Introducing Project THANKS MOM!

[KUSI]

This is a true survivor, one-family owned restoration project that has turned out to be a life-long journey/dream of mine. Everyone of you looking at this thread will know what type of car it is by scanning to the pictures below. Some of you might sigh and think oh lord not another one in the project thread section but the rest of us can never seem to get enough of these cars. So if you don't mind a very long story here is how this car came to be in my life.

Before my family relocated to North Alabama in the 70s we were living outside of Detroit Michigan. Both of my grandfathers worked for Ford UAW and both of my uncles worked for Ford engineering. I pretty much thought that the Ford family was my destiny too but life changes and that is a different story. So picture it, 1969, my mom, with my grandfather in tow as a co-signer, heads out to pick her very own new car. It's her first car so it has to be something cool. And anybody growing up in that time remembers the bitter rivalry amongst car companies. Don't even think about mentioning a foreign car company then. It was Ford versus GM, plain and simple. So naturally my mom HAS to head to the Ford dealership right? A Mustang pony car is surely in her future right? Looking back on this I have no idea how she pulled it off. Maybe it was the love for your daughter that won this round. Either way, she got my grandfather on the Chevrolet lot and she began to pick out a Camaro. It was model year end clearance time so she told me there weren't but three cars left on the lot. And the colors were Daytona Yellow, Hugger Orange, and...Burnished Brown. Yes, she picked the brown! Hey it was earth tones time back then. Stop laughing. This color has definitely endured a life long love or hate relationship in the Camaro community. When I was young I only cared that this cool muscle car was in the family. A few years past and needless to say my Mom and her friends all enjoyed riding around in the car. The car was/is a standard Camaro with a few options. Those included the larger 350 engine versus the 327, turbo 350 trans, and power steering. That P/S was a blessing for these cars. And A/C? Come on now this was Michigan. That was probably a joke on the lot. Not to mention an $800 option on a $3200 car. So fast forward through some of her life changes such as marriage, kids, and a husband being transferred to a different state. The Camaro was still a great daily driver but the damage had already been done. You guys still living up north know about this all too well. Salt on the roads equals rust and death to these cars. But this car still endured many more years as it became my Dad's daily driver to work. Normal maintenance was always done to it but that rust process never stopped. Fast forward again to 1983 and now I am a 13 year old boy interested in two things...one of which was this muscle car. And hopefully this car helped with the other interest. I begged for it to stay and become my car when I turned 16. My Dad was ready for something new and rightly so. The car's aged drum brakes, leaking roof, tons of rust, and now missing floor boards had the car classified as a Fred Flintstone mobile. There were even instances at our house where this car was almost traded equally for an old Chevy pickup truck if it wasn't for me. I won't sugarcoat it, this Camaro became a heavily debated issue in our house. Unfortunately, Mom had to become the moderator for helping keep the car. Thanks Mom! In the end my devotion to this car won out (with Mom's help), I turned 16, and the car was now mine...with a catch. My Dad was done with the car and all maintenance costs or upgrades were now my responsibility. Oh crap. The money thing. Yeah, that. Looking back on it now I chalk it up as life lessons because this car helped me learn the value of saving money and the rewards that come from buying something with hard earned money. Dave Ramsey can't teach you that on the radio. Along with the devotion to this car came a promise I made when I was 16...that I would NEVER sell this car! Come on, you have all heard or experienced first hand the stories about a guy describing the muscle car he had to let go. There are almost tears in his eyes right? That wasn't going to be me. No way!

