hahaha I think it looks like a shark... just paint some gills on the sides and some teeth on the grill.

 

i took my firebird over to the local GM dealer to have the muffler bracket fixed as it was wanging away at the bottom of the car making an aweful racket. i told the tech rep not to mess with the headliner or a-pillar trim as i knew it was falling apart and had parts on order. when i got the car back one of the techs took it upon themselves to "secure" my driver side apillar trim to the car with a wood screw....

the other ******* thing that was done to my ride was when i discovered the vapor barrier material behind the door panels was held on with a nice helping of duct tape.

im still pretty upset aboutthe wood screw sunk into the roof of my car. the manager did have the hole repaired for me.

 

Hahaha. Look at the comment that was posted in the other board....

It's got a face only a momma baluga whale could love!

 

This sub-model of Camaro is what I would like to name "Baluga Z-28."

 

I haven't recently long got a 1989 Camaro RS for 200 dollars, and a complete car. When I heard about it, it had sat in a field for 3 years and figured this was the project car I was looking for. Well upon getting it I noticed that the P/O used a lip from a plastic flower pot to be the spacer between the air cleaner and throttle body, as well as using a kitchen sponge for a breather filter. Also the drivers side arm rest has this huge hex head bolt that sticks out way beyond the arms rest, so they used washers to space it out.

As for my Trans Am, one of the owners made a cheap speaker box using what must be 3/4" thick particle board to mount the speakers and two strips of what looks like a 2 x 2 to lift it up off the first drop in the trunk. Well the board is about an inch too long...so the plastic in the tunk area is screwed up, not to mention the random screws holding it together and the T-shirt I found wrapped around the tire iron to keep it from rattling in the spare tire area.

 

In the early 80's, my Dad had a 72 VW Beetle with rusted floors, and he used a street sign supported by the sign post to cover the hole and support the driver's seat. If he hit a puddle, water would splash up into the interior.

He used a bicycle pump to pump up the tires in the morning, and again after work to get home. I guess that's how he saved up to pay for me and my brothers' college education.

 

The AC system in my jeep wasnt removed someone took a hack saw and cut the lines to the condenser out. Going to be a pain in the *** the lines hard lines go under the dash through the firewall.

Also instead of fixing the small rust hole in my floor by welding a 2"x2" piece of metal in he just wanted to fiberglass over it What a goof

 

Just found out the PO of my car decided that instead of replacing the rusted out portion of my pass rear quarter panel, he decided to lay about 15mm of Bondo over just about all of it. Other than the crack that expanded and nearly came off on its own (until I pulled it off last week), it looked pretty good, with the exception of everything being 1/8" out of alignment...

Going to be a fun summer fixing that crap... And I don't currently have the equipment to do so. Or the money to have someone else do it...

 

Take pictures and post em.

 

WOW! I never take my car to anyone to work on, but if I did and they put a WOOD SCREW into my car, I would lose my mind. What the hell were they thinking? That person shouldn't be working in an automotive shop, let alone a dealership. It's even worse since the trim had NOTHING to do with the exhaust system and you even told them beforehand not to touch it. Man, I would truely want blood in that situation.

On a lighter note, that white camaro looks like it's melting!

 

Pics are in my "Need an Opinion-Worth the Cost?" thread....

 

.... I just saw your quarterpanel. That looks like doodoo. Wow man. Are you going to replace the QP?

 

I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do about it. There is the whole money vs time vs equipment available thing... I have the time, but not enough of the other 2. I'll know more of what I'm going to do by the time I get the QP sanded down so I know exactly what I'm dealing with. That whole side of the car is just one big freaking mess, from the rear bumper right to the nose. There's rust on the quarter, rust on the junkyard door (original door had a hole punched in it when the car was broken into 6 years ago and I ended up messing it up worse in a small fender-bender with my garage), rust and a huge dent in the front fender, rust on the t-roof, and rust on the floor pan under where the pass side front seat is. The basic structure is untouched, but there really isn't much in the way of decent available parts near me at a decent price I can afford (at the moment). Hence the question of whether or not I should start with another body...

