twizle2

iTrader: (2)

I would not say I am new to this forums but i am certainly not a veteran of it. I thought i would post a little about my Camaro build i am working on

This has brought me into the Camaro love craze... more specifically the third gens. I have fallen in love with it and am now a third gen for life!

A little background..
I am a mechanic for the Marine Corps. I bought this Camaro from a civilian contractor at my shop who was considering scrapping the vehicle. I have never really worked on cars for a hobby or even to fix things. I usually just took them to the mechanic. He offered to sell it to me for $500. So i said "why not... I don't have that much to lose and it is a great project while I am in the Marines."

I got some help from a friend and put it on a trailer and brought it to where i was going to work on it.

This is what it looked like when i got it.






At this point the engine would turn over but nothing would happen.

After using some starting fluid and putting some gas in it the engine would start but would not stay idling which was rather disappointing at the time. So I messed around with the carb and got it to idle but at about 1800 rpms and once you put it in drive it would just cut out.

So at the point i decided to clean the car up a bit and this is what came out.









After cleaning it up, washing it and putting a little love into it that it had not received in a long time it started to look beautiful

Dusk2600

hell looks beautiful man, good deal on that car. THANK YOU for YOUR SERVICE!!! And welcome to the board

twizle2

iTrader: (2)

Next i began to work on the engine. I was a little nervous about it because i had never done anything like that before. So first i cleaned up the engine as best as i could and changed the air filter and the oil filter and then i drained and refilled the fluids multiple times to get all the old coolant and oil out the best i could.





At this point I was still having problems with the engine starting and staying running. so about a month later i decided that I would buy a new carb and see if that would fix most of the problems. I ended up getting a Holly 670 cfm carb. I took the old one off and put this one on and surprisingly it started up the first time and idled!!! At that point i was extremely excited.









At that point we started having problems with the starter. I assume that from cranking so much to try and get the engine started we burnt out the starter. So for a about a week or so we just used a pole to hit the starter as one person turned the key.

It worked for awhile but then one day it went completely out and i had to face reality and buy a new starter. I went to and got a new starter, took the old one off and put the new one on. Once I put it on i realized it wasnt fitting correctly. It had to much play after the bolts were tightened all the way. I took the starter off and realized they gave me the wrong one which I should have realized when i got it. Bone head mistake on my part. So i went to the store and got the correct one. After putting the new (and CORRECT) one on it started up on the first crank!

twizle2

iTrader: (2)

At this point every time i fixed one thing it seemed as if one or two more problems replaced it. So once i fixed the starter another problem arouse.... the alternator. The alternator was working at this point but I noticed every time i flipped on the fans (custom fans put in before i got the camaro) the battery voltage dropped drastically. The fans were taking more power than the alternator could keep up with. And not only that there was a horrible squeal coming from the alternator pulley... the belt was slipping on the chrome pulley. So i decided to get a bigger alternator that was not chromed! I decided to get a 78 amp alternator opposed the the 63 that was on it previously.

This ended with the alternator keeping up with the fans and the no more squeal!!



Like I said before once one problem was fixed another one appeared. So after driving it around for awhile i noticed that it was bouncing a bit and that the vehicle was sitting rather low. So when i got back i decided i would change the shocks and struts. I got some shocks and struts from a member on this board so i decided i would put them on. I started taking the struts off, never have done this before i broke one of the strut mount studs (which i am still trying to find a replacement strut mount) I put the new struts on and put everything back together.





After doing that i moved back to the shocks. I started to take one off when i realized that i was an air shock. so i followed the line back to the fill point, which was tucked away in the back near the license plate holder. So i started to fill it up and and the vehicle started sitting higher and looked great! I am still waiting to see if the seals might be bad and if they are i will replace them with new air shocks.

When taking the tires off i noticed that one of the studs was broken so i thought that i would replaced the stud while the tire was off. After spending some time trying to knock it out with a hammer i decided to heat it up for about 5 minutes with a blow torch and then give it a try. After about 3 hits it popped right out. I put the new stud in and that problem was done!

twizle2

iTrader: (2)

Thanks Dusk2600. It has been a great project so far and it has been worth every penny, sweat and time i have put into it. And it is my pleasure to serve!

twizle2

iTrader: (2)

That is all I have done so far. I am looking to redo most of the interior and put in all new black carpet. I also need to fix the t-tops. it is leaking in two spots as you can see the rust in one of the pictures above. The seals are good so i need to figure out what is wrong with that.

Once im done with the interior I am going to try to build a real nice 350 engine and while i do that i would like to sand down the vehicle and repaint it.

So as you can see i have a TON of work ahead of me.

Like i said before i am very new to ALL of this kind of stuff. I am open to ALL suggestions and will take and advice/help i can get. I hope you all enjoy this build thread

IROCtheRoad

Welcome to the board from one service member to another!!!

You said you bought a project car. If it's one thing, it's 100 others.

Looks like you are getting things taken care of nicely. Keep up the good work and keep us updated.

Dusk2600

same here about the project car, it's always something, it's the labor of love they say.

twizle2

iTrader: (2)

Well I cant wait to get it restored almost all the way. It will look great!