I've been putting off starting this thread for a while. I know a lot of people's first thing to say is to junk it, I have come too far to do that. It's very sentimental to me, it's my first car, the car I learned how to drive manual in, and learned how to work on cars on this one. I have always wanted a third gen, but it's a shame that most of my ownership of this car has been with it in pieces. I have driven it and it was fun, but I couldn't get to experience it with the ttops out sine I knew the driver side floor was pretty bad. As a kid I always enjoyed building scale models, the body work and air brushing was my favorite part. I know cars are different but metal work and body repair is actually kind of fun. I made a scale model of what I hope the Camaro looks like once it's done too. I plan to update it to look like an 85 Z28, especially since the 83 gfx were trashed from one of the previous owners gluing them to the body. I want to LS T56 (or T56 magnum F) swap it, I plan to weld in DSE subframe connectors once the floors are completed.

I'm going to be putting most of the pictures in spoilers, because they'll be really big on the page.

Also, I post the restoration updates on instagram (it's linked on my side bar thing) frequently, in my stories and posts. In case anyone wants to see the current stuff or more detailed pictures as I'm working on it. I work on it most days after work.

 

Hopefully it's not against the rules to post too many replies in a row. I want to try to fill this up to some degree tonight.

Anyway, I started with the passenger floor repair around the body plug. I was wanted to try making it myself, I was just starting to learn how to weld in the middle of 2021 so I could do the floors. After finishing it, I decided to start over since I had learned a lot from it and I am very picky about how things look. I ended up finding someone a couple hours north of me who was parting out a 89 RS. Had a pretty solid passenger floor other than some stuff on the toe board, around the front body plug, and the catalytic converter heat shield mounts, and the usual tear along the rear frame. I cut it out with a sawsall through the A-pillar, b pillar, and front & rear frame.


I used Ospho and muriatic acid to convert the rust on the floor, anything that was too pitted was repaired. It was really hard to tell how much was on it with the Ziebart like coating on the bottom. Probably would have been better to get one out of a car from down south but I don't really have the means to go that far. It was such a pain to remove the frame sections and rocker panel from the floor. So many of the spot welds over lapped each other, luckily a friend gave me a left over piece of a reproduction floor so I could fix everything up front. I only used the main floor, and part of the toe board flanges.
Before I worked on the floor I welded bracing into the car and remade the doubler plate and added the Hooker t56 crossmember doubler plate to this side. I used 16 gauge sheet and some 3/8 nuts. I didn't know at the time but I could have ordered weld nuts, which would be more like the factory ones. I did that for the driver side. These will still work just fine, the doubler plate for the new crossmember uses the same thing, except for a thicker plate. In the instructions for the crossmember it says to slide it through the hole in the frame and up into position. Since I have to replace the floors, I decided to weld it in. Will save time and headache later since it won't move around every time the bolt is removed. It was kind of a pain to weld that plate in because of how narrow the frame is right there. This should still be enough to hold it, and I plug welded it on the bottom.
Adding extra doubler plate that came with Hooker T56 crossmember


Removing the rusty original doubler plate

Making replacement out of 16 gauge





 

The next thing to do was remove the interior and to start working on the A-pillar, cowl drain, toe board and firewall. It's pretty rough. I assume it's from a heater core leak that wasn't caught for a long time and salt during the winter going through the cowl drain, then the usual debris stuck in the fender rots out the A-pillar corner.


The frame to rocker connector had a lot of debris stuck in it and it was very pitted inside, and had some pin holes. The donor floor had this piece attached so I used that one.
After cutting the inner rocker, A-pillar corner, and frame connector out. The outer rocker was also cut out because the car had previously been jacked up on it. It was easier to hammer it straight on the bench and I welded it in later when I did the inner rocker repair.

 

Post photos if you have them. Will be interesting to follow progress.

 

I have to fill this thread in some more. But the photos from the posts so far are in spoilers, otherwise they end up really big on the page.

 

GOOD WORK!!