:edit: And I know a guy who had a Dodge that used wood screws to put his dash back together after either stripping out the holes or losing the screws... It was all he had because his dad is a carpenter... I ended up replacing most of the screws when I had the car for a short time.

 

I feel your pain. I work at Target and bring home only around $500 Bi-weekly. I need to completely redo my front suspension with only $10 to my name. Im broke for a week or two. to my IROC's PO'ers. They where so lazy or broke that they repainted the IROC 3 times,,,,,without stripping the paint. When I got my camaro, I noticed the paint chipping off. Upon further investigation, I noticed a primer layer, red (red is the factory color), primer, black, primer, black, primer and finally, the finall coat of black with tiny blue metalic flakes. I cannot believe how much paint and primer my IROC has on it. It's sure going to be a pretty penny when Im able to send the IROC to a body shop to strip, pull minor dents, and repaint.

 

That's more than I make... I'm lucky if I pull in $160/week. I'm not full broke, but the cushion I have left from my taxes isn't all that big, and then I have to pay for insurance and school loans plus food and gas. My registration needs to be renewed, to top it off, by the end of August. My entire suspension, if I didn't post in my other thread, needs to be redone, on top of the body work and every piece of weatherstripping. I mean, it's driveable, but I'd rather be fixing it up right while it's not 30 degrees outside with salt water on the ground (we get lots of snow here). Which is why I'm in a bind. I'm thinking I'm going to end up taking her off of the road so that I have that extra little bit of money (about $120-140/month between insurance and gas) to pull parts and equipment together and get this crap done so I feel better about driving my baby.

 

Wow. I say agian. I feel your pain. Well regardless, we are both on the same boat, as in trying to restore our thrd gen's. Good luck to ya man.

 

as far as a 3rdgen goes
they put in a bolt-in freeze plug
it fell out

had one and only one ford pickup in my life...i lived at the farm at the time
the guy couldnt adjust the e-brake so he extended the cable through a hole
he drilled threw the frame

 

now that i think about it i did find a bag of weed and some papers when i took the rear seats out of a 79 cutlass

 

Yep. $4700 parts list (old part numbers and prices from the Classic Industries resto catalog) and counting, with a 3-page "To Do" list, of which I have about 3 items of about 40 marked off. This doesn't count bodywork (need windshield as well) or a professional paint job. I figure I'll have spent about what the Bird cost off of the showroom floor by the time I'm done just to get her back to factory freshness. Good luck to you too.

 

rofl

 

an old coat hanger holding up the old driveshaft

 

Thanks Maverick

 

How does that happen? Doesnt makes sense. Does anyone have an explaination of how that works?

 

now that...is funny

 

I bought my first 89 Camaro a few years back. me and my wife drove this cars around for like 8 months got pulled over a few times ya know normal stuff. well i decided to re-carpet my ride and as I started removing interior parts i started finding old crack pipes the the previous owner had stashed all over this car..i ended up with like 9 glass pipes all together. i flipped my wig and tryed to contact him but he was locked up for somthing else

 

\

i vote this reply #1 as to the thread topic

 

 

Well I got my first thirdgen from my best friend, total piece of ****, and like a true friend I just picked up a 95 z28 off him a month ago. Where to start:

My accessory braket that holds the power steering pump and altenator fell off while driving. the bolts got stripped out so they siliconed them in place.

Next the head gaskets went. 11 head bolts in total that were only finger tight.

Water pump was next. same story only it took the optispark out with it. also there were a whole bunch of missing timing cover bolts.

Last night driving the car i swear i though the rear diff went. nope, trans mount bolt is hanging over a half inch out, so the trans is free floating.

I guess after i let him tighten my lugs about three years back and the tire came off while driving i should have figured it out. oh well, if he wasnt my best friend i would have stabbed him with an ice pick by now. guess its time to check every bolt.

