder and burned a couple of holes around the opening. There were no spot welds anywhere. The inner valence hole was pretty jagged like it wasn’t trimmed right, or was early enough in production that it just wasn’t worked out properly (my car was built in Sep 1966). I trimmed the hole correctly and the parts dropped right in like they should and I was able to spot weld it in. https://i.imgur.com/86uErBkl.jpg https://i.imgur.com/3tvSCntl.jpg https://i.imgur.com/oEm7Hpxl.jpg There was a softball sized dent in the lower right quarter. Again using my trusty stud welder I was pretty sure I could pull it out. Again the results weren’t that great so I bought patch panel and welded it in while working on welding in the lower valence. https://i.imgur.com/6bKnUyDl.jpg https://i.imgur.com/0jFtFwwl.jpg Overall this part came out well. The car will have a straight lower valence now which was something missing for years. |
Door and fender fit
I got the new fenders and put them on the car in 2009 and it was pretty disappointing. With the fender shoved all the way back the gap was too wide.
https://i.imgur.com/o6sBp9Ol.jpg I was thinking about welding on the edge of the fender or door but the gap was pretty big. To make it worse I figured out there was no way to save the original LH door skin and had to cut it off. This was actually a pretty low point because I was optimistic to bolt new parts on and everything would fit. It really slowed me down but I decided to just start cutting and fixing. Cut the firewall bracket off the fender and slid it forward so the fender would slide back more. https://i.imgur.com/OTWrke6l.jpg] https://i.imgur.com/vt9YQBdl.jpg Cut the door skin off to fit a new one. http://i.imgur.com/moIfE0Nl.jpg But it wasn’t as easy as I expected. The new door skin matched the fender more closely but it really fit poorly on the frame so I had to build up the edge of the frame to get an edge to crimp the skin to and also slit the skin and change the shape. https://i.imgur.com/LSFD64tl.jpg https://i.imgur.com/tdVEBqBl.jpg The back edge of the skin was too narrow and didn’t match the quarter panel so I had to slit it and widen to match. Overall the door just about took me out but I hung in there and learned a lot about putting aftermarket parts on an original body. https://i.imgur.com/5W8NHhAl.jpg I was finally able to media blast and prime everything. https://i.imgur.com/9p2zY33l.jpg Somewhere in there I build a temporary paint both and primed most of the front end pieces. https://i.imgur.com/jifXSHEl.jpg Was great to get the door back together. Overall the door skin fit was pretty good. https://i.imgur.com/eQX8Ppol.jpg I media blasted the fenders so I could weld on the edges to finish off the gapping process. Probably 80% done. Waiting to build up my TIG skills and refine the gap a little more. https://i.imgur.com/DBwtvsHl.jpg This took many weekends and it was great to get this behind me and finally start to order all the shiny pieces to go on the car. |
great story
you will definitely learn a lot by doing your own work and appreciate the people that do it for a living. the only drawback is once get better you'll want to redo some of your previous work. keep it up and post plenty of pictures. |
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