Identity Crisis - 72 El Camin SS??

[dan10101]

Identity Crisis 1972 El Camino SS

It is a car, or a truck. Is it a SS or just a wanabee. Is it stock or PT.

Every indication says it is indeed an SS 350 4 speed born in California. Originally a pale yellow with black stripes. It spent some time as a drag strip runner. Still has a roll bar that was hacked thru the floorboard and welded to the frame. The lack of a single piece of physical proof allows me the freedom to do pretty much whatever I want to the car. Which I am.

I bought it a year ago with a newly rebuilt 402 Big Block, build turbo 400 with floor B&M shifter and newly built Pontiac 12 bolt Posi with 3.42 gears. It was already on it’s way to a life in Pro Touring. The front suspension was rebuilt and stiff lowering springs were added along with very large sway bars front and rear. 17” Hopsters with 245/45 tires. Factory buckets and an SS dash among the other trashed interior.

The goal for this vehicle. I need a truck. And I’ve missed owning a muscle car since the early 80s. So I decided to make a modern truck with classic appeal. It’s duties will be Car shows and runs, cruising, towing a sports car to the track, occasional drag strip run, and generally causing a stir when it drives by.

I have a lot of work to do on this. Paint, interior, suspension, brakes. I'll give more info as things solidify.



I just figured we need more Ekly representation.
Dan

[00fxd]

Nice El Camino. Weren't all El Camino's built in Calif?

[dan10101]

Thanks, My little thread was dieing a quick death..

Don't know about Ca only. I haven't heard that in my short time of ownership.
I was thinking that CA wasn't allowing the sale of 4 speed cars back then, maybe I'm wrong. This originally came with a 4 speed so I may be wrong about it's heritage.

Here's some rust carnage. Everyone loves rust..
Actually it's pretty good, I think the heater or AC leaked on the floorboard and they never did anything about it.

[dropit69]

looks pretty darn clean ..ill trade you a midwest car that year..lol..i had a 80 camino..rusted clean through..i would have keep it if it was as clean as yours..good luck keep us posted on progress..

[dan10101]

Thanks Darrin,

I do know we're fortunate out west. It had more rust in the sugglers bay, but it was repaired from the inside so well that it looks like factory. But the wierd thing is they left the rusted part on it so from the bottom it looks like swiss cheese. I'm going to try to trim it of when we do the undercarriage, but it's not doing any harm for now.

We did some rust repair on my Son's 914. It looked real good when we bought it, but still had a bunch of rust to deal with. He has a 350 Chevy in it now. Widebody and full suspension. We'll be towing either this or my 944 with the El Camino. They both are capable of driving to the track, but after driving hard at the track, it's nice to know it will make it home.

[derekf]

Nice El Camino. Weren't all El Camino's built in Calif?

My 69 was built in Kansas City (K code).

[dan10101]

Now that you said that, I had to check again. Yup, it was L Van Nuys. Not that it matters. But, just because it was built here, doesn't mean it was sold here. Anyway, it probably was. Seems like the mid 70's is when Ca started cracking down on those heathen 4 speeds.

Got my new brake kit today from Matt's Classics.
13" front and 12" rear. The calipers are factory Suburban and rears are factory Lincoln i believe. They are a bit on the heavy side, but should stop that little truck like (insert something that stops real fast here.)

[dan10101]

Thread back from the dead, project back from the dead after 6 years of sitting on my butt. Frankly, I was having too much fun driving it to have it torn down for a long period.
Note, GM says the Elky is a "Coupe Utility Vehicle". Wiki says CUV is a "Crossover Utility Vehicle".

No excuses, but at least I'm finally moving forward again.
The brakes are on the car. I had to get different brackets for the 'Olds' rear end with Moser rear axles (no C-clips) but CPP set me up with what I needed.

Replaced upper and lower control arm bushings on the front. The rest of the front end was in good shape from a recent rebuild. Pulled the front lowering springs and shocks out and replaced with QA1 coil overs. I may go back if these are too stiff, but it's nice to have the height adjustable.

The sway bars have already been upgraded front and rear. But I added adjustable tubular control arms in the rear to get rid of a bit of dog walking. I pulled out the coil overs (overload shocks) on the rear and left the bags and lighter coil springs (out of an 84 elky) to try to get the rear end down a bit. Seems to be pretty good considering the size tires I have on there. I may have to spring for some lowering springs in the back. We'll see how the stiffness is in the front before I mess with it any more.

The body work is underway. Lots of sanding to do. Minor rust re-repair in the RS lower fenders.

