marekdennhardt

I put this article up on cardomain but I thought it would be more appreciated here. I'm not done and plan on continuing the restoration soon.

This is my somewhat first project. Im 18 and this is my 85 camaro
purchased August 09
sat in a field for 3 years
paid $500
2.8l v6 manual


sitting in previous owners field


parts already installed:
- kenwood deck
- painted red interior trim pieces (by previous owner)
- 9 1/2" (245) front tires, 10" (255) back tires
- looks like a cherrybomb glasspack muffler and new exhaust from the headers
- neon underglow lights
- crager 15" rims
- custom box for subwoofers and completely wired (4 x 10")
- alpina pedals
- custom front speaker box's (6 1/2")
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marekdennhardt

Time to restore
late august - september 13th 2009 (didnt work on it for a week at the start of september)

The Engine wasn't running when I bought it. I spent 2 days trouble shooting and fixing till I got er running. I changed the ignition coil and distributer and away she went. Then I had to correct the timing. I also changed all the spark plug wires, fixed some big vacuum leaks and an emissions hose.

removed interior.. the under carpet padding was wet in some places even when it has sat for three years

Old trim removed

sanded off old chipped paint. Prepped for filler and primer

Bought and installed new steering wheel

fabricated and welded a patch on the driver side door

marekdennhardt

fab'd and welded a patch on the rocker panel (driver side)

welded a patch on driver side quarter panel

patch on passenger side quarter panel

took the interior out found some holes (ill take pictures when its lighter)

a decent size hole on the drivers side
- I went to a used auto parts place today and ordered the floor pan with floor support thats rusted out. The pan and support will be from a 82' firebird


Put some subs in the trunk and hooked them up to a 1000w alpine mono block (infinity perfect 10.1)

I bondo'd the hood yesterday and ill have some pics on after the weekand
after i bondo and sand all 4 exterior patches and the hood the car will be in good shape on the outside. still need passenger side fender

marekdennhardt

Friday sept 18, 2009
went out to my dads to work on my car on the weekend. Heres what I did.

Started with this on friday evening

Removed black door trim piece

removed custom speaker enclosure

folded up the rubber mat. You can see the rusted out floor support

the broken off transmission mount and rusted out floor support on the bottom of the car. The tranny mount bolts to the floor support. the mount is bent backwards in the pic

marekdennhardt

Saturday sept 19, 2009


Got a little cut from the rusty metal aha..

starting to remove old floor support from the subframe

removing old floor support

marekdennhardt

Floor support mostly gone.. Time to get the new floor support from a 86' firebird.

Removing the new floor support from the junk old floor

marekdennhardt

Got the floor support off and took a pic of the old floor from where it came. The floor support is in great condition.

testing the fit of the support in the sub frame.. good fit
Removed seat mount because I have to repair the floor

Removed the last of the old floor support

marekdennhardt

Floor support in place

My drivers seat to drive up onto the ramps (cat litter container)

Transmission mount back in place. Had to use the winch on the quad to bend it back. Then jacked it up.

marekdennhardt

Floor support, Tranny cross member and seat mount all in place : ).. This is how I left it on saturday night. Couldn't work on the car on sunday because I had to do a community hours thing for school.
Tuesday sept 22, 2009
Welder came to weld floor support onto subframe

The old transmission support was welded to the old floor support and it looks like a mess so im going to get a new transmission support with new rubber mount.
I took the transmission support off and a bolt broke off in the frame so im going to have to get it out with ez-outs tomorrow when i go back out to my dads.
Im going to get the tranny support now.

marekdennhardt

Sept 24 - 27 2009
I got the new transmission mount with rubber from a scrap yard. (new on the right)

The new one was bent

So I used the original and grinded off the old welding

Old transmission mount back in place just to see if it will fit.. not done though. Still need to brace the other floor support because it is all bent up and broken, and weld a small plate on the tranny mount to make it stronger.
I couldn't remove the bolt from the frame with the ez-out so I moved on to some bodywork while I thought of what to do.

marekdennhardt

This is my first time working with bondo
(unsanded)

(half way there)

The hood (smooth)


Got the broken bolt out of the frame by drilling it till it fell apart and i ripped it out with some vicegrips. Then used a tap and die set to re-thread the bolt hole and clean the threads on the bolts. I was lucky and didnt dig into the threads too much so i could use the same size bolt.

marekdennhardt

Here are the old and new rubber parts for the tranny mount



Picture of the hood after scraping, sanding and rough bondoing.
final sand, primer and paint soon.. should look good



Finished the bottom of the door and primed and rocker guarded. Paint soon


Front of driver side quater panel ready for primer and paint

marekdennhardt

Friday Oct 2 - Sunday Oct 4 2009
Finished filling / sanding

(hood)

Primer

marekdennhardt

Prepped for rocker guard. My dad used the rest of the rocker guard, so I have to go get more.

marekdennhardt

Drove the car out of the garage to take some progress pics in the light.

Spun the tires a bit driving back up the driveway ahah

Sat/Sun Oct 24, 25, 2009
Got out to work on the car Saturday night and Sunday.
I cut the rust out of the floor on Saturday

Then on Sunday I made the new floor pan which took all day and now my hands are all cut up and full of blood blisters


This isn't the most recent picture of the floor. It's all formed now and ready to weld into place.