 

My first car was an 85 iroc-z camaro with t-tops. The guy we bought it off of said it didnt run. My dad and i said ok, we take it home, drain the gas change the oil, you know usual stuff, starts right up, were like yea! until we looked a little closer. The fan was hard-wired to the battery so they connected it before they started it up... everytime. we started to change the plugs, 7 out of 8 were different brands, with different sized gaps!!! I dont know how the thing ran ok. but yea...

 

When I first got my 1980 Camaro I had to drive around with my shift cable ziptied to the bracket cause the clip was gone and another time my throttle cable broke on the highway so I had to turn up the carbs idle to 4500 rpms or so, this made it so I could idle all the way home on the highway at 45 mph. I'd come to a stop at a light and I'd let off the gas and it would accelerate buck up to 45 and coast there

 

I super glued my front bumper back on a 4th gen firebird after I hit a fence. That's pretty ghetto lol.

 

About a week after I bought my 88 IROC, the hatch pull-down quit working. I pulled out the plastic cover to find that the casing for the pull-down motor was broken in half. The PO had used a C-clamp to hold the halves together. He hadn't tried to glue it and then clamp it. No, he just went with the clamp. Put the cover back over it so that I couldn't tell that it was messed up. Luckily I found TGO and learned where and how to get the right parts to fix it.
The other ghetto thing done to my car was the piece of wooden baseboard molding to hold up the hood and rear hatch. The guy didn't even spring for a 2x4. Just a flimsy piece of leftover junk. That's probably why the hatch pull-down was busted. The hatch probably fell on it because the wood wouldn't hold the weight.

 

So far I only have fans hardwired to ignition, 1/4" bondo on rear quarter, and my custom pieces of 1x1 cut specifically to hold my headlights up in case I drive at night. Only the latter is my "fix". I rarely drive the car, and even rarer to drive at night so I always forget about my stripped headlight motor gears.

 

You can easily rewire the job and install a relay for your fans.

 

Mine also ran..somehow...with different gaps. At least they were ALL Bosch plugs though...o.o

My PO had a piece of jet black tape over the "check engine" light. I didn't even notice it until a friend who was riding shotgun pointed out a small sliver of orange light and peeled it.

The first day I test drove it, my PO said "Ehh...You really gotta get on that gas..it's no punk. " Eventually I learned what this really meant though: that the fuel pump had grown tired and weary. The car barely moved unless I literally floored it. I came close to holding up traffic while pulling out of his driveway. When we discussed the issue, he told us a few injectors needed to be replaced.

Also, my PO was gracious enough to include a broomstick handle to hold up the trunk, since the lifts were dead. Still haven't gotten around to replacing those

 

I think the best was when i crashed my 86 iroc into a ditch because of the rain (it was the first day i had ever driven it or a rear wheel drive and found out not to fishtail in the rain) the front fender hit a stone wall. It didn't damage the car at all, it actually fixed my speedo that had been jumpy all day and made it show the speed exactly.

 

The P/O of my 1988 Camaro was a piece of work alright. I guess he had to do a brake job on the rear brakes and instead of jacking it up and putting the jack stands under the rear frame he put them on rear end. Well since I have disc rear it makes it impossible to get the lower bolt out of the caliper with weight on the rear end. So instead of taking pressure off the rear end he decided to just take a torch and put holes in the lower control arms so he could get the bolt out through there. When I did my first brake job on the car I was thinking what in the hell is this hole here for?! Well I figured it out and I just couldnt believe what I was seeing. So needless to say the control arms got replaced very quickly!

 

Hey, my PO gave me a stick with a big *** nail sticking out to hold up my hood. I would have much rather had a broom stick.

 

Yeah I think alot of us are guilty of not having actual hood or hatch struts. Considering we're all spending money on other things those are usually way down on the "to get" list.

 

Or we have them and are pretty much better off without... There's a reason I keep a ball bat in my car, and it's not to thump my tires.

