I am starting this to tell the story of trying to bring my 1986 Z-28 back to "near new".

I bought the car to drive, not to store in a garage and trailer to events. The pictures below are right after I had it towed home and gave it a quick wash. It was NOT that shiny. That is just because it was still wet.

The interior was VERY faded, but no tears or major issues w/ the seats. The headliner was falling out completely.

Original interior color is black, but portions looked blue or purple, depending on how much fading from the sun it had. I did not get pictures of that, though.

 

Ok, now on to the initial problem areas I saw.

It has some bubbled paint on the bottom of the window frames. There is a crack at the rear passenger door side corner of the T-Top.

I could get the car to run, but it was rough.

The rough running was likely related to some pretty sketchy wire conditions. The relays by the master cylinder had up to 3/4" of bare wires showing. Other cut/splices around the engine bay. The radiator fan ran continuously. Almost all the wires at that fan relay had exposed bare wires.

The Passenger fender/door have bad alignment issues.

Both rear corners of the hood were crushed. I did not get better pictures of the entire hood. It had been stripped by the prior owner. It looks like they used a "needle gun" to strip it. The surface was almost like bed liner... but it was just mostly bare steel.

The edges of the windshield are delaminating. No cracks or such, but the sides have what looks like bubbles all along the edges.

 

Up to this point, I thought I had some wiring stuff to figure out, a fender to play with to get the door gap a little better, maybe a lot of buffing on the paint to get a bit of a shine and a hood to paint.

I could handle that... and have me a 3rd Gen again to drive while I figured out the "long term plan".

I took her out for a few drives to check out how she ran. Engine was stronger than I expected, transmission was working good, most of the gauges were NOT working, power windows very slow, driver seat moved A LOT.

First priority, figure out that driver seat. It felt like it was about to fall over to the rear seat.

I look at it, and the front left leg is not bolted down. A-HA !! Simple fix. Unbolt the seat to get a better look.

Oops... that stud is pulled away completely from the u-channel under the the seat mount. Pull door sills and lift up the carpet...

Bright Orange floor pans. Ah $#!T !!!

No rust on the floor pans from underneath the car, but the floor pans have that really ugly look under the carpet.

I keep pulling away more and more carpet to see where it ends... Well, I am not sure when it will end now.

Change of plans... Park the Camaro for a while, do s lot of rust repair/remediation of the floors and fix all that wiring before I have a fire.

Below is a pic of the floor pan after I cleaned it up a bit with a flap wheel. The flap wheel ended up revealing some spots where daylight passes through.

The story continues...

 

The crack on the roof by the t-tops was a real concern to me. After finding the rust on the floors, I decided that all the weather stripping would get replaced at a minimum while I was fixing the floors.

This is what I found when I pulled the weather stripping from the passenger side.

I can only assume that 2 pieces met together at that area from the factory and it had a bad weld. It is small, but the repair will be fairly visible. This spot concerns me the most. The floors will be covered w/ seam sealer and POR-15 along w/ carpet, but this is right there on the roof. Compound curves and all... I will need to build up my metal skills before getting to this spot. Not looking forward to this one.

 

I happen to be lucky and live a couple miles from a Harbor Freight. I know a lot of people consider this place "crap", but for what my purposes are, the tools are great. Good prices and they have a lot of things I cannot find elsewhere... Plus, in that moment when I just "need" to get done, they are down the road and I can get that "specialized" tool that just gets the job done.

I went to the store w/ the intention of getting some sanding disks for my die grinder and also for my larger angle grinder. I was sorting through cut off disks, grinding disks and flap wheels trying to figure out how many of each I would need to get some progress on my floor pan repair.

I took a walk around the store w/ a basket full of too much stuff while trying to think it all through my mind of what I "really" needed, when I came to the corner w/ the scratch and dent/returned/open box items. There was a REALLY large multi-process welder there. I was curious... $650 Wow... kind of high for Harbor Freight... Especially for the clearance rack.