Now fast forward in my life. High school graduation, college graduation, moving out of the house, multiple hobbies, girlfriends, and moving to a different town. All of these events seemed to win out over getting the Camaro restored the way I really wanted to. But keeping to my promise of never selling it the car lived for quite a few years in a self-storage unit surrounded by the then hobby of jet skies. Every time I went to the storage unit to grab one of those skies I would see the car and just feel the overwhelming tasks that really lie ahead. At that point I had to do something about the rust soon or there wouldn't be a car left to save. So after getting my career underway and saving enough money I set out to locate someone local that could at least save the car with sheetmetal repair. The internet and forums didn't exist back then kiddies so finding reputable people was a difficult task. In 1993 the sheetmetal repair was completed by a guy well known for fixing/restoring Mustangs. Kind of ironic. I also had him coat the car in an epoxy primer to help prevent rust. In case you are wondering the guy was decent at sheetmetal repair but the paint jobs left much to be desired so the paint job didn't happen. Still, mission accomplished for now. Before I knew it life blew by again, it was now 2001 and I was happily married. In that timeframe my girlfriend, now wife, had to endure my non-stop talks about what I would love to do to the car. What I would do or could finally do mechanically to the car if only it was painted. In the end her love and support was always there. She was just sick of hearing about it. She said just DO something already! Okay, Okay! So with that I began the journey of trying to find someone to help with the body work and paint. I struck out in the paint phase big time. Got a guy lined up, skips town. Got a guy lined up, doesn't want to paint anymore. Got a guy lined up, can't do that anymore because there is more money with insurance work. Got a guy lined up, hmm, not getting a warm fuzzy with the shop or him. Got a guy lined up, doh that phone number got lost during our last move. Got the last guy lined up, ready to go, yes, it is going to happen, um no, he was in the housing sheetrock business and housing was booming so he had no time to paint. I just gave up! That would have been 2007. Ah, but now the internet and forums do exist! Shows about restoration are on TV constantly such as OverHaulin, Rides, Powerblock, or Hot Rod TV. These TV shows I think sparked the whole muscle car restoration business again and opened my eyes and ears to people and shops I didn't know existed. I can't tell you how many times my wife would ask me when watching these shows if Chevrolet ever truly stopped making the first gen Camaro. And even the auction houses such as Barrett Jackson were helping provide spark to this hobby. Many times my wife would see a rare 69 go across the block at Barrett for over $200,000. To her it looked just like the one now living in our garage. She once asked me if mine was a Yenko. For laughter, I said yes and that I hadn't got the headrests and stripes back on the car yet. Hey, I love good comedy. Deep down inside she knows the car wouldn't be sold but I bet it was pretty cool thinking it was worth that much.

