'Streamline' 1968 camaro project

[slimjim]

Looking good mate. Enjoying the read

Thanks, never thought I'd be 20 pages deep yet still so far from completion

[thumper877]

Love that color on the firewall. Turned out awesome

[SD67]

Thanks, never thought I'd be 20 pages deep yet still so far from completion

We are going to get you to 10,000 views! Keep the posts coming.

[Motown 454]

Nice job the firewall came out great. Under neath looks looks nice too.

[slimjim]

Love that color on the firewall. Turned out awesome

Nice job the firewall came out great. Under neath looks looks nice too.

We are going to get you to 10,000 views! Keep the posts coming.

Thanks guys, almost at the 100k.

Spent today reinstalling the the subframe. I thought it would be quite difficult to do it alone but it was mounted in no time.
I then decided to dismantle it just to fully rebuild it with grease and thread lock and torque everything that was necessary. it has been a couple of years since I purchased it and wanted to be sure everything was 100% at this point.

question- there's some poly primer overspray here and there on the powder-coated frame. it's barely noticeable but does anyone have a surefire way to remove it? I've tried a bunch of things but still can't remove it all.

[rickpaw]

question- there's some poly primer overspray here and there on the powder-coated frame. it's barely noticeable but does anyone have a surefire way to remove it? I've tried a bunch of things but still can't remove it all...

I've heard WD-40 works on removing overspray. Don't have direct experience with that, but worth giving it shot.

[Schwartz Performance]

I’ve used polishing compound and clay bar to remove. Polishing compound slightly glosses satin black though so keep that in mind when rubbing if yours is satin.

-Dale

[slimjim]

I've heard WD-40 works on removing overspray. Don't have direct experience with that, but worth giving it shot.

I’ve used polishing compound and clay bar to remove. Polishing compound slightly glosses satin black though so keep that in mind when rubbing if yours is satin.

-Dale

Thanks for the tips, I'll give them both a try today. Gloss black frame so I should be ok

[slimjim]

I've rather slacked off on the bodywork which is quite stupid since there's only a couple of pieces remaining that need attention, however wet sanding the radiator support and inner wheel wheels is a tedious project.

So I took a little hiatus from it and got into some mechanical assembly.

for anyone who has been here since the beginning may recall my anger towards a couple of shops that screwed me over at the beginning, and well, it seems like they are still screwing me. since fully removing everything from under my car I found a string of issues with the suspension and how it was mounted. multiple cases of the incorrect hardware, steps skipped in the install, and a couple of brackets supposed to be welded in missing entirely.

Anyways, most have now been rectified but a huge issue I had was with the condition of the 3rd member.
I ordered a strange tru-trac years ago, the shop assembled it and installed it before I got a good look. well upon removing it I realized that it looked like garbage, not to mention lacked half of the hardware sealing it and nothing was torqued. To overcome the bright blue nodular(I suspect possibly used) casing they painted it in one piece in the thickest paint I've ever experienced. days of paint stripper later I got it off and started a complete overhaul, the end result looks a little more suitable.




Then, thanks to a certain recall on some jack stands I got a bit of a kick to get the car supporting it's own weight, at least in the rear. so finally, all suspension is somewhat setup and torqued and 'may' never have to be removed again.

[slimjim]

I got a bunch done on the car over this past week. I got the inner fenders, fender supports and radiator supports all painted. then hit the underneath of the inner fenders with raptor liner so these parts are all finished for good.
Today I reassembled the front end.
The only thing missing is some nicer hardware...oh and everything else that goes in there.

[Motown 454]

Wow, Jim that looks great, your doing an amazing job.

[icemanrd19]

Sexy close out panel

[ryeguy2006a]

Man, that looks amazing!!

[syborg tt]

Really nice.

[slimjim]

Thanks for the kind words from a lot of reputable hotrodders! It keeps me going.

Since powering through the bodywork things have slowed down a bit, and they will continue to slow down as my wife starts her first business and I commit my time towards outfitting her shop until the dredging world calls upon me again.