So, I went to the section w/ the welders and saw that this thing was normally almost $1,000. Wow !!! HF has really upped their game w/ the stuff they sell, I thought. I reviewed some stuff online about this welder... ALL Positive comments. But, $750 is way too much money for me. Plus, I have NEVER welded in my life... TOO much money... I wonder around some more... still thinking about it when I find myself back at the discount rack. I then notice a sign "ALL ITEMS 50% OFF". Hmmm... $650 is NOT 50% off of $1,000. I talk to a couple associates about what the sign means... They determine it is 50% off the lowest marked price.

OK, so the basket of flap disks, cutoff wheels, sanding disks, wire wheels get dropped off and I leave the store w/ a $325 multi-process welder...

At this point, I am excited and anxious... did I just waste a bunch of money on something I have no hope in figuring out how to use.

 

Time to teach myself how to weld. Actually, I watched some pretty good videos from Eastwood and others I found on You-Tube before playing w/ the welder.

I picked up some 16 gauge plate at the local Lowes. I cut it in a few places then welded it back together.

It was actually a lot of fun... played w/ the settings to experiment w/ what too much or too little resulted in and how the end weld would look.

I finally got enough nerve (or beer in me) to cut a section from the floor pan and attempt to weld in a patch.

Overall, I am very happy with it.

Weld beads are VERY hard to grind down, though. I have heard of different mig-wire that is easier to grind that was made for auto body repair. I might research and get some of that.

I think this spot is acceptable... I will be under the carpet and the seat... But I will need to get better before attempting the window frame and the roof crack.

I also need to locate some floor pan patches. This one spot I just "fixed" will likely get cut out for a larger replacement.

Right now, I can only find full length pans for either the driver or passenger side. Doesn't seem anyone makes patches for sections of the floor like they do for 1st and 2nd gen.

The auto recycle search engine shows the nearest floor pans to me at 560 miles away. Too many 3rd gens destroyed in the local circle tracks, I guess for my region to have any left in the bone yards.

 

I have located a few other areas to develop my welding skills before doing anything that will be visible.

Previous owner hacked a hole in the trunk area to replace the fuel plump. This pi$$ed me off, but the way it was cut appears to be just a flat piece of sheet metal that should be easy enough to make a patch for.

I do not trust hose clamps on the fuel injection gas lines. I am also worried about the noise or fumes into the passenger compartment from this fairly large hole.

I also discovered the battery tray... Well, there isn't one. Another area that should not be too hard to repair. The battery tray patches happen to be available for the 3rd gen cars.ss

 

Ok, after some playing with the welder I attempted a small repair. I think it is good for some one w no previous welding experience. Unfortunately, the rest of the floor repair will need actual floor pan patches. I do not think I can do the metal shaping for the other repair areas.

 

Quite a score on the welder!

Welding IS fun. Lots of videos online to guide you. Then practice, practice, practice. Weld every piece of steel scrap you can get your hands on.

 

Finally got around to some more work on my car

Lucky for me, the cut made for the fuel pump was in an area that is just flat sheet metal. No bead rolling or curves to form.

I did not take pictures of the fitting process. I used magnets to hold a piece of poster board in place and traced the opening. I then used it to transfer the shape to steel. It did not go as easy as I thought. Quite a bit of extra trimming and fitting than I thought.

Here is the final patch after much grinding. I am still a grinder not a welder (more grinding than welding). I have a couple pits that appeared while grinding. I'll hit them w a couple spots of weld then prime the area.

It is MUCH better than the gaping hole the previous owners had there. Should be air/water tight and help w road noises.

 

I also located a 9 bolt, posi disk break rear end.

Not sure if it was a good use of money or not. My car is an original Z28, but w open diff, drums and a 2.73 gear. The new one is a 3 27. The older cast iron calipers, though.

The obvious thing is to get the better PBR brakes... But, that is more money. Looks like brackets are about $95. I would need to replace or repair the calipers anyways... Disks are about $25 each, so really not much more to upgrade to PBR than to use the iron calipers.