Thank goodness my Son is a skilled welder, I just seem to blow holes in everything.

Sanded the hood yesterday, It came out pretty good, but had some weird lines from old hood stripes I think. Still, it's in good shape. On to other panels.


So, I'm finally making progress.

[dan10101]

Some brake pictures. Sorry most of the pictures aren't the greatest...
Front


Rear

[bs46488]

wow, that's a serious chunk of bondo. Glad the welder worked on the fix.

What part of the country are you in?

[dan10101]

Central Cal. The hot spot.

Yes, fortunately the rust was minimum.

[HELLCAMINO]

And now there are 3 semi Pro Touring 72 Elco's on this forum.....sa-weet!

[Danny72]

Awesome to see another Elco on here! Instant subscribe!!

[dan10101]

Thanks guys, I was reading thru your threads earlier today. Both really nice cars. I hope to keep it going. I've done some autocrossing too, just not with the Elko.

I just did a couple hour stint sanding the front end. That's about as much I can handle at a time. But I have to keep at it, even if only a little bit at a time. I don't want the project to go stagnant again.

[walis]

Identity Crisis 1972 El Camino SS

I just figured we need more Ekly representation.
Dan

way to go got me an -72 myself :-)

[Yelcamino]

Yep, we need more El Caminos on this forum!

[68firebird]

Love the el caminos! Keep it going, brakes look good!

[dusterbd13]

giggity. another elco.

and for some reason, these things get the weirdest amount of attention from others. mines spray painted, for gods sake.....


but work good as a truck. you towed or done heavy hauling with yours yet? howd you like the air lift bags for that? im looking at a set for my 64 due to not enough payload capacity.

Michael

[dan10101]

Hey Walis - Another 72 El Camino! That makes 4, keep um coming..

Love driving mine, that's why it took so long to dig into it. The engine is now a fuel injected 402ci big block with a torque build. It has a TH400 with a stiff shift kit and aftermarket shifter. It's fun to run around and chirp 2nd...

Michael, I haven't towed much, but hauled a bunch. The bags help a lot. I left them separated so I could add more air to the right one in case I did much drag racing. (that hasn't happened near enough). I also had a set of overload shocks on it, but one of the things I'm trying to do is to get it down in back, so they are off for now. I toyed with building a shock mount lower on the axle to keep them, and that may happen. As you can tell I'm on a real budget. Trying to do this rebuild with minimal purchases and my store house of new parts I've acquired over the years.




These pictures are prior to adding the overload shocks but after bags.
Oh BTW, this was close to 2000lbs when you add my wife and I to the load.

[dan10101]

Summer Update.

I've made huge progress.... backwards...

I decided to take a look at repairing the rust that I could see in the smuggler bay area. It was only visible from the bottom. Many years ago I found the inside looked fine. I took another look at it from the top and found the false bottom pealing away. I dug out a large patch of galvanized sheet metal making it look repaired.








While I was in a deconstruction mood, I cut away the drivers floorboard.



The passenger floorboard was covered with a tar like substance that fortunatly came up very easy and apparently protected the area. Not sure why that side was ok and the other was not...





Much of the interior has been removed so I could repair and confirm that I was getting all the rust. Looks like aside from the know bad floor in the drivers floorboard, there are some rusted thru areas in the back of the seats.
More cutting to do here. We'll see how much as I start getting into it.



In the meantime, I've removed the interior (obviously), the front end leaving the fenders. The rear bumper and tailgate so I could repair a bad body bushing.





I finally found the rear e-brake cables so I moved calipers back of the axles so I could use them and I reinstalled the overload shocks, but modifying the lower shock mount moving the shock inboard and down to get the back down a bit. Did some detail work on the rear end allowing it to look as good as it works.
I'm hoping this will more closely match the stiff setup on the front.



Something else I'm working on is changing the exit of the exhaust. Currently it goes straight out the back. For me that just doesn't work. I want to hear the exhaust! So I'm turning the exhaust pipes so they exit out the side. No pictures yet, I hope I can get them even without resorting to a muffler shop.

Ordered the paint, primer and other necessities. Victory Red will be the color. Late model gm red. Single stage.

Lastly, I had some friends over and opened up the headers, (to do some welding on the exhaust).
So, enjoy the noise...
http://s719.photobucket.com/user/dan...02131.mp4.html
I need to adjust the idle back setting on the fuel injection.

Still a long ways to do, but it beats sitting in front of the TV like I have for the last 7+ years.