With all of the muscle car exposure I starting feeling the drive to get my butt in gear again on the car. I had been living in the forums as a lurker at Camaros.net, Lateral-G, and then finally at Pro-Touring. These forums ended up being a blessing and a curse. The exposure I received to all the cool new parts, the handling components, the wheels and tires, the four links, the LS fury, oh lord make it stop! I couldn't get very far without bodywork and paint but I could turn my garage into a parts crib. So after numerous weeks living and learning in the forums I had put together a wish list of items and set out with a project budget. I can say that if you don't take these measures you will put yourself up for the snowball effect that can so easily happen once you decide to go frame off restoration. Now my restoration will by no means be a six figure build. Nor will it be a $10-20k build. If you are even in this forum reading this post then you know what I mean. It just can't happen because those days are gone. Body shops and parts distributors all need to eat too. Just stick to your dream, save the money, and at least get or keep the car a rolling driver. I didn't take my own advice but jumped right into it yelling Bonzai! Off the parts came and with numerous jackstands and two floor jacks off the subframe came. Not that I didn't want to do this but there is still something to be said for being able to simply DRIVE your car. Almost two years went by and I really missed driving it. But within those two years I have made it to numerous Pro-Touring events. Run Through the Hills, Peach State, and Nashville Good Guys. From these events I have had the pleasure of meeting numerous people in the Pro-Touring forums. Bill Howell, Frank and Lisa of Prodigy, Yancy, Larry Callahan, David Sloan, Stevo, Adam, and numerous others who I can put together now with their cars. I even got to meet Kyle and Stacy Tucker and crew from Detroit Speed & Engineering. On quite a few occassions you guys might have seen me standing around with Steven Rupp of Camaro Performers just taking pictures at all of these events. I was the guy just trying to contribute to the forums through pictures all the while I was crying on the inside because my car was at home on jack stands. At many of these events there was that one guy that seemed to stand out. The guy who seemed to beat on his cars just as much if not more than most. Yep, you guessed it. It is our resident autocross superhero Brian Finch. However, the first day I introduced myself to him he just seemed like mild mannered Clark Kent. One event after another I saw this guy drive the crap out of his cars and win. And he was driving the crap out of some REALLY nice cars. To be honest, what I had gathered from the forums was that Brian loved to autocross and that he could assemble a top notch Pro-Touring car. This was further evident when he unveiled Mark Turners little number called Kryptonite. NOW he really had my attention and I needed to talk to this guy. At 2010 Nashville Good Guys this just didn't happen. He was driving three cars and by then numerous people were talking with Brian and the Tuckers about autocrossing. So nothing happened. Bummer. But when I returned that night I was in the Pro-Touring forums and I went through the whole Kryptonite project thread. Do you guys remember the picture of Finch reflecting in the green paint with a painters suit on and holding a Corona? Yeah, that picture is what sealed the deal for me. This guy obviously had the skills, talent, was also a painter, and he was located only a few hours away. Is this too good to be true? I had to go talk to this guy soon and basically plead my case or story to him. Maybe he would be generous enough to consider helping me out. Just a few month later at the 2010 Peach State event that very thing happened. I talked with Brian a good hour or two throughout the day and in the end he agreed to take on my project. This to me was a huge leap of faith and spoke volumes of his confidence in building because at that point he hadn't even seen my car in person yet. At the end of that day I think I could hear church choir music and see the sunlight shining down between the clouds. This is really going to happen. Hallelujah! Can I getta AMEN!


For the next four months I did my best to get the subframe and front end completed on my car before Brian's schedule became free. If he can knock out an entire car in this amount of time then surely I can at least get a front end done in that amount of time. Well it was close but I did finish by November and true to his word Finch got my car to his shop to start breaking it down and giving it a good go over. Considering the cars he has taken on before that sheetmetal work I had done in the 90s really helped with the overall effort Brian needed to do. Nothing would have slowed him down anyway. I have seen and heard of the cars Mark Turner can find for Brian. But what might turn out to be a couple month project with some shops can be knocked out by Brian in a few weeks or sometimes days. I don't care what he says...he doesn't sleep. He is not human! He is a Pro-Touring machine. The work that has been done to my car in two months has left me speechless sometimes. Heck, the first panel that actually got final paint almost brought a tear to my eye. You guys with love for these cars know how it feels. Priceless. Even Mom and Dad have been thoroughly impressed with how the pictures of the car look. Having Mom say the car looks better than it did new is pretty cool and a true testament to Brian's work.

During the last few months I didn't put together a project thread on my car since you guys have seen so many of this type muscle car. And I was definitely going to stick to my budget which in the end might not produce a car you guys have grown so accustomed to seeing on here. But for every one of those type builds I thought there would have to be at least a hundred guys shooting for that middle ground. You know, the readers rides section or something similar. So the longer I thought about it the more I realized how much I have learned and simply enjoyed looking at pictures of everyone's build in the forum. There is something for everyone and every budget in here. Plus once I saw the work Finch produced on my car I thought it deserves to be seen. I think the Crazy Canadian Albert and Mark Turner can back me up on this one. So with that I set out trying to recover some long lost photos and tell you my story. Over the next few weeks I will be posting pictures of the restoration process that I have gone through throughout the years and then eventually catch back up to the progress Finch has already made with the car to date. And along the way maybe now I can actually help someone else out in the forum with questions about builds such as mine. In the end I would definitely say to you guys that sometimes good things come to those who wait. With the car now having a solid foundation and soon to have paint after 15 years of trying, I feel the rest will just fall into place. Once I reach that goal then you guys can all start influencing me over to a full blown LS swap and four link suspensions. MmHmm.