Either way.. upgrade from drums. I now have a posi and better gear

The rear also came w some box style control arms. They have grease fittings and poly bushings, but I have no idea of brand. Pretty rusty. Not sure if worth the effort to clean up and paint vs $100 on a set of new ones (or more for tubular adj types).

 

I also now have a patch for passenger side floor. It has a few holes from removal from donor car I wish I didn't have to deal w, but it doesn't have the cancerous rot of my existing floor.

I need to really spend some time figuring out this cut and weld.

I just need to look at it as more FUN. Unfortunately, temps here are supposed to hit the 90's this week and I don't have AC in the garage.

 

The passenger side is now "Flintstones" style.

Hardest part here was locating the spot welds.

I need to do A LOT more trimming/fitting to get the patch fit up correctly.

I can say that a corded 4 1/2" grinder is MUCH better than my Porter Cable 20v cordless or using an air powered one. I have a HF corded angle grinder that is so much nicer to use. The air powered ones don't have the speed or torque to keep cutting and the cordless one doesn't last long enough. The corded one is more powerful than the cordless one too. All 3 have their places, but I see me using the corded one most often. That is especially true w how bad my welds are. 😏

 

Good luck on that repair of the roof at the pillar. Very strange indeed.

Tony Huntimer
CamaroFamily

 

Love your updates. My 86 has a similar stress crack on the drivers side. Not as wide tho looks like someone stuck a screw driver in there and spread it apart some. Question... is your car on jack stands when you took that pic? I ask cause mine is wider while lifted but when I put it back on wheels, and lower it it closes back up. I'm still learning so when my welding skills get better ill be asking on here if I should repair it stretched out or closed up lol. Also some advice i got when I posted about the same issue a while ago is to drill a small hole at the edge of the crack so it won't keep continuing on. Looks like you may need to drill two at the end of each crack. Any ways I'm following your progress!

Dave

 

I have not noticed a difference in the crack size when the car is off the ground on jack stands or sitting on the ground. But, I have not specifically looked to see if it changes, though.

I have picked at the crack on my car and the hole is definitely larger now than before. It started out just looking like a crack in the paint w/ some rust staining. When I pulled off the weather stripping and messed more, it quickly opened up to reveal a worse problem.

My thought was the crack might be cause by flexing of the body due to some aggressive driving in the past. With so much roof gone due to T-Tops, it makes sense the roof would be weaker.

My other theory is there is a factory joint there and the weld wasn't the best quality.

As far as my repair, I think I will cut out a couple inches to each side of the crack and back an inch or more on the roof. That way, I will guarantee to get any rusty material that might exist underneath that I cannot see. Plus, if that corner region has cracked before due to stress, then making that a solid piece of steel and placing the weld a few inches away would hopefully put less stress on my welds.

The comment about drilling a hole at the point of the crack does make sense from previous mechanical engineering classes and such I have taken. The stress at a point or sharp angle, even the corner of a square, is MUCH greater than the stress in the exact same material/location with a curved edge. Eastwood sells a "Rust Encapsulator" product that comes in an aerosol can with a long thin tube. It is made to coat the insides of areas that are not readily accessible. If I were you, I would get that or similar and try to use it to coat the inside of your roof region through the crack to make sure you are not getting a lot of rust on the backside due to water leaking in. Then I would at least try some weatherstripping adhesive or RTV like material to "plug" the hole up to keep water from entering the body cavity and causing damage where ever it would migrate to.

I am not an experienced metal forming, welding or body guy. So, this is all theories and good ideas in my mind right now.

Before my car returns to the road, I plan to get a set of sub-frame connectors. I have not looked into them much, so I am not sure what type or brand. But, your comment about the crack in roof opening when the car is jacked up, makes me think the sub-frame connectors are needed even more. Since I now have a welder, I will likely go with a set of weld in connectors. I do not plan to take the car to any tracks and want the car to mainly look like it would have been in 1986, but I am willing to do a few "upgrades" to make it better where needed.

