I bought this almost exactly 3 years ago with the intent of just having a nice "Driver" as these came out when I was in High school and I vowed to one day own one.
Little did I know it would take 20 years to finally get one but thats what life will do to ya!
I have a sign business and do painting, graphics & lettering so I figure this would be a good way of showing some of the stuff I could do. Sort of a company car if you will.
Here's the starting point, passed it on the way home one day and plunked down $1800.00 for it. Pretty good shape (or so I thought) and ran decent.


I drove it off and on the rest of the summer to get a feel for it and what I wanted to do with it. In November it went in the garage.
During disassembly I found quite a bit of rust in typical areas and discovered it had also had a drivers qtr put on it previously.

 

The drivers qtr was in excellent shape except in the rear where it met the tail panel as you can see in the pic above. The passenger qtr only had the rust around the wheel well but once you start digging at it, it only seems to get worse, so off it comes!

and replaced with a repop that actually fit pretty well. A lot of people think these are too thin of sheet metal but in all the ones I've put on I've never seen one dent any easier than the originals.


Once that was looking ok, I tackled the other corner on the drivers qtr.

Presto Chango, it's all better!

 

Nice work man.
You need a inner front bumper?
Ihave one from my 89 bird,looks to be the same as yours(whats left of it anyway)lol! You pay the shipping and its yours.

 

Damn...I'm always impressed with you guys that can cut, weld, bond, hammer, etc. cars back into shape. especially went the write-up is so, "casual", like it's easier than breathing.

I can wrench, but body work is a completely lost art for me.

 

Actually that's the rear, and I've since replaced it. Thanks anyway though!

 

While it's apart, I figure it's a good time to put in a disc brake rearend! No issues, everything was a snap from the brake lines to the ebrake cable. Much easier than I thought it would be. I do still need the disc proportioning valve though.

I also opted to change out the springs and found a set of Dropzones on here for a bargain price.

While I'm switching things out, I junked the original hood and got a n 82Z composite hood. I've always liked the looks of the 82-84 hoods better than any others on these cars.

Next step was sanding

and sanding...

and sanding....

And then priming...

and priming...

and priming...


At least it's one color again!!

 

Wow looking good. Maybe I should send you my car for some bodywork...lol

 

I'am restoring an '86 Z t-tops. I hope mine looks as good as yours.
Only the love and deication,and hard work brought this car back to life

ENJOY

 

looks great, when do i get a chance to see it out and about finally? also were you planning on doing up any stickers for this years TGF?

 

Thanks, as soon as I get the brake situation worked out I'll be out and about.

I can do stickers if you'd like. I'll start working on some designs and pm you when done unless you wanted to keep them the same with only the year changed.

 

Nice Job!!! You do good work. Keep posting pic's!!

 

Make sure you add flex agent to your primer, base, and clear when it comes to painting the nose, ground effects and rear bumper. Otherwise, it's only a matter of time until .....spider crack city.

 

i'm 99% sure that this car is completely done being painted since i've seen pics of the hood and nose on the car and they're all done.

 

LOL, my avatar would be a good clue also.

 

I guess I should post an update on this being that the car is 95% done!

We left off at the primer stage. Once that was done I took about a month to decide on a color. I finally decided on a Dodge color - Marathon Blue Pearlcoat. Used on the 07/08 Avengers and others. And because XPNDBL said blue was the best color for 3rd gens.

With the PPG DBC basecoat in the gun I went happily on my way jamming the car. It was pretty cool to actually see a color on it again!


Don't forget under the hood!

And also the bottom of the car and doors as I'll put the spoilers back on when I do the body.

 

Here's where it gets interesting and you'll either love it or hate it but being that there are probably a gazzillion blue camaros on the road I wanted to be a bit different! I chose a Chrysler Silver from the 08 lineup and decided to do the center of the hood in that color. So I masked off that area of the hood that would be blue and went to town with the silver.

 

Well, I feel like I'm talking to myself but oh well! Maybe I should change my name to Neil.
Anyways, once the silver was down it was time to get busy putting the color on this old girl! I never thought I'd see the day! 4 coats of the DBC Base and this is where we stand.



Once that was done it was time to bust out the clear and finally put some gloss back on this thing!
4 coats of clear later and it's starting to look pretty good.

