Angry Johnny's 69 Camaro Build

[Rodknock]

I guess I never started a build thread for my car, so today seems like a good day to start.
For me it's very slow progress. I bought the car in 2012, while I was living in WY, and didn't start doing anything to it till 2016. Then I moved to a new house up there, and lived a couple of years, then ended up moving to AZ in July of 2018. Been busy working and moving it seems, so now time to focus. I won't bore you with anymore of my life. Lets get to the Nitty Gritty.

Bought the car off of Ebay. Drove to El Paso TX from WY to pick it up. I only have one pic of the car from when I bought it, since my other computer crashed, and I haven't been able to get the pics off of it yet.

I'll start off with a few basic pics and some as I have time.

Ebay pic of car, and what it looked like when I bought it.

These first few pics were all done around March of 2016, in the middle/end of winter, in my 1 1/4 car garage. It was cold, but not too awful snowy at least.







Finally got off my arse and started doing something.











Next up was the rotisserie. Working in a small 1 1/4 car garage. I would never build a car without one again. Makes life soo much easier. Especially when you're old.























I have since, changed the mounting on the rear, to use the old spring shackle holes.

[Rodknock]

This was an exciting day!! The day all the stuff from Heidts showed up, along with the DSE mini tubs. Thanks to the members here for recommending Randy Johnson over at D&Z customs. He honored the price he quoted me, even though I didn't order it for over a year, from the first time I talked to him about it.

[Rodknock]

Next on the list of things I did, BACK THEN, was clean the bottom side of the body, to get prepped for trunk pan replacement, and what ended up being a top of dash replacement also. Even "rust free" cars, have rust in hidden places.


Some of the rust holes in the trunk. Way too many to weld shut.











Here, I used my plasma cutter to cut away a portion of the trunk pan, since there was rust in it, and will be replaced.








After blasting







- - - Updated - - -

Also blasted the interior and had to replace the top of dash. I was just going to patch it, but it was recommended to replace it. Glad I did, because the rust under it was bad.




















Measure twice cut once, ok, measure 3 times

[Rodknock]

Next on the list is mini tubs. These are DSE tubs, and are very nice units. Having the trunk floor out made the job WAY easier. DSE has a couple of videos on their site showing how to install them. I had never done them before and it took roughly 40 hours to do.

[Rodknock]

Next after the mini tubs, is the trunk pan replacement. I don't remember when this is, but it was probably spring of 2016 when I did this. Shortly after this, I did the firewall, then I moved to a new house, so there was a long break in the action.


I must have taken this thing in and out 100 times before I was satisfied with the fit

[Rodknock]

This was the last major thing I did before I moved to a new house, other than bolting on the suspension to allow me to move the car.


Fully smoothed out firewall. I was just going to weld everything up, but decided this would be easier. Now I need to figure out my hole for the steering column


Simple as drilling out the spot welds, straightening out the trans tunnel flange a bit, then test fitting a flat piece of sheet metal in place.

[Rodknock]

Time for assembling the Heidts front end components, then test fitting it all!!


















That's the new rotor, inside the original 14" Rally rim!!



Out with the old



Shocking, isn't it!!









Totally Tubular!!



In with the new!!















1 1/4" splined sway bar

[Alwhite00]

Looks great so far, keep it up man.

[Rodknock]

Looks great so far, keep it up man.

Thanks brother!!

[Rodknock]

Pre assembly and test fit of the Heidt's Pro G IRS system.






































Subframe connectors

[Rodknock]

Well, now things slow down, due to a move from the little house we were in with a 1 1/4 car garage, to a house we bought with a 30 x 45 pole barn building Only thing is, I stopped progress on the car to try to re-do the shop, and basically wasted time and money, I could have put towards the car



You can see a little of the shop in the background





Poor car, just siting there all neglected and stuff :(





I had big plans for this shop. Office, spray booth, insulated, heated. Almost got it finished, when we ended up moving south from Wyoming to AZ.

[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


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My FUBAR


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[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. :twak:

[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.

[Rodknock]

I purchased a Tank Inc. fuel tank for a 67/68 Camaro, because I want to have the fuel filler up high, plus with a billet fuel filler, it looks kinda cool. I haven't yet fitted the tank into the car, but will be shortly, while I have it on the rotisserie. I hope I can make it work, otherwise, I'll have a tank for sale.

[Rodknock]

I am, at a point of starting to do body work, which as you can tell, I don't do so well. Started working the top of the roof, when my friend suggested to not do anymore filler work, till I stripped the car of paint, because the paint remover fumes, can get into the filler and loosen it or soften it. I never even thought about that!! Also, this was originally a vinyl top car.


Also, he said don't spot repair the roof. Skim coat the whole panel, along with every panel on the car, then sand it off, because it will fake you out, where the high and low spots are. Boy, he was right about that!!


So here I was, starting to do just spot repair on the roof, before the actual full tear down. I never said I was smart














So here's a full skim coat before sanding





After some sanding











Some guide coat