This afternoon and weekend, I plan to get more into fitting the floor pan patch. That should give me a lot more experience w/ the welding part. Before I weld on the new floor patch, I am going to spend some time welding on the pieces I cut out. My welder has a computer like display where you select what gauge sheet metal you are welding, if it is carbon steel, stainless, alum... and then what gas (or no gas) and the size of the wire the MIG is loaded with. Based on those menu options, it comes up with the "recommended settings". From those default settings, I can adjust the power up or down, adjust the wire speed, and deeper in the menus are other more technical settings I don't really understand. I plan to make the scrap pieces as clean as possible and run a few welds w/ stock settings and then play w/ wire speed and power to see if it is better or worse. The main variable is ME... Time for me to practice too.

My repair on the roof crack will likely be one of the last areas I repair. I want to save the visible areas for last while learning and practicing on the floor, firewall and battery tray areas that will be less visible when done.

 

Yeah I agree completely. The crack on mine is a hair line. I don't want to hijack your post with a pic of mine lol but regardless I have been reviewing that Eastwood Rust Encapsulator for other areas of the car but an FYI not sure if your head liner is out, but with the headliner out (which mine is), you can actually reach in behind there and touch that crack with your finger so, if you were to spray that product in there, likely it's going to also soak into the top of your head liner and that side speaker panel.

Dave

 

My car is a shell right now. I might have exceeded my ability with what I have started. It is currently in MANY pieces. Headliner was shot. One of the first things I removed.

I looked up and found the thread where you had asked about the cracks in your car. Some of your pictures look similar to mine. I do not have the cracks near the gear shifter. I do have some rust in the cowling area, but have not gotten around to worrying about that repair yet.

I am not sure if I would just weld the crack like some others responded for your car. The cut you had on your roof for the t-top channel is basically what I envision to do on mine for the cracked area. It will need a curve to it, though which adds to the difficulty.

 

Ya same here I've basically stripped my car completely... took the gas tank out the other day which was a beotch but this is my first project. Next up is the rear inner bumper. Just took off a frigging tow hitch!! Who puts a tow hitch on an Iroc... and yes overwhelming at times my garage and shed are full of parts haha but I'm having fun! I really still have no explanation to why that crack is around my gear shift, but as I come across other mysteries on this car, all I can think of is when the previous owner put in the tranny, he didn't bolt it down properly and the gear shifter knocked it. But I have no idea. The previous owner messed with this car a lot lol
oh and the piece I took out of the roof was a huge mistake haha now I know. It will be the last thing I repair it will take some experience haha

 

I am in the process of learning the issues that previous owners created or tried to fix. When you tear them down you find some strange things. Like, I have 3 random holes in the firewall. I assume those 1/2" to 3/4" holes helped contribute to the rusty floors in my car. Those welded repairs will be almost impossible to see once the car is together, but their locations will not make it easy to patch/weld either.

My rear bumper is still on... about the only thing I have not removed.

I have gone through a few dozen ziplock bags that I have marked w/ a marker to try to keep all the fasteners and small parts organized. I hope I have been detailed enough to help me when I try to reassemble. Right now, a bag labeled "Hood Hinge Bolts" seems more than descriptive enough... but who knows how that will seem when I am going to do the install.

In some cases, I have used wide masking tape to tape the bag of fasteners to the actual part. I also have a cardboard box full of bags of fasteners, too.

I really should have taken more pictures during the disassembly, but if I did, I would probably still be in the disassembly phase. Need a TV production crew here to film/document everything real time.

Also, there is an Assembly Manual on Rock Auto that has the GM Factory engineering diagrams w/ part numbers. I think it was $20. I also found a digital version on Ebay for about the same price. I think it will be invaluable during reassembly.

PM me if you need info from those sources.

 

yup I got a lot of freezer bags for parts. Took lots of pictures, but lost some of the early ones when my phone crapped out while on vacation last year. On mine for some reason one of the previous owners changed the dash as it has the wrong emblem on it and the steering wheel was replaced cause its not what came on the car per the RPO code list.. and on and on and on haha

 

Finally got around to working on patching the rust in the passenger floorboard again.

