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Thread: 1967 Camaro Restomod "Herja"
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07-17-2018 #1Registered User
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1967 Camaro Restomod custom IRS
I figured now after a year, it was time to make a build thread
Edit: Been at it a while, lot of learning done, still more to learn and do!
Kind of a crazy story behind the car, unsure of where it was between its original sale in 1967, but it was sold out of a dealership in San Fransisco, California and then between then and the 1990s, it made its way up to North Pole, Alaska.
I purchased the car from my friend who got the car for $2500 bucks from an older lady who he was helping with yard work and other things. Her son apparently was working on restoring it and fixing it up until he passed away from Cancer in 1993. Luckily for me and the car, she had a cheap $1000 dollar paint job put on it so it wouldn't rust away. Fast forward to 2015, the car had sat the entire time, until she was having some work done by contractors who offered to trade the work they were doing on the house for the car (which was about $2,000 worth of work). My friend Chris instantly offered her $2,500 cash and she saw that as the better deal. Her condition was that once it was restored, he had to take her for a drive. She unfortunately passed away in 2017 =(
The car mostly sat at my friends for a few years, up until I bought a house in 2017. Before I had furniture even he had it in my garage (as you can see in the pictures from before, he didn't exactly have a good spot to work on it)
His plan: Strip it, rattle can paint it, and flip it for $15,000
I had other plans and talked him out of it luckily.
CURRENT BUILD PLAN:
Paint Color: White
Interior: TMI Products Black
Front Suspension: QA1 Level 2 Handling Kit with TruTurn Steering Package and Borgeson 12.7:1 Ratio steering box
Rear Suspension: Ride Tech 4-Link with narrowed (54.75in) Currie 9in with TwinTrac Diff 31 spline axles
Engine: LQ4 Bored 65 over, stock LS3 rods and pistons, 823 Heads, Elgin Hydraulic Roller Camshaft .585", LS7 Injectors, LS3 Intake
Transmission: Tremec Magnum XL
CURRENT STATE OF THE CAR:
Here is the car as it was when I first saw it:
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07-18-2018 #2Registered User
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Year 1
We got to work, with both of us having no real clue of body work, but are both pretty decent mechanics. I've built a few 400hp+ Subarus and dabbled in stage rally. I work of Aircraft for a living as well. He used to be a heavy equipment mechanic. He's good at making things work that shouldn't work together, where i've got the perfectionist mentality.
After a day of sanding, we decided it was going to slow, so the messy job of Aircraft stripper began.
We very quickly found out the previous owner also had no idea how to do body work.
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07-18-2018 #3Registered User
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Year 1 Continued
Don't have a lot of pictures from after, but we tried our best at fixing what was messed up, welded and blended in a few new pieces and they matched, but not to my liking. At this point, I told him I'd buy it for what someone offered him 6 months earlier. While there was some rust, the floors pans were immaculate, the frame was in great shape, doors were for the most part cancer free (was a minor fix on the one) and from what I could tell, very little rust anywhere on the car minus where the drip rails were.
I'll let the pictures speak for the condition of the car.
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07-18-2018 #4Registered User
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Year 1 - Part 3
At this point, I was thinking to myself "what in the f*** did I get myself into..."
But i was determined, and have the mindset that I can learn anything if I put myself to the task.
After a week or two of using way too much body filler for things that should have been tackled with body hammers and dollies, it was time to get it cleaned up and primed. (Don't worry, I went back and did that work correctly this year)
With winter only a few months away, I bought a paint gun and some 2k primer (after chatting and picking the brains of our local bodywork/paint supply store, The guys at High-Tech in Fairbanks are amazing). Though the climate up here is extremely dry, I wanted to protect my new investment.
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07-18-2018 #5Registered User
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Winter of 2017
With the car mostly covered in primer, I started relooking at each part, tackling a bit at a time.
Over the winter, I shaved the drip rails, decided that the fenders were too much trouble to try to fix and ordered new ones (OER brand).
