Un-named project 69 Camaro

[village idiot]

Hello everyone, Here's my new to me 69 Camaro. Bought from a friend that had it hiding under a cover for the last 5 years. It's a base model with no A/C, manual brakes and manual steering. In it's favor is it's a 327 4 speed car and after filling the float bowls in the carb and hooking the jump pack, it fired instantly without so much as me pumping the gas pedal!




Now with the intro out of the way, it's time to get started. Just to see how many times it was painted, I stripped the trunk lid.

Not much to see other than a bit of surface rust and a couple of very small dents that I shrunk out using a cheap propane torch. Original color was orange as evidenced by the color on the package tray and may return as an orange car as I do like bright colors.

Another friend of mine who is a Pontiac fanatic, hooked me up with another guy that had a complete front disc conversion for an A-body. He assured me it would fit and it did:D I got every thing: Master cyl+booster, complete spindle assemblies with cross drilled rotors for the low,low price of $300



I also replaced the lower ball joints and idler arm at the same time because they were original 43 year old items and pretty worn.

Now for the bad, I knew going in that this car had suffered an impact somewhere along the line. The rear frame rails got bent and though the outer body panels fit well I saw this inside the fender wells:


Shouldn't take much to repair though.

Worst of the rust is contained on the lower rear part of both quarters and surprisingly not much anywhere else. Floors are totally clean as are the bottom edges of the doors.

This car will be built on a very, very tight budget unless someone wants to either sponsor me(HAH!) or I sell my last project, a 1978 Porsche 911 that I built into a 1973 911RS impostor. It may take awhile as I'm poor and my Porsche took me 5 years to complete.

Thanks for letting me bend your ears(or eyes as it were).



Tom

[tubbed69]

good luck with car,very hard to find a solid 69,especially in WV where I am from

[village idiot]

Just as hard here in Hawaii. Plus getting parts is hugely expensive because shipping is through the roof. Plan is to get it road-worthy and daily drive it while saving up for the goodies. Once I have everything accumulated I'll start the real teardown.

[village idiot]

So it's been awhile since I posted anything on the progress. So here's some shots of how she's getting along. Bear with me as I'm an amateur at best.
I started chasing some rust on the quarter thinking "this thing looks pretty good!" Note the 1/2" of filler I discovered


Off it comes!

more rust :(

New/used quarter stitched in

Epoxy primed

[village idiot]

Both doors were in decent shape and only needed minor work


Front fenders were another story. Unusable.

[village idiot]

Lower cowls had minor rot


Drivers quarter was as bad as the passenger side so a full quarter and new tail light panel went in. I used a combination of mig welding and spot welding for most of the repairs on the entire car





I used AMD panels and the fit while not perfect was pretty good

[village idiot]

99% done with the bodywork and in the booth it goes for the first round of high build primer. You can also see that someone had danced on the roof at some time :*(

[village idiot]

Jumping forward a bit, and putting some color on her. 98 GM Torch red(got a gallon of it for free, who am I to refuse?)


a bit of wet sanding before applying the "Hockey sticks" using stencils

[village idiot]

Matte blacked the tail light panel

Blacked the grille

Didn't like how much the bumper poked out or how the side markers are too close to the bumper ends. Out comes the cut off wheel and the mig welder again. took a half inch out of either side before the corners wrap around and an inch and a half out of the tip length





Still have to buff the car out as evidenced by the shot of the quarter but so far I'm happy with the progress :D

[Motown 454]

Its looking good.

[village idiot]

Thanks, though it's not even close to the level of your build(amazing btw). I'm hoping to have the glass back in the car by Jan. so I can drive it a bit and find out any quirks.

[craigs73]

wow nice work......got anymore free paint lol?

[village idiot]

wow nice work......got anymore free paint lol?

Thanks! And yes I do. I have a gallon of BMW bronzitbeige sitting in my locker. Don't think I can ship it though...

[village idiot]

Started hanging the headliner today as well as mounting the front turnsignals and a few other little things. Man I hate doing headliners :(
Also a detail pic of the grill after I painted the stainless trim red to break up the almost totally black grill


side shot as I was hanging the headliner