 

Hey man I have an '83 z28 as well just like yours and in really similar condition, I'd love to see progress and pictures so keep us updated! My car was at my neighbor's house for years and as a kid and dreamed of owning a car like it, eventually my neighbor took it off the road and left the window down on the passenger side for a few years and that completely destroyed the interior which led him to cancel all of his plans with the car to race it at riverhead raceway because the restoration process alone was too expensive and time consuming for him, so I bought it off of him for really cheap and am now restoring/modding it. I need to do a LOT of metal work where the floors are, (ironically enough, the passenger side floor pan is completely untouched which is the side the window was left down on) the driver's side floor is basically nonexistent, I also need to repair the pinch welds and use angle line steel to connect the firewall and the subframe where it rotted out, I also need to find out how I'm getting floor braces for the seat rails to go on... Eventually it will get done, once it's done it'll be kickass, same goes with your car. Save as many of these things as you can

 

Sorry for not updating recently. I've been busy. I just bought a home. The garage isn't set up yet to get any new work done, but hopefully it will be soon. I'll start where I left off before.

After repairing the rocker brace I started making my new front inner rocker. The floor I cut out of the 89 RS still had a decent enough inner rocker for me to compare the bends and beads to.


I had to weld the outer rocker back on after straightening it as much as possible so I could clamp the new inner to it for checking the fitment.

I also had to start repairing the pillar corner. I welded the lower part of the door brace that I got from a donor car onto the good part of mine.

I started welding the top of the new inner rocker

Everything cleaned up and weld thru primed and ready for welding the outer corner on.


donor A-pillar corner welded on

 

Next I started working on the firewall and cowl drain. I'm not sure exactly why the rust goes so high, I assume its from salt water running through the cowl drain after the seam sealer failed. I worked from the wheel arch lip to the firewall flange. This is after removing all of the bad stuff that was in the way.

I used the good metal that was left from the floor cut. I cut it far enough to have some of the inner fender. Mine was rotten right where the inner fender flange meets the lower firewall, I started here, using the top beaded part from the donor and a new lower section to remake the flange.



After finishing that part I moved onto the lower flange of the firewall side of the fresh air vent.

Inner fender and upper firewall fixed, now I started the closeout panel repairs. Both flanges were very rusty, but I didn't want to make a completely new piece so I just repaired everything that was rotten


This is the right side of the fresh air vent mount. I had to do this in pieces so I could see while doing the spot welds inside the cowl.

Filler panel is repaired and welded in.

This is the rest of the lower firewall. I had a lot of work to do. I saved whatever I could. Mostly the area around the heater core and the top part of the cowl drain.

This is after I was mostly finished with it. It's not the best work but it's air and water tight and I'm still learning. That top right corner will have to be welded in the future once the windshield is removed and I can remove the top cowl panel to clean it up. There is some surface rust in there too so it's a good thing. I moved on top the thick plate that closes in the frame rail. I had the piece off the donor car which was in really good shape so I didn't have to spend time cleaning up mine.

Since I had that brace panel off I took the opportunity to clean up inside the frame with a knotted wire wheel and use some Eastwood Rust frame coat green. I also sprayed the tops of the K member bolts with PB. Idk when I'll eventually take it out but hopefully they aren't seized.

Everything is welded and prepped for putting in the new toe board.

 

awesome work! im working on fixing the same issue wit the cowl drain rot on my iroc, im doing it from the out side trying to figure it out how to make it work. youre making it look easy from the inside.

 

what guage sheetmetal and mig wire are you using?

 

18 gauge metal mostly, some stuff is 16 and some is 20 but 90% of it is 18 gauge. I use .023 wire

 

I meant to hit the quote button the first time but I used 18 gauge for most of my handmade repairs, a few things are 20 and some are 16. I depended on where. Rockers and firewall is all 18. Doubler plate is 16 and a few patches on the floor were a mix of 20 and 18. 18 is easier to weld, but 20 is easier to make weird shapes with. I use .023 wire.

 

thanks for the response, i cant find 20g anywhere near me.im using 22 and 18 but i think it will work out ok.

any updates?