Yesterday was in the mid 90's here w/ humidity in the 90's also. It was quite miserable out there. Plus, the breaker to my garage outlets kept tripping on me. This POS place I am in now only has one circuit to the garage and it is 15 amps. I had a fan blowing near me while using the grinder to trim the patch and the floor. I guess the attic fan in the garage was also running and that was enough to pop the breaker. I guess I need to get a proper circuit run to my garage to power the toys...

Anyways, today was much better w/ temperature. I turned off the air compressor so it would not cycle, turned off the attic fan and anything else to make sure I did not have electrical issues today.

Floor pan is now tacked into place. I am happy overall with it. I think some would just throw some seam sealer on it at this point and call it done, but I want a better install.

The technique I am using for this one is to trim the patch to w/in about 1/2" of the opening and then tack it in with an overlap joint. The tacks are about 1.5" apart. I am then using the cutoff wheel at approx 45 degree angle to cut through both pieces at one of the welds but not cutting into the 2 adjacent welds. I then push the panel in at the center of the cut till flush and retack the patch in place. I will keep doing this all around the patch until it is cut and tacked again. At this point, the small scrap of original floor should be cut free from both the patch and original floor (or mostly) and I can just wiggle and rip it out. Should then have tight fitting panel w/ very little gap and sitting flush.

At least that is the theory. I have seen it work very good on some online videos. Honestly, it is not quite as simple as the videos made it out to be. But, they were doing flat panels, much more experienced than I and have editing capabilities before posting the video.

Anyways, when I am done it will be MUCH better than the Swiss-cheese that was there before and I think a better patch job than most cars likely get except at full restoration shops. In the mean time, I am having fun.

The orange goop towards the rear of the panel is the adhesive from the pad put there by the factory. There is a plug of some sort there for some reason. It would appear to be a drain, but it had about 1/4" of this rubbery orange tar like stuff sealing it all up and then covered w/ some underlayment. Took close to an hour w/ the heat gun to loosen that crap up as good as shown in those pictures.

Does anyone know if GooGone or similar will dissolve that stuff? I try to minimize the use of stuff like that as my garage is attached and not very sealed from the main house. Anytime I open a container in the garage I have a few people complaining about the smell.

I'll post some more picture once I get further along with the cutting/re-welding process.

 

The patch for passenger floor pan is now welded in place. I still need to prime the whole thing and use some seam sealer.sealer.

The technique to cut both panels between the tack welds worked great in spots and not so good in other places. I think if my patch area was flat, it would be a lot easier for that method. My air panel saw was better for cutting the two panels. The cut off wheel made too large of a gap. The air saw seems to be really lacking in power, though.

A flap wheel is MUCH better for grinding down the welds than an actual grinding disk.
​​​​​​I'm not getting hired any time soon for my welding ability but I am pleased w the results so far.

Latest pics below.

 

I think you are doing great! You are still learning, but watching videos on YouTube is the way to go. You will improve in leaps and bounds. I've had lots of jobs where welding was a job requirement. I was formally trained in the automotive collision industry. My welding skills are pretty damn good, but even I am not always happy with the results. Maybe I'm just too much of a perfectionist. That trait always makes me strive for better welds. I've been doing it for over 25 years, (MIG/TIG/ARC) I'M still always learning. About 10 years ago, I got into plasma cutting ( Another job requirement) and can honestly say it has been lots of fun.
DR.K.

 

Thanks.

I am OK w the results, but I "expect" the invisible welds I have seen on TV and YouTube.

The welds definitely look better w a flap wheel treatment. I was very surprised with how quickly the flap wheel "fixed" my welds.

It's still a lot of fun.

 

Dbl post

 

A grinder and paint make me the welder I ain't.

Good looking welds really are an art.

 

Yeah, no kidding! I May be a "professional" (Always disliked that word. 'professional' just means you do it for a living, not that you are actually 'good' at it.) But I'm no Picasso. I'm probably just too hard on myself. I'm Always chasing the perfect "moons" weld especially when TIG welding.
I usually end up just telling myself; "form follows function" and ask myself; "Will this weld work?". If the answer is "yes", then I break out the grinder, and finish up.
I've pulled off the"invisible weld" maybe 50 times in my whole life. Those were all great days, no matter what else happened.😁
DR.K.

