1969 Camaro Restomod Project Thread

[will69camaro]

[camcojb]

That's fast!!!!!!!!! Congrats!

[WSSix]

Congrats, Will!

Coolest part to me is watching the tire stretch out as the speed increased. You can see it starting to pull away from the bead just a bit as he climbs in speed.

[will69camaro]

Originally Posted by camcojb

That's fast!!!!!!!!! Congrats!

THANKS! Still more in it and we haven’t starting climbing boost much yet.

Originally Posted by WSSix

Congrats, Will!

Coolest part to me is watching the tire stretch out as the speed increased. You can see it starting to pull away from the bead just a bit as he climbs in speed.

Absolutely. The full video of the side is very cool. You can see the front edge of the tire disappear and see the tire growth.

[Rodknock]

Badassery right there!!!!

Making me want a manual trans!!!

[will69camaro]

Originally Posted by Rodknock

Badassery right there!!!!

Making me want a manual trans!!!

To an extent. Auto in this car would run 8s.

[Rodknock]

Originally Posted by will69camaro

To an extent. Auto in this car would run 8s.

Yeah, but not as much fun
Although, how could that much power, not be fun

[will69camaro]

Sorry for delay on some details about the track trip, was having issues with my personal PC and work PC has Imgur blocked. Didn't want to put all these pics together on the Iphone so just waited it out.

Track trip as mentioned before went well. Car ran back to back 9.8s at 150.

Ended up hurting the diff on the first "hard" launch. Didn't have any wheel hop but it was making plenty of noise after the pass. If you recall i had issue with diff before, took it all apart and it was in top condition. This time that wasn't the case.

Noise wasn't intermittent like before, it was ANY time the car was turning and diff was required to function. Ran the second 9.8 with it making a bunch of noise and then a final pass where it did get a little wheel hop and that surely finished it off.

Jack the car up in the garage and drain the fluid:
As soon as the plug was out i hear metal hit the pan! This to me was good news as last time there was no evidence and frustrating with no obvious cause. Magnet pulled this out, there wasn't many pieces but there were more than none...


Well time to pull the center out and take a look.
Passenger side wheel comes off no drama. Driver's side however...

WTF...You can see the look on my face in the lug nut as well...This isn't good...


Couldn't get a socket on 3 of the 5 nuts, all bent but 3 so much that socket wasn't going on...What to do?

I can access the axle retainer, so lets pull the axle and wheel together, mission Save the Forgeline starts now.






SUCCESS!


Those axle splines look healthy....Again only happened to the driver's side, passenger axle looked fine.


Now the unpleasant activity of drilling out wheel studs...




First one down.


All done, wheels is in top condition. Luckily.




Diff gets pulled and inspected:


First check, I cant see anything wrong with it. Concern builds remembering the last time. Till i spot this. you can see in the small hole the end of the pinion gears in the diff, and i see some metal in there.


Time to pull it down further and inspect. At this point with a damaged axle, I'm already convinced to upgrade. Now I want to see it for curiosity/research purposes.

[will69camaro]

Pulling the diff itself apart was problematic as well, but knowing it was thrashed, i got it done. The small hardware we thought we wouldn't be loosening again so used red-locktite ended up snapping or stripping...Back to the drill bits!


Well **** we found the bombsite.


Couldn't get any of the gears out (yet) so pulled some of the piece i could get out for a closer look.






With this knowledge it was time to look into the upgrades. By the skin of my teeth I got the order in Monday for Cyber Monday discounts at Strange Engineering. Unfortunately my 3rd member has smaller bearing (OEM size) case and cant house 35 spline axles. I was set on trying the Strange S-trac differential, so new center section it is.
Strange Thru-bolt Pro Aluminum Housing w/ 3.50 gears and S-trac diff.


Also picked up the corresponding 35 spline Alloy axles. Went back with 1/2" studs, as it became problematic to make 5/8" fit. If i end up regretting this, i'll eat some crow and upgrade to 5/8" later on.

I really wanted to try the S-trac as in principle it's the same as the Trutrac that I have, but instead of 4 sets of pinion gears it has 5, and they're all 9310 material so significantly stronger. Online research shows strong evidence of surviving in heavy stick cars. If not, it carries a lifetime warranty...

Sorry for the long winded response, I'll post more updates when it starts going back together!

[WSSix]

Your axle pick looks like the splines are twisted to me, Will.

Glad the Forgelines were saved.