I managed to get the hood back on the car and decided to rice up the engine bay with some black billet washers and Allen head bolts and although subtle, I'll decide once it's painted if I like them or not, for now I do.





I then ordered a 36sq/ft box of Kilmat and have spent the last couple of days laying it down with only the highest level of OCD! It's the cheapest 80mil option I found with 170 5-star reviews on eBay and I will probably be the 171st. considering I'm going full coverage on the car, it seemed just.



I will order another box, finish out the roof and trunk, but the firewall and rear seat will have to wait until those 2 departments are finalized.

Not easily shown in any pictures but I also managed to run the starter 1/0 cable straight down the center of the car, the best part is I managed to slide it "through" the corner(?) of the 5th gen tunnel, you can see where it comes out near the passenger footwell in the picture above. Also ran the alternator 4 gauge wire down the drivers side.
I also installed all 4 speakers with baffles(both before and after sound deadener just out of curiosity; noticeable difference), braided and hid all the wires and ran them down the drivers side. I wired them up to a home theater sound system and let them rip. very happy.

[slimjim]

Heeyyyy, 100,000 views. not bad for a stupidly named build taking 4x the time and 2x the cost to complete. let it be known to any widows with copyrights to the name 'streamline', It's the name of my build thread, and not my build.

Thanks for the ongoing support P-T members

[Bob in St. Louis]

Very cool!

[slimjim]

It has been a busy couple of months with non-car related endeavors, however I found a few chances to spin a bolt and start new projects. Like many projects I've done before, I have started new ones, still unsure whether the end result will survive the cut in the final product of the build.

I have been trying to decide what to do in the trunk for some time, and functionality is quite important. I decided to spend a day with MDF and see if I could come up with a layout that I like that doesn't sap too much space. It's incomplete but I decided to keep the battery fully accessible and maintain all space to the rear seat for luggage, or golf clubs or something. The big question will be how heavy it is once complete, and even though this is not going to be a track car, I don't need to be adding too much unnecessary weight.





This thought process then lead to the next project, and although I have never had a subwoofer in any car, and I usually dislike them in any performance car, I stumbled across these powered subs designed for trucks/under-seat installation and the reviews were really good for this Alpine unit. The plan right now is to mount it underneath the parcel shelf IF I can find a suitable way to mount it that will stay secure. Overall it should provide a great mid-low range for the audio without taking up any space and only adding a little bit of weight.

To be mounted underneath this location.


I've been researching clutches for what feels like an eternity. There's recommendations for almost all of them, and bad reviews for all of them. It can be a frustrating topic. Last month I stumbled across an LS7 clutch going cheap on eBay, I made a bid and won it by surprise for a good price, so for now, the clutch headache is temporarily over unless I have any immediate issues with this one. I expect to be right on the limit of the LS7 clutches capabilities but at this point it gets me one step closer to completion.

[Vimes]

MDF is pretty heavy stuff. You could use automotive interior grade waterproof cardboard if you're just making paneling to make it nice looking back there for a lot less weight. From your described use, I'd suggest doing away with the MDF altogether and just get a decent padded carpet made up for the floor. If you put the carpet pad all the way across on the bottom, you could make the side panels so they fit tightly on the carpet for a clean, finished look. This would be washable if needed, and would be tons lighter in the back. If you do decide to go with the MDF, waterproof it all the way around. Trunks get wet, and MDF crumbles when wet.

Incidentally, I've never used the company I linked, but the link shows what I'm talking about.

That subwoofer one you have should make your sound system sound a lot better. I had a Kenwood version of your subwoofer in a pickup I used to have, and taking the base off the other speakers really improved the sound. I'm not one of those guys driving slowly down the road going thumpty-thump though, I just like clean sounding music at around the same volume level as you'd use speaking in a conversation. The truck is gone now, but that Kenwood subwoofer is now mounted in my shop.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Please don't use MDF in a car. It will absorb moisture badly. Not only will it swell as it suck up the water, it'll begin to mold.
Long term, things will end badly. Yea, it's what all the Honda kids use for their subs and it works great. But that's not long term.