So with that I say a heartfelt Thanks to all of you in the Pro-Touring community for the help, Thanks to Brian Finch for helping make this dream become a reality, and most of all...Thanks Mom!


KUSI

The pictures below are one of the only remaining photos I have of the original Burnished Brown paint job. After that the photos show my gray "Primero" as it was referred to in high school. The car had been hit in the front fender because it spent its life parked in the street as you see it. The insurance company paid for the fender to be replaced and gave a few hundred dollars extra for touch up paint. Touch up 20 year old paint? So with that we were convinced into having the car paint removed and covered in primer. Big Mistake! It helped accelerate the rust process even further. Live and learn!

[Shayc5]

Damn Kusi that was some good reading. You know I have no stories like that for my builds lol. Glad to see you are finally moving forward with the ol girl now. Let me know when you get it back and I will come over to check you out. I know you had to see me puttin through the neighborhood in mine with no windshield lol, damn its been cold doing that but just working the bugs out of it. Its at the interior shop now and when it gets home you will hear me again.

Shay

[LV42DAY]

thats one hell of a write up. made for great reading. i enjoy the "save the family car" stories. gives them meaning over the "i bought a camaro last week and am shoving $40k worth of parts into this weekend" builds.

so just a few questions, what does your parts list consist of?

did you buy an 500HP LSX engine with a viper t56 yet? or a five link (four links are sooooo last year)? just kidding, im still using leaf springs and a carbed small block, lol.

i look forward to seeing what you have planned for it. the passion is definitely there so im expecting great things.

[srh3trinity]

I enjoyed reading that. How many people do you know that made a promise at 16 and have actually kept it. Most people don't know which end is up at age 16. I am shooting for a middle of the road build, but once I get it to that point, I plan to improve on it continually while keeping it a driver as much as possible. I will have to keep my eyes out for updates on your thread.

[David Sloan]

What a cool story, and thanks for coming to our event! You are in good hands with Brian as you already know.
Thanks for sharing your build with us it does not mater how big or how little a build we still love to see them get built.

[Jon69RagTop]

Great story, makes following along even more enjoyable. Loved the "Yenko" comment too, best of luck and "thanks" for starting the thread.

[KUSI]

Detailed Specs

Primary Builder: Myself with help from Brian Finch

Paint & Body: Brian Finch, Hot Rod Transformations

Chassis: Repaired & powder coated stock subframe, DSE upper & lower control arms, DSE front end MOOG kit, DSE front sway bar, Hotchkis lowering coil springs, Bilstein shocks, stock hubs

Engine: Not an LS...this go around. 400 HP+ 383 Stroker or 350 Crate Engine

Drivetrain: 700R4 to stay with the stock automatic theme OR the Keisler Perfect Fit RS500 5-speed has recently grabbed my attention. G-Force Trans crossmember, new driveshaft, 10 bolt posi with Moser axles, 3.42 gears. Rear-end will remain on leaf springs, Hotchkis, inspired by none other than Mary Pozzi.

Braking: Front 13" Corvette C5 brake kit, Rear Wilwood 12" Dynalites, Red Calipers

Wheels: Still looking but so far Rushforth Superspokes in 18x8, 18x10 or 18x8, 19x10

Tires: Nitto NT05s if all the sizes work out

Cooling: TBD, Ron Davis radiator with twin Spal fans or equivalent would be nice

Exhaust: Magnaflow Performance Stainless Steel Tru-X Kit

Body: Emblems removed and emblem holes filled in, rear factor seams welded and smoothed, Prodigy Customs smoked glass kit, Marquez Design front indicator lights and rear tailights, Anvil Auto closeout panel and fender braces. With 15 years to think about paint you would think the decision would be easy. It wasn't but in the end the decision can be summed up in one word...BLACK!