 

Very very very nice thirdgen man...hopefully I wont have to wait 20 yrs to build my Camaro up...maybe even I'll finish a lil something by the time I graduate from high school

 

While I had it up on stands I also replaced the entire front suspension as it would only be a matter of time before things started breaking and I'd rather not lose a ball joint with a new paint job!

I won't bore you with pics of the new parts as they look pretty much the same as all the other rebuilds on here.
I went with 2" Dropzone springs and Monroe shocks all around and couldn't be happier with the way it drives and handles. It doesn't bottom out nearly as bad as I thought it would. Just the lower air dam hits while going up an incline or dip in the road. The stance is killer though!


I wanted to break up the silver on the hood a bit so I added a black checkered flag effect to the indents on the hood in Vinyl. I also made new emblems that say RS/SS instead of the standard original ones just to be different again.
I own a sign & graphics shop so I intend to use the car as advertising at shows and events so It'll probably end up with many different configurations of stripes and whatnot over the years to just show what can be done without touching a paint gun.

The wheel/tires I went with are 17x9 ROH Snypers with 245/45 tires at all 4 corners. I'll probably go with a taller tire in the rear if I can find one eventually though. I also have a set of TelStars Big & Littles on my 72 Camaro that I would like to put on it just to see what they look like at some time. I personally think they'll look better than the ROH's but the handling will suffer greatly!

So there you have it in a nutshell. It took me 2 1/2 years working on it in my spare time and it still has a lot of little things that need to be finished but it's drivable and I'm enjoying the crap out of it! (So is my 16 year old son!)

Don't ask to see the engine compartment as that will be this winters project!
Still has the 305 and I'll keep it in there till it pukes.

 

the car looks great!!! I like that you called it a "company car" lol. the stance is killer and the rim selection is great. i like that you put in a lot of details such as the checkered flag and polishing the front turn signals/ running lights. ever since i did mine i look at cars and that is one of the first things i notice. great job man A++ to you and good luck with the sign business!!

 

wow, i absolutely love that paint job and hood. that checkered pattern looks killer!!!!!

 

Man That thing looks killer.. Looks really good.

 

Thanks, I love writing off car shows on the taxes. LOL

 

I'd like to know what you used to cut away the right rear sheet metal....and how to remove where it has panel sealer at the joints...also was the new panel welded on?....very interested if you have time to answer, thanks.....great looking paint!

 

that car looks awesome nice job love the color combo

 

lol im in the wrong business car looks great

 

Thanks for the compliments guys!

I used an air 3" cut-off wheel to cut the old qtr off and yes the new one is welded on. Go slow or you'll warp the crap out of it!!

I ground away the factory spot welds on the back where it wraps around as it don't mess up the piece you need to weld it back to that way.

 

How did you weld the join along the top of the new panel and across the sail panel? Lap or butt?

 

Everything was butt welded.

 

You'll warp it? Is it made of different gauge sheet metal or something?? lol, Now I have seen some super bees/road runners warp their quarter panels but not these cars.

 

Anytime your welding an aftermarket panel on you stand the chance of warping it if you get it too hot.
Aftermarket panels are much thinner than factory sheet metal and will look like a wavy ocean if you were to weld a continuous bead along it!
Hell, we took an hour to do the 10" span across the sail panel and still got a little warpage.
Time, patience and plenty of cold water applied by rag is mandatory when welding them things.

 

I have a donor car panel to weld in....Do you have any pics of the weld seam....(not trying to harass you, just extremely interested).....and never welded anything (yet)

 

This is pretty much how it looked right after we tacked it in place.
You want to take your time cutting to size and avoid large gaps at the seams.
The taillight is in place to make sure it fits properly back in it's original position.

 

Any more pics of the actual welding work?

 

looks good, thanks for the pictures.

 

LOL, someone should! Now is the time as the cars are a dime a dozen. Only problem is the majority who own them can't afford to fix them which I guess is why they're a dime a dozen! LOL

No, we kinda spaced that out and didn't take any as we were pretty busy at the time. Sorry

 

What did you do about rust in the wheel housings? Did you strip off the undercoating and re-paint at all?

Cheers,
Richard.

 

We ground down about 2" from the outer edge to the metal to get a good weld. We only tacked it about every 4" from the underside though. Then just caulk it and undercoat it again.

 

Excellent work! I am getting ready to start on my B4C RS, wish you lived in Hawaii! Maybe I'll buy ya a plane ticket LOL!