I decided to bead roll the floor pan. I also found out that my school has a bead roller I can use for FREEE!!!!! so thats a good thing.

marekdennhardt

Friday oct 30 - sat 31 2009
I started to reinforce the passenger side sub frame. So i took off the tranny cross member.



This is the damage on the passenger side sub frame. I was going to use the piece of the sub frame from the left over of the drivers side but it was too wide.

ville_valo_05

hey i have an immaculate back seat setup if you're interested

marekdennhardt

So I made up a new one from the extra sheet metal from the floor pan.

So i measured it up and cut it out and bent it to shape.

Test fit
I am going to get another piece of metal and weld some new nuts into it then weld that to this patch. It will distribute the load better. Then weld the whole thing to the sub frame.

marekdennhardt

Monday Nov 2, 2009
I got my floor pan bead rolled at school. They only had one size of bead and they could only make one of the two beads. The bead they used was probably too shallow also.

So I called a company that has a bead roller and they will do it for 35 bucks.. I will probably go get it done there.

Went and got the company to bead roll it.. But again the roller wasn't big enough.. So they made a line.. which was better and deeper.. Also they did it for free.. So thats the best I can get

marekdennhardt

I just finished working on my car for the last 4 days 12-14 hours per day. No joke. I look mexican im so dirty. I probably have cancer from all the welding and paint fumes and everything too. aha.
The car is complete for now

Here is the trans cross member bolted to the new patch. This was welded by a welder

marekdennhardt

This is my welding job. Welding all the pieces together for the floor and welding the seat mount. Then seam sealing and priming. It looks like a good job to me.

3 more patches here. welded, seam sealed and primed

I found a nice hole along a good chunk of the frame when I was about to seam seal the underbody. So I fab'd up 3 pieces to box the frame then I welded them in and seam sealed. Turned out alright. I had to use an air grinder to get in there because there were gas lines very close by and it was a tight fit.

A pic of the primed and seam sealed floor panel from a bottom view

Time for some bodywork. Bondo'd, sanded, primed. Then later on not pictured it was painted.

marekdennhardt

Primed patch. It was seam sealed later on

I took down the old sagging headliner and reglued it. Then replaced it in the car. Turned out pretty well.

Almost done. Time to start installing the interior. Putting in the carpet. Very hard work trying to make the carpet go how you want.

Rocker guarding the rest of the rockers. Paint to come

Time to paint aha

marekdennhardt

First day painting the hood. It was blotchy so later on I painted the entire thing.


I think this turned out really well. Drivers side quarter painted. Also I scraped off all the pin stripes along the side of the car and painted them to the body colour. The pin stripes had a peeling chrome tape on them. It looks way better now.

Fresh after painting. Turned out well. Nice and shiny. See how removing the pin stripes looks.
There is a lot of work not pictured, like banging out the dent on the passenger fender and doing the body work, priming. And changing the fuel filter.. That was a messy job.. old rusty gas lines. I almost had to change the whole fricken line while cold gas was pouring all over the place




The next day after the paint was dry and I re timed the engine, I took er for a test drive. It drove well. Except for a little gallop at the start because the tires sat for so long in one spot. Did a few nice donuts mid trip ahah handled well even in 3-4 inch deep snow.

The car is tarped now and waiting for parts for safety. I need e-brake cables for sure and a rear view mirror and probably a cat, since it was removed by the previous owner.
I don't know whether there is a exhaust leak or the glass pack is pooched, but this beast sounds like a pulp truck when I was driving it... Not to sporty sounding.. or maybe its just because its a V6.
The e-brake cables will be ordered tomorrow. As well as getting more paint to paint the passenger side fender where I popped out the dent and primed it. And i'm gonna get a marker light bulb for safety.

marekdennhardt

I ordered the e-brake cables and lug nuts, which I picked up today. I also got marker light bulbs and some more paint to finish the passenger fender and another light coat on the hood



I went to a junkyard and got a rear view mirror and shift **** for the car because the originals are missing.

marekdennhardt

The shift **** is in rough shape, but it was free. Im planning to get a new one when I find one that fits.

Canadian tire gave me a wrong e-brake cable so I have to take it back.
I ordered a high flow 3" magnaflow catalytic converter from hottexhaust.com


Sweet. The high flow cat came in just now. I cant wait to install it. This is the first piece that has been bought for the ls1 swap coming up. Im using it for the current setup for now.
I went to part source and got the piping I need to pipe this 3" monster cat into the stock 2.25" exhaust (soon to be all 3" after the swap).

marekdennhardt

It's so close to being ready to safety. I wish I could just work on it
Update!: At part source I ordered the correct parking brake cable. So tomorrow when the cable comes in I am going out to my dads to finish my car for safety.

So I will have quite a bit of stuff to do. Most of it is easy, fun jobs though. Its gonna be awesome! Im gonna take the car out for a rip too when im done. I'm looking forward to this.
Jan 14-16 2010
I just got back from my dads. I was out there thurs evening to saturday morning. This is what I did.

screwed in the shift **** I got. Its a direct fit. If anyone is wondering, I got it from a fiero in the junkyard. I'm going to try and make it look better when im out next.