Interior: John Covan's Thunder Road dash with AutoMeter Carbon Fiber gauges, updated to tilt steering, Momo steering wheel, Vintage Air Gen IV system, plenty of Dynamat, power windows. Main interior will be stock standard black panels, dash, headliner, and carpet. Seats may need to be changed or moved back. My 6'2" height isn't working so well now that the stock seats are freshly restored. Have been looking at ProCar Rallys.

Electrical: AAW Classic Update Kit, Digi-Tails LED Taillights, DSE intermittent wipers, DSE headlamps, optima Red or yellow top with DSE trunk location kit

Safety: Updated seat belts to 3-point harness.

That is everything that comes to mind right now. This list should definitely wake my Camaro up from what it was before. Handling and turning at all will be a blessing compared to the original equipment.

KUSI

[KUSI]

So think back to 1993. What were you doing? What was popular? Heck, I can't really remember. I just know that by that time my beloved 80s hair metal was all but dying out because of Nirvana. BOO! But this also was the time I finally got some real work done on my car that would help save it from the rust demons. The work was completed by E&V Repair Clinic. This place was not a clinic at all. It was a guys two car garage on the side of the "clinic". It was so crammed full of stuff sometimes that he barely had room to work or walk around the car. But after a few thousand dollars in sheet metal and a few thousand dollars in labor and materials the work got done in a six month span.

Rear quarters & rear tail pan all being cut out. I can remember him telling me to not touch the car at this point.





Rear quarters & rear tail pan replaced. The car shouldn't collapse on itself now. Nice!





Floor boards cut out and replaced. There definitely was not as much sheetmetal to chose from in the catalogs back then as there is now. However, these complete floor pans were just released that year. Doing it all over now someone would probably replace the complete floor.





Trunk pan cut out and replaced, the swiss cheese dash panel cut out and replaced, and finally quite a bit of effort was spent to repair both window channels. Doing this portion over now I would probably just replace the whole roof.





After all the sheetmetal repair was complete the body was taken down to bare metal and then shot with a protective coat of dark gray epoxy primer. This would end up being my paint job for quite some time. Hey, it looked good for 5 minutes if you wet it. And check out that stance on the back. Nothing said cool like fully loaded air shocks. This feature also helped make the front drum brakes nearly non-functional. Cool first, safety second.

[Fast68back]

Cool story, cant wait for the updates

[KUSI]

By July of 2010 I had gathered up enough parts to finally tackle the complete front end rebuild for this car. Like most of you I spent hours in the forums researching everyone's build threads, heard the pros and cons on a ton of parts, and must have visited each vendor's website a hundred times. I realized there are quite a few great places to get these parts from but I ended up going with the proven products from DSE as much as my budget would allow. This included control arms, front sway bar, and the Moog Front Service kit. Deals can be found and coupons come out all the time. If you can invest a little time in waiting you will end up saving more money in the end. I was also able to save quite a bit of money by chosing to restore the original subframe. Of course I still would have loved to see that DSE complete subframe crate show up outside the garage door. Mixed in with the DSE components I used the Hotchkis lowering springs I had purchased years earlier as well as the Hotchkis/Bilstein prepared shocks. With that the sheetmetal, engine, brake/fuel lines, and hardware all came flying off as you guys have seen a hundred times before.




These two pictures are nothing more than to show what someone would encounter with any 40+ year old muscle car. You can't really see these areas until you remove everything. In the end you might find as I did that very little parts will be good enough to reuse. I ended up only reusing the subframe and the steering center link. Sad but true.




This would NOT be my definition of a Pro-Touring setup. Finally, after over 40 years of trying to stop the car these drum brakes are history.



I had a small setback when I realized that one of the passenger side cage nuts had broken free. So after clamping the nut down with two sets of vise-grips I was able to finally break free all the subframe mounts. We have touchdown.




