Mattrick

I am going to post several pictures of our restore project and some of the challenges we faced along the way...you may find some of the information useful if you are restoring a 1991 camaro convertible.

We have owned the car about 12 years and it has been in storage for the last couple years only driven a few times each summer. We started with an engine tune-up and replacement of spark plugs and all kinds of stuff to get it running good again. Our plan is to upgrade the engine, transmission, rear-end, and brakes next spring. This year we focused on getting it running good, suspension, exhaust, paint, audio, and interior restore.

Stay tuned as many pictures of our process gets uploaded. I say "our" because my wife bought this car before we met, it has become our restore project, and she has done a lot of the work.

I will start with a few pics right out of storage. Notice the extreme oxidation of the paint and the crappy interior.

Mattrick

Here are a few more pre-restore pics. The gray interior was horrible, stained, and those seats are just ugly. Door carpet is bad and the rear interior quarters need work.

Mattrick

Here is the car post new paint. We kept the factory teal color. At this point the car has had all the mechanical work completed including flowmaster exhaust, high-flow cat, new front suspension, shocks, struts, and engine tuen-up with new wires, etc.

We have just begun tearing out the interior.

Mattrick

Here we have begun working on the interior. The new wheels are not on but rolled in front of the original wheel to get a feel for what it will look like. We also applied dynamat/blox to the entire inside of the car, front kicks, and rear comparment including fender wells. I am amazed at how much reduction in road noise there is. You can actually talk on a cell phone and the person on the other end cannot hear any road noise. Before you couldn't even use the phone because it was so load.

That's all I have now. I need to take more pics of the interior work and some of the issues we had with mounting the Q-forms and rear interior quarters. The speakers didn't fit even though Crutchfield web-site said it would. We had to grind part of the back out to make room. I will post pics later this weekend.

compuwiz1937

iTrader: (17)

Beautiful car! I hope I can meet a girl who loves cars as much as I do! Can't wait to see more of this.

One thing though, there's a limit on this forum of 3 attachments. Before the mods get in here you should delete the extra pictures and use Photobucket to put the pictures back in the posts.

Mattrick

Thanks for the tip on photobucket...have never used that. Just updated all the pics. Is there a way to make them smaller, like a thumbnail, without editing them all? I like the way the attached ones have a small image you can click on to enlarge.

compuwiz1937

iTrader: (17)

I believe Photobucket has a way to do thumbnails but I've never done it so I don't know for sure.

kubus_stroinski

well done. looks like its coming along nicely so far. good luck with the rest of the project!

rwdtech

awesome project! i think a 91-92 Z28 hood would really set that car off. make sure u post pics when its all finished

by the way, photobucket does not do thumbnails. thirdgen.org will reduce all your images to a max of 800x600....the auto resize is kind of crappy, so its best to just click the 800x600 option when u upload a pic to photobucket

85Iroc-Z

iTrader: (4)

Nice work. Thats a nice GTO you got.

Spike-Z

iTrader: (4)

Very nice car/job. Awesome garage too! props to you buddy

Mattrick

Here is a pic with the new wheels and tires, new windshield (old one had half moon scrapes when we didn't get the blades changed), new white side markers, new leather seats, and carpet installed. I still have to install the rear quarters, center console, door panels, seat belts, and finish wiring the radio. I will post detailed pics when I complete.

The garage, GTO, and 67 Camaro are my friends. I wish I owned them. It's his play garage outside his house he let me work on my car in (A/C and heat). If you went to the 2007 power tour last week you might have seen the camaro in the Pro Charger tent. He was in thier tent in Evansville and Memphis. I attached a few pics...he still needs to install the front lower spoiler.

RocsRose86

[quote=compuwiz1937;3358737]Beautiful car! I hope I can meet a girl who loves cars as much as I do! Can't wait to see more of this.

All the cars look Fine. w/compuwiz I wish more women would be interested in cars like men are.( not trying to sound sexest) Then i think we could get along better...lol!

andrew91rs

wow nice looking vert and cool thread. Keep up the good work, and get some more interior shots of the leather seats when you get a chance.

