Angry Johnny's 69 Camaro Build

[Rodknock]

In this extremely short episode, we have the move from WY to AZ. I hope to God, I never move again. Happy wife, happy life... This move happened in July 2018. Nothing like moving to the AZ desert in the summer. Oh, and lost the tranny in the truck, 3 days after we moved to the new house So ended up buying a new truck


I didn't even make it 30 miles out of town and that tarp was history, then on top of that it stated thundering, lightening, hail, rain... It really sucked





To the new digs. At least it's a (mostly) finished shop. 3 car size, and a lift. What's not to like!!

[Rodknock]

Sorry, I am a little out of order here. These pics are from when I was !@@#$%$^^ing with the front end sheet metal, while I still lived in WY. I was trying to get it to line up correctly. Needless to say, Angry Johnny made his presence known, with this nightmare.

So, after inquiring about front end sheet metal, what I got from folks was:
Get AMD fenders, they are the best. Well, I bought 2 of them and initially I thought, yes!! They are pretty good, till I started bolting everything up. Then, it didn't look so hot.

First step was to make sure door to body gaps were good.





OK, with door to body set, I just laid the fenders on the car, and they actually looked pretty decent.



Mid gap was not great, but not awful





Passenger side was actually a better fit than the driver side







Alright, then I started bolting up everything else, and the poor fit reared it's ugly head. With the core support, and all the other front end stuff in place, this is what the driver door gap ended up looking like. That is pretty bad



The gap on the grille to the header panel was almost an inch on the driver side. The passenger side was just about perfect.





Now if I took a jack to the bottom of the fender where the lower extensions mount, I could get the grille gap to look good, but it was at the cost of tweaking the fender. It was almost like the core support was too high on the driver side. I had the correct bushings in the correct spot.

[Rodknock]

Well, now that I have finally settled into the new house, and my current (same) job, in a new state, it's time to finally get back to it.

Since I was having such major issues with the front end sheet metal, when I was in WY, I decided to start from scratch. First thing I did was make absolutely certain that the subframe was centered on the body.

I also wanted to try and find some OEM fenders for it, to see if they actually fit any better than the aftermarket units. I ended up spending WAY too much money on a used set of OEM fenders, that were in need of repair work. I ended up only using the driver side fender, and an AMD passenger fender. Believe it or not, the OEM metal, didn't really fit much better. Some areas were better, while others not so much. I kinda messed up the OEM passenger fender, when I tried repair work on it. It can still be fixed, but I was too pissed off about it, so I just bought another AMD fender.

So counting all this up. The car came with two Chinese fenders of unknown mfg. when I bought the car. I then bought 2 AMD fenders on assurance they were the best. They were only marginally better than the unknown Chinese units that were on there. I then bought the 2 OEM fenders that were f!@#ked up, and screwed one of them up with my crappy welding skills. Then I purchased one more AMD passenger side fender that actually fit pretty well. So a total of 7 fenders to finally get a pair that I could live with.

So step one was making sure frame was centered. It was off a little, but not much.Maybe it made the difference. Door gaps were double checked, so it was time for action.Fender to door gaps look good.









This was a major area of concern for me before, in that sad eye droop was really bad. A friend back east that's a body guy, gave me a tip on how to remedy it, and it worked quite well. Before and after





Passenger side, was never really too bad.



Overall, I can live with this, so I bagged and tagged, every nut, bolt, and shim, so it can go right back in the same place ( I hope)

[Rodknock]

Moving along to the day after Christmas of 2019.
Now that the panel alignment fiasco is behind me, it's time to strip her down to the skeleton. I was just doing sporadic body work on it, when my friend suggest taking it down completely and stripping all the paint off. He was telling me the fumes from the paint remover can actually loosen and lift the body filler, so it's better to start from bare metal, then deal with the body work.
The car only had a primer coat, and the original rally green under it, so it's not had much done on the last 50 years, but definitely has some road rash.

Take it all down. I wonder how many more times I'll do this






What do you do when you have to take the hood off by yourself? You improvise





I almost stuck with the original green, but chose something else. You'll see soon, if you stay tuned to this build









Some rust in the lower left rear quarter to fix





Got'r up on the rotisserie





Videos for your entertainment



My FUBAR

[Rodknock]

The door hinges weren't really too bad as far as slop was concerned, but I wanted to do them anyway, and replace the nylon bushings with metal.



















Primered everything, just to take it apart again for the stripping and tear down. Hey, I never said I was smart.

[Rodknock]

Driver side B pillar was pretty messed up, and had some shoddy repair work done. (not that I'll do much better) Looks like something fell against the car at some point, because the quarter panel had a dent in it, that lined up almost perfectly with the damage on the pillar.

Once I got it down to bare metal, I started welding up the holes, and also straightened it out as much as I could. I didn't get a good shot of the window channel, but it was bent inward about 1/2"









I decided to try out Eastwood's Body Solder kit, instead of slapping a bunch of filler on it. Especially a high stress area like this, that is prone to flexing and cracking. Works pretty well, although it's tough applying it to a vertical surface.

[Rodknock]

I had some folks tell me to replace my quarter panels with new ones. To me, the car is only original once, so I wanted to save them, as much as I could. Also, seeing the fitment issues with aftermarket panels..NO, I don't want to deal with that headache!!

This is the second thing to repair after the roof B pillar.
Just bought a patch panel, cut out the old, treated the inside part with rust inhibitor, and welded the new panel in place.

[slimjim]

great progress, looking forward to seeing it complete

[Rodknock]

Originally Posted by slimjim

great progress, looking forward to seeing it complete

Thank you. Me too!

[WSSix]

Good work! Don't leave me hanging too long on the color. You already said Lime Mist once!