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07-18-2018 #6Registered User
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Winter of 2017 - 2
Before snow hit, I had at least gotten the entire car down to bare metal and got it coated with primer and realized for what I wanted as a finished product (better than off the factory floor), I didn't have the tools or knowledge to tackle it correctly. I had at least learned the proper technique of washing the entire car, wiping it down, washing again, wiping more, then doing the same with wax and grease remover, then coated the car with Nason Ful-Poxy 2k Primer, since I wanted something I could do some filler work over and wanted good rust protection while I worked on the car. Most of the shoddy body work that was getting done was before I decided to buy the car and do it right. I couldn't let it get redneck repaired and sold to someone else. (Love my buddy to death but hes hard on stuff and has never been one to go for a showroom quality fix and is used to broken **** lol).
As the winter progressed, I had a laundry list of body work that needed to be done and some major issues with the right rear quarter panel, so I decided it was time to step my game up and replace it. This was going to be a summer job, so I saved up until spring hit and bought a Miller 211 and a 60 gallon compressor and wired my garage for 240v outlets.
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07-18-2018 #7Registered User
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Spring 2018
With the School semester finishing up, I finally again had time to put some serious attention back on to the Camaro.
This is how it sat over the winter:
Like I had said before, I had saved up and bought a Miller 211 w/ gas setup and a 60gal compressor that could actually let me use air tools and my paint gun (we had used a 110v 20gal all last summer that was about 20 years old)
Spring to do list:
-Media Blast and re-coat the under body
-Remove Engine and Transmission
-Remove front sub-frame, refurbish
-Replace Rear Quarter Panel
-Remove and Replace front Control arms, sway bar, brakes
-Wire Garage for Welder and Compressor
-Remove/Replace* Rear Suspension
*Still was undecided
As the summer started and snow began to melt, It was finally warm enough to work with the garage door open and not be freezing my butt off.
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07-18-2018 #8Registered User
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A-Pillars
After I decided to shave the drip rails (I still need to do some more metal work to clean the edges up and smooth it all out, more than likely going to weld in some 1/8th inch steel rod to get nice lines and blend it in to the roof line), I decided I wanted to run the flush fit glass kit, which means no window trim. The problem was I hated how the A-Pillars met up with the fender lines, so I made some brackets up to weld in to get a nice transition into the fender line.
Here is before any work was done.
After making a metal piece for both sides, I welded them in and blended the welds with a flap disk. I used a bit of All-Metal to shape it slightly, as my metal work wasn't 100% perfect.
More progress to clean up the A-Pillar ends.
Mostly cleaned up, will revisit to make perfect later, coated with primer:
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07-18-2018 #9Registered User
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Front Subframe
Next, it was time to get started on cleaning up the front subframe, which had about 50 years of dirt and grime on it. Coated it with POR-15 and then painted with High Temp Engine paint I had laying around (I was going to use it on the 327 block that was in the car, so it wasnt going to get used for anything.) Still undecided on the color right now, but it looks cool for now.
Also installed all new bushings and hardware while I was at it, can't have a single part of this car untouched and made new.
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07-18-2018 #10Registered User
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Rear Quarter Panel
With the subframe mostly delt with, I started work on the Right Rear Quarter Panel, spending a good 20 hours at least reading and watching videos about it. Luckily too I had a new friend in the area that knows a thing or two about body work, but I made it clear I wanted to do it, so he gave me a few tips throughout the process and stopped by once to tell me where to trim and drop off some Clecos to hold the panel in place as I fit it.
First though, was making sure my doors were lined up, a process that is quite the challenge when you're working on it by yourself, I got them close enough for what I needed to do, but not quite perfect.
I went to the task of removing most of the old rear quarter panel, bit at a time. Was much easier than I had anticipated, but finding all the spot welds and drilling them out was extremely time consuming.
I left a good chunk of the panel on since it hadn't arrived yet, and had my friend come verify the gaps and door alignment before removing the door jamb area.
Total Removal time was approximately 8 hours. I found a bit of the frame was rusted and thin near were the drip rails were, and if you look you can see where I cut and patched the frame.
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07-18-2018 #11
It is looking really good, keep at it.
Sam
Northern UT.
'68 Camaro "Bodacious"
'56 210 2dr "Buckshot"
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07-18-2018 #12Registered User
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Thanks! It's been a hell of a learning experience but I'm excited to be trying something new with this rear end idea.