Mattrick

Still finishing up the interior. Here are a few more shots. The old door panels and rear interior quarters look a million times better reupholstered. Those are Infinity 6 1/2" in the rear. I have to take the rear quarters out to install my new black seat belts. I will take a pic of the grinding work I had to do to make that speaker fit. It almost made it but the top of the magnet was hitting.

The center console is original but painted and new carpet. I did replace the window switches and the shifter plate and I added leather shifter **** and emergency brak grips.

Mattrick

A few more...

MillerTime21

Wow, that looks great! I love the new interior.

Zoran/28

Yeah I love the new int. How much did it cost? I want to do something very simmilar.

2tonedmaro89

wow that thing is b e a utiful

Mattrick

I probably have ~$3,000 in interior restoration (not including the stereo or dynamat/blox). That is all parts, several not seen in these photos. I have aluminum door sills with the bow-tie and chevy RS forged into it painted with matching car paint, and some new trim pieces for the seat belt area by the tonneau and interior rear quarter. I used e-bay when I could but if I couldn't find new or like new quality I went to Hawks and Year One ($100 new power mirror button from Hawks- ouch!! but it was the only place I could find yellow lettering in new condition). The yellow lettering for this year was the hardest part.

compuwiz1937

iTrader: (17)

Those are 4th gen TA seats right? Do those have the power bolster too? How do you like those? I just bought a front set for my car and I'm curious.

Mattrick

Really like the T/A seats. They are from a 2002 that had <9k miles. They are power driver and lumbar both sides.

I have a set of 2000 camaro SS leather seats I am going to sell (see attached pic). I will put them up for sale in July..too busy right now to worry about answering questions and shipping. They are absolutely mint, driver-side power, and there isn't one scratch on them. Because of an unfortunate e-bay experience I ended up with two sets of seats.

We put the T/A seats in because they were more black vs. ebony/dk gray, we liked the lumbar/bolster, and I think the T/A with headrest look more like the orignial '91 seats.

camaroguy21

Wow! Beautiful car! Love the interior. By the way, what brand are those kick panels and where did you purchase them?

kubus_stroinski

love your deck. i have the same one. it works amazingly. best alpine ive owned so far. if you cut your heater ducts and tape over the holes you can mount the deck further in so it doesnt stick out that far. good job so far

Mattrick

Q-forms. A little pricey but fit like a glove on first attempt to install. I heard a lot of complaints that the material was weak. These weren't bad at all out of the box and they were really sturdy after I lined them with dynomat/blox. I bought them from cardomain. http://www.cardomain.com/item/QLCQLK1002B01

Mattrick

Ok...here was a problem. I bought 6 1/2" Infinity speakers for the rear quarters. They came with these aweful speaker spacer/brakets. When I bought them I thought it was just a bracket. When I got them I realized I had to dremil the hole bigger in the rear quarter and the bracket was actually a spacer that goes on the outside of the quarter between the quarter and the speaker enclosure. This was to keep the magnet from hitting something. I didn't realize this until install. That something was a steel crossbar.

I couldn't use the speaker spacer becaues it made it stick out weird and the rear speaker cover wouldn't sit flush against the rear interior panel. If I didn't use the spacer, then the magnet on the speaker hit this crossbar and wouldn't allow the rear interior quarter to line up and be screwed back in. Only option was to cut part of the brace out...not a great idea but I had a speaker...it needed to go in that space...and the bar was in the way...let the grinding sparks fly!!!

So be careful if you wan't to put a 6 1/2" speaker in the rear quarters of your verts! It will either look a little weird by not being flush or you need to find someone that has a grinder.

loud91rs

iTrader: (5)

Hey i noticed you are selling the seats...what are you looking to get for them? Let me know since i'm only about 15 minutes away from ya so I could pick them up. BTW BEAUTIFUL looking car!

Mattrick

Here is a rear shot showing the 3" Flowmaster exhaust tips. I have a high-flow cat and 3" back American Thunder Flowmaster exhaust. Also added another shot of the interior. I have new black seat belts from the local GM dealer. I had to order them for a 1992 since they don't carry 1991 seat belts anymore. Fit like a glove except they sent me two driver side to begin with so they had to reorder the passenger side.