 

I have many more progress pictures and updates to make. This thread is a few months behind the work I've done. I'll update it some more tonight after work.

For metal, I have a place down the street from my work called Speedy Metals (I think they're only local to Wisconsin though), but sometimes I get it from Ace Hardware and Home Depot. They usually have 20g in 2x2 sheets. Do you have a Metal Supermarkets in your area? That's another place that carries a lot of steel products.

 

Next thing was starting on the passenger toe board. A friend gave me this left over piece of repop front floor section. I cut it down to the flange to make a factory appearing repair. The reproduction floors come with the toe board and floor stamped as one piece, which I didn't like. The pieces that were used were the side and part of the top flange. I took the donor RS toe board and repaired the flanges with new steel, they were pretty chewed up before. I cut off the repaired sections (the red areas) and welded them to the repop toe board. Once it was tacked in, I got it fit to the car and screwed in place so I would return to the same place every time.


This was the process of repairing the flanges on the RS toe board.



After welding them to the repop panel, I drilled out A LOT of plug weld holes. 49 of them. One of the self tapper screws I used hold this actually broke in the frame cover plate, it's still there. It will be like a little easter egg if anyone ever notices it.


This large area of bare metal is where the panel bond goes. They did it like this when the cars were built so I did the same thing. My main concern was the metal rusting underneath so I put plenty on and made sure I went to the edge of where the frame cover plate is so it's sealed. The stuff I used was Lord Fusor Metal Bonding Adhesive.


After the panel bond and weld thru primer was applied, I put the toe board back in the car, screwed it down and went to town welding it in. This was nice. I was previously using Napa Zinc Weld-Thru primer, but wanted to try Upol copper, I'd heard a lot of good things about it. The stuff is great. The stuff I was using before liked to splatter (it still works good, and its like half the price of the Upol), but this welded super nicely. I turned my welder heat setting up and they laid out very nice so it didn't take much grinding. I then removed the screws and welded up those holes. In total there was 49 plug welds and I had to butt weld it to the tunnel.


I left the top and side plug welds proud. They're a bit hard to get to and all of this will be covered with seam sealer eventually. The rest were ground flush.


Then, onto the scary part, cutting out the rest of the floor. I left a lot of metal on the trans tunnel side so the new floor had room to fall in.


I started working on this seat belt brace on the frame. Mine was a bit chewed up so I took the one off the donor floor. I don't have a picture of this done by itself, but you'll see it when I show the rear inner rocker repairs. I also cleaned up inside the frame to get rid of all the surface rust.

 

Next thing to do was repairing the rest of the inner and outer rocker. The outer was pretty much perfect except for the front where it was crushed from improper jacking and on spot on the back that started to rust. The inner on the other hand, was very chewed up from rust and how difficult it was to remove the remainder of the original floor. The shape of the floor makes it very difficult to drill out the spot welds, it might have been easier to use a belt sander, but I don't have one of those (yet, Milwaukee just recently came out with one so I might get one). Nonetheless, onto the repairs.

First thing to do was weld the original outer layer of the inner rocker back on. I made sure to actually get the welds to penetrate unlike the factory spot welds. When I removed this I could tell where they tried and it didn't work properly. There were couple on the top where I could see a rusty circle on both panels, so it got hot enough to burn the factory edp off but not enough to weld them together. I hard to make a new front piece to cap it off. This area had some rot on the bottom and was bent as well so I made a new one.


Next was the lower inch or so that I cut out. It was very mangled. I thought maybe I could save it by straightening but it was too stretched out. I just made a tape template and made a new piece. Got it all butt welded and plug welded.


Ground everything down.


Onto the back around the frame rail. There was some trapped rust between the layers of the pinch weld, some was pretty thin, so I cut off the last foot of the outer rocker and replaced the inner rocker flange piece by piece making sure I didn't remove enough that the frame became disconnected and was able to move.


