Round 2 Pro Touring 69 Camaro

[Sheck44]

Liking where this is going !!!

BIG welcome, pretty awesome start for just a few post

Cheers
Steve

[fatelvis]

Cut up a perfectly good L-88 hood because I'm stubborn like that. My intent was to make it a shaker style hood (RIP Bandit) but the engine placement and spacing of the scoop didn't want to cooperate. The shaker insert is a plug for a Carbon Fiber piece that I will show later. This is my favorite part of the car and looks fantastic while driving. Cut my teeth on using an English wheel that I purchased just for this purpose. Amazing the number of subtle curves and bends necessary to make these custom pieces look right on these old designs.
Ironically very few people notice this modification. I guess this is a compliment.
Also found a photo of the diffuser ready for paint.

[fatelvis]

Here is the Carbon mold project. Sorry for the lack of photos but this is idea. It looks pretty easy, eh? NOT so, huge learning curve! This is attempt#4. Buried it in clearcoat and sanded out the imperfections. I always thought that Carbon was unrealistically priced until I did it myself.... I get it now. Attempted to make front and rear bumpers and have since abandoned this venture, for now at least.
Only have after photos of the flush mount glass. This is not as easy as "they" make it sound. Definitely not a throw in deal! I have seen cars with the glass installed to factory bodies and the fit isn't right. I had to add metal to the sides and top of the body at the front, also added metal to the top of each fender as well as the cowl panel. The rear took careful massaging of all 4 corners. As my application was a "floating" glass set up, I had to make the entire jamb smooth and paint ready since your eye will carry into the gaps. Also needed to build spacing pads to get the glass to lay correctly relative to the body. It took two tries for the front and three for the rear. I'm no Dave Kindig but I think it turned out nicely.

[fatelvis]

Here I started cleaning up the underneath of the car. Sprayed the floor with a bed Liner, repainted the rear end after narrowing it for the wider wheels. This is my rendition of a DES design 4 link. Sorry DSE, we all have to work within budgets! Upgraded to their sway bar though. Wilwood rear brakes work quite nicely. The cast aluminum pan stopped that pesky 80/90 drip.
Just a respray of the dash. The dash was pulled out of a 59 Impala from a tree line in north east Kansas. The top half is original metal narrowed in the middle. The lower half was formed over a welding tank and I used exhaust tubing for the heating vents. I believe I used Billet specialties vents and Classic Industries gauges. This dash has been in the car since 2012 and the gauges were just offered the month before I ordered them. I really dodged a bullet on that one as I hadn't looked for gauge options before I installed the dash. I kind of wished that I would have left the glove box door as it is a nightmare to access the right side of the dash for wiring and A/C box purposes. Looks good though.
Threw in a couple pics of the new rear wheels mocked up and looking sexy!

[fatelvis]

Miscellaneous body work photos. Cleaning up all the gaps and edges. Releaded the quarter seams and A-pillar. Notice the lower ground effect as well. At this point I was unsure if they would look right. Seemed to make the car look too thick. I later decided to paint the lower effects Flat metallic black. This made them less dominate visually and really add to the overall look of the car. My trip to SEMA back in 18' was spent researching wheel and tire sizes. My conclusion was that 20" wheels were just too large for what I was building. After 3 days of photos and arguing with my buddies, as I was leaving the main hall, there at the entrance was a beautiful orange 69 with 19" rears and 18" fronts...Perfect!
So, after weeks of constant measuring and discussions with Billet Spec., 18x9 fronts and 19x11 rears were decided on. Yes, I could have squeezed 12" rears in there but at this price point, I just wasn't comfortable making a mistake. I'm old and conservative, I guess.
The floor was sprayed with a Ceramic sound deadener as was the trunk.

[camcojb]

[Spiffav8]

This sucker is coming along great!!

[fatelvis]

Alright, now were getting somewhere! This is my specialty. Candy apple red sprayed over a black base, 6 coats of clear. Deep and sexy! 12-hour day in the spray booth, worth every second.

[WSSix]

I really like the designs you've incorporated in the car. Great job. Gorgeous color! Thanks for sharing.

[fatelvis]

Upholstery is my great white whale. I'm not the best at it but I love trying.
I built the door panels when I installed the dash back in 12'. Using faux leather may not sound exotic, but it sure holds up better than leather. The seats are from a 17' Caddy XT5, I had to do some modifying of the floor in order to get them to fit right. I am 6'4" so I basically built this whole interior around me. Notice how far back the 8-way seats go...Awesome! Sick of having my head hit the headliner and knees bowing out over the console, who needs a back seat, my kids are grown up anyway. Rear seat area was extended with a "waterfall console" and used the basic rear seat foam from the caddy as well. A LOT of fitting, filling, and supporting of these pieces to make them right. Probably should have just started from scratch with bulk foam...live and learn. Thanks to Nick at High Torque Racing Upholstery shop, He did an excellent job matching the leather design on the fronts! Good friends are priceless! The seats are real leather, have to treat them often to keep them soft. Notice the back package tray, sweated over this design for a week, scrapped three other designs half way through. Much wasted material on my floor. Center console remained from the previous build, had to remake the top plate as I moved the engine /trans foreword an inch rendering the shifter bezel useless. Thanks to Leroy Hicks for cutting the shift bezel out for me. I draw a design on graph paper and email it to him, He cuts it on his waterjet table. He also made my throttle cable bracket and steering arms. The guy is awesome and really takes care of me.
One more thing, bead rolled a line in the aluminum sail panels, it's so subtle that I forgot about it. These details where no notices are what makes a car special, IMHO.