 

Funny thing about learning to weld: you start critiquing every weld you see. For instance, my car hauler trailer was hand welded by a guy who was an absolute artist. Beautiful beading and puddling.
I recently bought a new fabricated aluminum radiator and am in love with the welds on it. Definitely machine welded; too perfect, no start/stop marks, just perfect sliver moons, all the way through. No grinding anywhere. I can't stop staring at it Everytime I open the hood, which is often, as it's a Jeep.
DR.K.

 

For some reason that I cannot remember now, I put off working on my car for many months. Part of it was moving my car to the side so I could drop the ladder to the attic in order to get the Christmas decorations out. After that the drive had a lot of boxes for the decorations for a few months. That doesn't explain the approximate 7 months of me doing nothing.

I finally cleared out all the debris from the top of the car and around the car so I can actually get to it now.

Then I started by cleaning up the rear axle assembly and getting a fresh coat of paint on it.

After the axle assembly was cleaned and freshly painted, I started mocking up the conversion to the PBR brake system.

 

One of the last things I tried to do late last fall was to sandblast the engine compartment and the rest of the floorboards in firewall on the inside of the car. I found out that my air compressor is large enough to transfer a large quantity of sand all over the place and make a huge mess. however, it is not powerful enough to actually to sandblast any paint, primer or rust from my car.

I vacuumed all the sand debris from the interior of my car and thought the rust wasn't as bad as I remembered.

I had ordered a floorpan patch about 3 months earlier for the driver side, but due to "COVID" it hadn't even shipped yet. I cancelled the order, dusted off my welder and had some fun.

A few of my rust holes were just spots. The area around the hole was much thinner than the original metal. Last year, I tried to weld the holes, similar to plug welding a joke left from a cleko, but it typically resulted in blow through.

This time around, I used a stepped drill bit to drill the rust holes out to about an inch diameter. That way I had a perfectly round hole and was out to unaffected metal. I then made a circle patch out of a strap of sheet metal by welding a small section of coat hanger to the center and then spinnning the patch attached to my drill and using my grinder to make this patch perfectly round. I kept turning the circle down until it perfectly fit the hole I previously cut in my floor pan. This resulted in me getting a lot more of the small rusted areas repaired without the blow through problem I was having last Summer.


Small rust holes drilled out w stepped drill bit.

Spinning patch w drill while using grinder to make the patch round and trimming to an exact fit.

Test fitting round patch.

Test fit of patch.

Ugly weld, but grinder, paint and eventually carpet will make it look perfect.

 

Once done w the areas I could fix with round patches, I did a few larger regions.

Still not pretty, but I am feeling more comfortable with the welding and fitting of patches.

 

I've been watching a lot of paint videos on YouTube this Winter and Spring. A channel called "Paint Society" has provided a lot of entertainment and made me feel more comfortable with painting the car, myself.

A few videos on that channel along with a couple others, demo'd turbine sprayers. Specially, the brand Fuji.

A few weeks after watching the video on the turbine sprayers, I saw one near me for sale on Craigslist.

I have only sprayed water through it to test it, but soon I will be getting primer and using my new to me turbine sprayer to apply it.

My logic is the primer will help tech me to spray. It mostly gets sanded off during bodywork anyways.

I will probably waste some base cost on my old hood as practice before spraying any on my actual car panels.

 

the seam between the floor pan and the transition piece to the firewall is full of rust.

I decided to not try to duplicate the overlap of the two pieces and I am just going to butt weld a replacement piece to eliminate the overlap joint.

Needs more welding from this picture and grinding. Need to make the next section first to blend it all in.

Getting really close to being done with the floor repairs.

I wanted to get fuel tank and axle in this week end. I ordered a new tank, pump and sending unit. Supposed to have been delivered on Friday, but FedEx returned the package due to damage. They did not give me a chance to see it, so it must have been bad. It was on the truck for delivery to my house when they rejected it. Not sure how long the return to sender and then replacement will take.