I cut out the inner rocker in the back. The part scared me. I really wasn't sure how to do this without removing the outer rocker. That was the only way. I couldn't leave the rusty stuff in there after all the work I had already done. I thought about removing the rust with a wire wheel and lap welding a new piece on, but why come this far without doing it right. There was also a part of the frame rail flange that I had to repair. I was able to remove most of the rust that was on it, but I couldn't leave it with any. I repaired that and worked my way out from there.


This is the inner part of the wheelhouse panel. It was chewed up from removing the old floor and rotten on the bottom. I remade it by cutting the rounded part and hammer/dollying the edge, then welding the gaps shut.


It turned out pretty close to the original.


Welded into the car.


This is the new rear inner rocker part I made. I replicated the original one. You can also see the seat belt mount that I replaced.


This is everything welded up.


The outer rocker was in pretty good shape, but with how hard it is to drill the spot welds out due to the shape of it, I replaced the flange. There was some pitting and some pinholes at the end so that was cut out and replaced as well.


After welding it back on and grinding it flush.

 

Continued...

This is the outer rocker end that I added after.


The inner rocker ground down.


Outer rocker D/A sanded. I will have to weld the ground fx bracket back at a later time.

 

Looks like you are doing some very nice work.

 

WOA awesome! thanks for the updates very inspirational to get working on mine.

 

Nice work! Should be better than new when you're done.

 

Been a while since I've posted any progress pictures. I fell into the trap of becoming a home owner and house projects having to come first, so I haven't worked on it much lately. I still have many progress pictures from 2022 to go through though.

After finishing the inner and outer rocker repairs it was time to start putting the new floor in. I had to repair the front plug and flange. I unfortunately don't have the correct size bead roller die so mine are smaller than the original ones.


First time putting a floor in did not go great. I cut the tunnel too early instead of working up to it or scribing it. The floor wasn't down all the way so I had a few large gaps to fill. The front went better.


Plug welding the back section


I found some pitting on the top of the tunnel here and it was worse on the bottom so I decided to replace it.



Got everything ground down. I went over anything with pin holes until I was happy. Then D/A sanded it with 40 grit to 2k epoxy prime it.


This is close to the end result. I ran out of epoxy so the next day I sanded the rear seat pan and sprayed it with Self Etching Primer. At the time I didn't have a compressor so I used 2K aerosol epoxy from work. Once the driver's floor is repaired and I start installing DSE subframe connectors, will weld the seat brackets back in. I don't like the idea of cutting the ends off of the seat brackets and seam welding to the sfc, so I think I'll come up with a way to make them factory appearing. I also didn't weld a small part of the tunnel seam. The parking brake cable bracket is under there and I'd like to remove it, clean it up and refit it later. I am happy enough with the way it turned out but looking back on it most of this year it would have been better to buy a repop floor for this side. Patching the original 20 gauge floor is very difficult, even welding both sides. and grinding after that. It's very easy to grind all the way through. I really didn't want to see the welds from under the car so it's a visible on the inside, but I can cover it with sound deadener later.

 

Around the time I was finishing up the passenger floor I found a door on marketplace that was in great shape rust wise. It did unfortunately have some damage at the back. I didn't realize until I was stripping it to pull the crease out that the front of the door had a lot of filler in it. It looked like was creased from fender/door contact. It's off a GTA though so I had to fill in the ground fx holes and make new ones for the Camaro gfx as well.


This is the crease in the back. Not sure what it's from.


This is after using a stud welder and puller, as well as pushing up from the back with the dolly and hammering it out. It's not perfect but it's a lot closer than it was before.


I didn't take a picture of the before of the front crease. It was warped pretty bad. I tried heat shrinking it. I am still learning, maybe someone could have fixed it without cutting it out, but at my current skill level I had to.



To fill the holes in the door I cut a bunch of 1/2in squares of 18 gauge and tacked an 1/8in rod to them. Ran them in the drill and used the die grinder to grind them to the right size. Set them in place with magnets on the back side and welded them up. They're pretty invisible. I then made a template for the Camaro gfx of my other door and drilled those out.


Fit up was spot on so I was very happy.