It didn't take long to realize that rust had not been kind to parts of the subframe. This ended up not being that bad of a fix since the parts warehouses have a couple of approaches to this common needed repair. You could spend more time and money for a cleaner fix by just having the subframe mounts all fabbed new and rewelded. Or just clean up the area back to good metal and have these plates welded on top. Just keep in mind that the thickness of these plates will be added to the overall height of seperation if you are using solid body mounts. I had planned on using 1/2 height body mounts so I wasn't concerned about the small extra height.




Subframe back from the blasting bath and a powder coating bake. To me this was definitely ground zero in the rebuild process but seeing stuff new like this with keep you motivated towards the assembly process.




Assembly begins. After another few nights in forum searching I came up with a late model Camaro fix for an upgraded quick turn ratio P/S box. Cleaned it up and painted it with some cast iron looking paint.





Finally, I mounted up the new 700R4 transmission crossmember and rehung the old wheels and tires. Front end rebuild complete and ready to be attached back on the car. Check!



KUSI

[sr73bu]

looking good!

Love the history of the car too!

Good luck!

-Sean

[boostin05blacksti]

Looks great man. I love the write up. Keep the updates coming.

[dmc69]

Nice read... Where are you in North Alabama?

[KUSI]

Shayc5,
I will gladly trade you a car history story for your LS7! Your car is looking great as usual. Please just stop building cars down the street from me that I can't compete with.

David Sloan,
Once again thanks to you and the guys for putting on such a great show with Peach State. Hopefully this year or next I will be able to join you guys with a running car. Most importantly I hope you are feeling better and staying strong and healthy. Peace and prayers!

dmc69,
I live in the land of Rockets and Engineers...Huntsville.

[dmc69]

I live in Huntsville also just moved back a few months ago... PM me if you if you need an extra set of hands.

[KUSI]

Towards the end of October Finch had called me to let me know he would be ready for the car in a couple weeks. I got to work on loosely fitting the car back together to have a roller again. It just needed to make it up the ramps of the hauler and it would be on its way. During reassembly I took a closer look at my doors again. Scraped back some of the epoxy coating and realized that sure enough there was just too much rust hidden in the bottom of both doors. With the remake of complete doors now it is almost a no brainer to order new ones. The labor involved in reskinning would more than pass the price in my mind. So two new doors it was. I actually was pleased with the fit of the doors. I know body work and metal bending will still be needed but for straight out of the box these were impressive. I also decided that I had served my time with the standard hood. Time for the cowl hood. And is it just me or have you guys wondered what type of glue is holding on those two white bumpers the cowl hoods get delivered with. I am pretty sure it was originally used by NASA for some project.



The day before the car was leaving it was time to gather up the "parts crib" in the garage and get it all loaded into the car. Besides the glass box...yeah, it all fit.



Car is a roller again and sees sunlight after quite some time living on jackstands.



And then...mid November 2010 she arrives safe and sound at Hot Rod Transformations. This was obviously a HUGE milestone for me and this build. Time for Finch to do some cosmetic surgery on her. And time for me to once again say THANKS! to Brian for fitting this into his schedule.

[daredvl22]

Great write up, looking forward for more!

[mc84_zz4]

Glad to see another keeper saved from rusting away! Keep the updates flowing as they happen...

[CruizinKev]

oh nice looking good so far

[KUSI]

Finch had the car blown back apart in no time to begin the sheet metal repair work that was needed. As I suspected, once the windshield and back glass were removed it was obvious that the window channels would need work. Along with that were the tasks of welding up the factory seams, emblem locations, and radio antenna.









Once the leaf springs were removed from the body there were more signs of being a 40 year old car. Time for some frame rail repair.





I originally had purchased a DSE heater core closeout panel that screwed in. That worked fine but after seeing many firewalls that had been smoothed out I knew that was the look I really wanted instead.





Finally, the fresh metal work got covered with a coat of sealer/primer.