 

I know what you mean man!!! I pretty much got told my car was a POS today because someone who had my car before I had been hit from behind and it bent the frame and the driver side back panel. So my door overlaps and doesn't shut, by an 1/8" lol They put body putty all on that side so you can't even tell it happened but the fender is starting to stress and the sheet metals' cracking now. $700+ for the frame to get fixed not including the body damage that'll do. $700 on it to get repainted. Couple hundred on the door hinge and all that business to get fixed too. I think I'll sell the car before any of that get fixed out of my wallet! Sad thing is I think I've nearly reached $10,000 or more in that car fixing everything and rebuilding it and I'll be lucky to get $5,000 out of it now.

Oh my car's getto because 90% of the car is an 88 but that back quarter panel where it's messed up is an 82 according to the verification tag in the trunk. 88 on the tag in the front.

 

A friend of mine has a car that's been quite a bit of laughs lately. Things so far:

The Good

* Sway bar end links appear to have been recently replaced.
* Stereo is very nice.
* Brake fluid reservoir was full.
* No slop in the column.
* Steering appears to be tight.

The Bad

* Needs new windshield.
* Driver's side door does not lock at all.
* Turn signal canceling cam is missing.
* Turn signal lever is bent to the point where left turns can not be indicated via the switch.
* Steering column lock plate c-clip is missing. Plate is just "set inside."
* Tilt lever is bent.
* Inside rear view mirror needs to be replaced. The current one is flopping around.
* Tires show signs of dry rot.
* Wiring under the dash is a huge mess.
* Stereo system has a short in it.
* Inside driver's door handle is missing.
* Power locks do not work.
* The hood strut mount on the passenger side is bent and only partially bolted down. '
* Hood struts are weak.
* Rear hatch struts are useless.
* Hood latch is bad. Rigged with wire which hangs out the front of the car.
* Hood latch release is missing from the interior.
* At least two bulbs in the cluster are burned out.
* Head light motor wiring on the driver's side is damaged.
* Head light mounting bracket on the driver's side is broken. (Metal snapped or cut.)
* AC was improperly deleted.
* Front and rear sway bar bushings need replacement.
* E-Brake does not work.
* Transmission will not go into park.
* Missing screw from inside the steering column.
* Missing sun-visors and sun-visor hardware.
* Smog pump deleted.
* Various wiring issues.
* Needs new dual fan setup properly installed.


The Ugly

* Incorrect rear plastics. The ones used were from a 1991 Camaro with shoulder belts for the back seats.
* 1 rear lap belt is red. The other is gray.
* Rear deck lid plastic trim is red.
* Rear deck lid mounted with the wrong screws. Bolts were used instead.
* Spoiler has had excessive amounts of Bondo applied. It was never sanded and has a drywall/stucco texture to it.
* There are several paint runs and over spray from the rattle can black paint job applied to the car's hood and rear deck lid.
* Driver's side door ground effect is torn open.
* Passenger side ground effect on the nose isn't screwed in properly.
* Hood is warped and covered in un-sanded Bondo (Stucco like texture.)
* Steering wheel leather is virtually disintegrated. It was repaired using electrical tape. Finally the steering wheel cover was put in place after that.
* Edelbrock stickers everywhere on the car. No Edelbrock parts or products have been found in the car.
* Part of the stereo bezel is missing.
* Stereo is also only bolted in on one side.
* Door handles are chrome (This is just ugly)
* Key hole/lock cylinder added to the driver's side fender.
* Distributor cover missing from the TPI plenum.
* Driver's side mirror is cracked.
* Driver's side mirror housing hangs down too low.
* Rear hatch needs alignment.
* Car obviously needs a paint job.
* Car has 4 black Camaro wheels which have been badly rattle canned in black.
* Improper lug nuts were used. These are the cheap AutoZone variety which were originally done in chrome but are now rattle can black.
* The front tires used are 15" tires that are extremely low profile. This caused the car to sit lower than stock.
* An extra Y-pipe was used in the exhaust system to create an exhaust cutout. It is not electric and is simply open all the time. This y-pipe scrapes the ground often and of course doesn't allow for full A-arm travel without hitting metal on metal.

 

It's not a POS bro. Here's how I see it. It was unintentionally modified by the rear-ender as a compact Camaro. That's messed up man. Well I hope you get the most out of it.