Put a mirror in.

Put some new marker light bulbs in

My windshield washer fluid system needed to be fixed so I smashed out the frozen old fluid in the tank and rinsed it out. Then I reconnected the cut fluid lines with some bard fittings, filled the tank and tried to spray it. Nothing. So I got a funnel and used the line that runs into the tank and made a gravity feed system to get some fluid to the pump. tried squirting it like this and it worked. So I put the line back in the tank and now it works perfect. Heres what it looks like.


So now thats done, on to installing my new parking brake cables.

marekdennhardt

The spot where the cable goes through the backing plate on the breaks was rusted away so I had to make a new piece to put on there.

got er all welded in. Then I noticed an old bracket that held the cable was all rusted off and left a hole. Time for more fabing and welding.

Then I quickly sprayed some primer on there to help prevent rust.

I forgot to take pictures of the cables in place, but i'll tell the story. I had to take apart some of the brakes, which I learned how to do in auto class, cut my finger then squished it putting the brakes back together. So now they are in the brakes. Then I clipped them into them into the brackets on the body, near the adjuster, which was a baaaaddd idea. Then struggled to get them into the adjuster and struggled even more trying to get them into the metal guide things on the body right after the adjuster.
After that I put the drums on and the cable was too tight. So I went to adjust that. No dice. Had to eventually get an impact gun up over the rear axel, snake it through the trans tunnel, mess around with different size extensions, snake the air hose to it, and finally snap the bolt off of there. Damn.

marekdennhardt

So now on monday it's time to order a new front parking brake cable, it will be here on tuesday supossedly.
Enough with that stuff. It's time to install the cat converter.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Sweet. Now the other side.

And two more pieces.

marekdennhardt

Now to put it in place.

That is it in place. It looks pretty good. After that I had to weld the 3 last connections while it was on the car. I got half way around one and tacked another, than I ran out of wire. So thats almost done. I think its going pretty good for being my first time doing that kind of thing.
Here are some pictures of the fuel filter job I did a while back.

My dad is back in town now so I will be working on the car more frequently.
Here is my short term plan. On monday jan 18, 2010 order the parking brake cable. On tuesday pick up the cable and some welding wire then head out to my dads for a few days and finish this bad boy up.
Monday - Tuesday 19 2010
Finished welding the cat converter and rehung the enhaust.

Installed the front parking brake cable and put in a new interior dome light. Here is the old cable

I took it out for a drive and tested the ebrake (almost put it in the ditch). Later I did a couple donuts at the turn around. It was sweet. There is some kinda problem with the front right tire sometimes. Two times it felt like a tire had a huge lump in it and the car was shaking.

marekdennhardt

Here is the clearance of my cat on unlevel ground.


After taking it for multiple test drives, I found that there is a major problem with some kind of speed wobble. It goes with the revolutions of the tires, so im thinking its got to be the tires. It feels like its coming from the front right tire and today when I went to the car it was flat and when I pushed on it there was something inside. It felt and sounded like snow somewhat.
Also my blinker lights dont work at all?? Not sure what thats about.
So im thinking all new tires since the ones on it right now are nice, but weather cracked and unsafe.


Still to do
-Get and install front speakers Not important
-Tires
-Troubleshoot blinkers
-Get a safety Gettin closer
-Insurance! In the process
-Full "G class" drivers licence After car is insured




Estimated time of completion of resto:
December 25th 2009
Actual time of completion of resto:
Decmber 20, 2009
Estimated time till safetied and insured:
Jan 25, 2010
Extended to March 17 (funds)
Its gonna be a tight squeeze to get the funds to insure the car by the deadline. I am also in the process of searching for a 350, preferably an LSx engine. That wont be happening for a while though.

marekdennhardt

UPDATE: April 20, 2010

I got a hinge restore kit that I will be putting on the car the next time i work on it. I dont have a job yet so I cant get any money for insurance. I have a feeling a job is coming soon though.

April 29, 2010

I installed the hinge kit and it works alright. Needed a little work.

July 15, 2010
Car randomly stopped running. Then battery went dead, fuel pump stopped and starter stopped. Charged battery, Installed new fuel pump relay, new starter fuse. Car still wont run. I suspect the fuel system. It might need a little more gas in the tank.

July 20, 2010
Cleaned the rims


July 29, 2010

Scraped off the old fake chrome stickers on the rear bumper and door handles

September 23, 2010
Brought the car in for a safety check. They fixed what needed to be done and now all I have to do is get plates and drive it.

September 24, 2010
Got insurance on the car

November 20, 2010


Put the car away for the winter. I have been driving it since october. I love it.

Dmans85

Very impressive. Your work ethic appeared only to be matched by the plentiful amount of rust. I guess your tetanus shot was updated.
We all love posts that are pic heavy. Keep us posted and nice job saving it

MNformula350

iTrader: (2)

Nice. That is almost my Perfect Camaro.

No Ground Effects, 82/82 Z28 Hood and No Rear Spoiler. Now if it was a T-Top......