 

I can't quite tell if my quarter is factory or not (has fiberglass on the inside ), but it's absolutely disgusting. Did I mention that my driver's side front fender is a GM replacement and the dented and rusty pass fender comes from an 88 with a 305? And that both bumper covers have been replaced (but it seems that the bumperettes are either factory or junkyard replacements)? Oh, and that quarter is misaligned 1/8" to the rear of the car (door gap is 1/8" towards the back compared to the driver's side), but there seems to be no indication of a collision and nothing was reported to Alabama, so there wasn't any indication of anything wrong when I had a CarFax done shortly after I bought the car (other than the fact that I'm at least the 4th owner and that one of the owners lost the title at least twice). Oh, and both hem flanges from front to rear were all bent up and still require about a full day to straighten, even though I already partially straightened them a few years ago.

Looks like someone took a bite out of the silver behind the day/night lever in my interior rearview mirror, windshield is cracked in a corner (damn that railroad crossing I used to HAVE to go over to get to work!), and did I mention the hack job done to the front brakes? The rear drums were pretty much worn to the rivets in the shoes and my drums had to be resurfaced to the maximum (and maybe even a little over) to get the notches and scoring out. I know there's more, but that's all I can think of that I might not have posted before in this thread. Good news is that the firewall and bulkhead have no rust, but all of the factory body seam sealer is going to be replaced when it stops raining here (so I can use the power to the garage and use my wire wheel to get the rest of that crap out of there). It's coming off in huge chunks.

 

Wow... makes me think of mine as show room Camaro right now :P I remember when I restored mine it barely had any rust at all. Of course I didn't check the back end all that much, which oddly enough I think every 3 Gen has some rust back there no matter what! I'm scared to even lift up the carpet back there and some spots now lol
Well I finally got my door to quit sagging... used a nice fat washer to take up that extra room between the hinge and the welded hinge on the door itself. Man it helped drastically!! Just had to get creative I guess, without that washer taking up that extra room it would still be ripping and cracking my skirt. But I adjusted the bolts for about 2 hours straight to get it all right, tightened em and prayed to God when I tried to shut it, it wouldn't hit the skirt. It shut and the door doesn't budge, still overlaps but hey I'm happy I can at least use the door now.. what a relief. No more crawling across the console or through the window for nearly 2 years now lol

 

Hahaha! I can see that
Yeah I think once I get to college in about 2 months and get away from the 3 mile "dirt road of death to all cars new or old" that back side won't be hammered so much like it's used to, it'll do much better on paved roads for awhile. It should hold together just fine I hope! Since I'm going for mechanical engineering, I'll see if I can make my car an assignment of structural integrity and metal work ingenuity as a class project

 

I bought this IROC from a Kid and the car had been in a front end collision. They replaced the fenders, the front nose and ground effects and reworked the radiator support (instead of replacing it).

The hood looked like it had been crumpled up into a ball and then unwrapped and beaten with a hammer to flatten it out. A brown paper bag crumpled up would have less dents and creases in it. They couldnt get it to latch so they drilled the hood and put hood pins to keep it closed.

 

I recently wanted to trick out my car, so I decided to paint it lime green and put speakers, a flat screen tv, and a dvd player in the back. I also tinted my windows to add style.

 

If you can get anywhere near $5000 for a car that has a tweaked frame and a large amount of body filler on a rear quarter panel, then you must have one hell of a drivetrain or gold bars in the hatch!

 

It's not extremely bad lol A normal person wouldn't be able to tell anything from the outside, heck I didn't even notice it for a very long time.
Well other than that one issue, which may get fixed may not in a few years, every square inch of the car's been tended to. It's getting re-painted in a week and they'll work on that quarter panel for me.
New motor, maybe a year old. Tranny isn't much old than when I got it. Hasn't ever let me down, starts up every time. The interior is flawless. It shouldn't be hard to get some money out of it but you know I'd still ask for top value of it since I put all the labor and all the money into it myself from ground up lol If it doesn't sell well looks like I still have a pretty awesome Camaro