Well, I'm still relatively new around here. I signed up years ago, but didn't actually start to get active until recently. Anyway, I was working on a transmission rebuild on my 86 Z28 and the project grew so I decided to document it along.

The only down side is I forgot to take photos prior to starting the tear down because this wasn't my original plan, but after I pull the motor and transmission I decided I might as well go all out. The car has very little rust so I decided to redo paint and all to keep it that way.

The final plan is to keep the same paint scheme, but instead of black and white it will be HOK sunset orange with black racing stripes. I'm taking it a step beyond just paint and literally tearing down everything to get into every spot.

Any comments or tips along the way are appreciated as this is well beyond any tear down or restoration I've ever attempted.

I'm going to try to give a break down of where I stand so far.

I all ready had the entire front end torn apart by the time I started taking pictures so here is the front:




A closer view at the engine bay:


I tore out the ac and blower motor as this isn't going to be my daily driver. It's more for fun on the summer. I have an 88 v6 I'm going to be fixing up for that, but that's another thread when I get to it.

Another engine bay angle:


Here are 2 front angle pics with the doors still on:


and the passenger:



The rear before disassembly:


And after removal of hatch and rear bumper components:


Here is no driver door:


and no passenger door:


The pulled motor 305 it was fuel injected originally, but whoever had it before me switched it to carbureted:


After all of this is done the next plan is to replace this with a 383 for fun.


I forgot to take pics too, but I also installed a B&M Megashifter for after the transmission work is redone. I'm installing one of probuilts 625hp kits.

So this is the intro to it all. I've been trying to put in at least an hour a night or so and get something done so I'm going to try to keep this updated regularly.

Oh and anyone interested in more photos go to http://autosupercenter.com/camaro

That has all the pictures listed here along with the original high res versions and a lot of pics not posted here, mostly duplicates or some intermediary pics in between disassembly.

 

I didn't realize there was a 10 pic limit on a post so here is the rest of what I planned in the first post:

And last but not least was the little surprise that someone hit the front passenger side at some point. You can see where the bumper mount is bent along with the bar behind the radiator bracket:


and the bracket behind the radiator:


It's kind of hard to see it in the picture, but when comparing both to the driver side you can see they clearly aren't straight.

 

Nice build, or tear-down I like you paint color, but please don run those stripes arcoss the roof.

 

Thanks, and I think I'm going to follow your tip about the stripes on the roof. I didn't really think about it and was just going to follow what they had, but after looking around it'll be better without them on the roof and easier on me with the paint considering this will be my first paint job too.

 

Well, continuing on I don't have pictures tonight because I forgot the camera card and got tired, but I'll take them tomorrow.

Anyway, I have the majority of the interior torn out and just like I was afraid of the rust has started at the floor boards. The good thing is it's only surface rust and nothing is through yet so I'm really glad I started tearing it down now instead of waiting.

 

Well, I've pretty much finished the interior tear down.

Here are the pics as promised

No interior:


Secondary gutted pic:


ok and so here's the rust I mentioned

Driver side 1:


Driver 2:


and Passenger 1:


Passenger 2:


on the positive note it is just surface rust as I mentioned so it shouldn't be too bad

Here's the pool of water I found in the hatch from the leaking weather stripping... This is after the car has been in the garage out of the rain for almost 2 weeks:


There was a lot more water throughout the car than I expected. I knew I had leaks, but not as bad as they were.

 

I got another unpleasant surprise too with the fuel pump door hack job. I had never seen or heard of that until reading a post on here the other day and then sure enough I pull back the carpet to find:



and here's with the plexiglass removed:


So now added to this is the fun of finding a clean way to fix it. I think since it's all ready there I'm going to leave it and just try to find a clean effective way to do an access panel.

I really like the way I saw one done that was posted.


I know mine's most likely not going to be that perfect because it looks like they leveled out all the ridges in that panel across the hatch, but I have an idea that should still turn out pretty good. We'll see if I can pull it off. I'll keep the info posted as I progress.

 

Is that a t-top car with roof stripes? What? Ya gotta change that. About that steering wheel, too. Shouldn't '86 Z28s have a leather wrapped wheel with a round tri-color logo? I'm an original owner of an '86 and that is what mine had.



I bet after finding the hacked up gas tank panel your gonna find more of that as you go.

Any ways, great project, good luck.

 

Yeah, the previous couple owners did some crazy stuff. That's a lot of why I'm tearing it down. The stripes aren't even painted. They used vinyl for them. They are definitely going though. When I paint it I'm going to still put racing stripes back on it, but not across the roof like that with the t-tops.

As far as the steering wheel I'll be honest I wasn't sure exactly what was supposed to be in the Z28 as this is the first one I've owned. All of my previous third gens were the sport couple v6 models. I just knew that I wanted to get rid of the rig job that was in there. When I bought it they had put in a 4th gen steering column that was slapped together and loose so I picked up the first solid steering wheel / column I found at the local junk yard. I'm not out for perfect stock match up. Just building it for myself at this point.

That's the steering wheel I had in all my previous cars and always liked it. I just have to go back and get the horn cover yet. If I actually find the leather one at the junk yard I think I'm going to pick that up though. I like the way that looks.

I have to take a temporary break on the project though. The girl friends car needs some work so I had to pull her car into the garage. Hopefully that should only take me a few days here and then I'll be back to work on my car.

 

No problem. I'm sure as you go along with the rebuild you'll come across stuff that isn't quite right. If you need any help, don't hesitate to ask.

 

Looks good. I'd like to see how this one turns out. Are you keeping the original colors inside and out?

 

Looks like a fun projects. Sucks about the rust, but it's not too bad. I guess I'm lucky to have no rust on mine when I tore it down for paint.

 

Yeah, this is actually really clean on rust compared to my other one. I have an 88 and I have holes in the floorboards on that. That's going to be the next project.

Actually instead of the black with white stripes I'm going to be making it HOK Sunset Orange with black racing stripes. I'm planning on doing the ground effects black too and I'm not 100%, but I think I'm going to paint the rims black too. I really like the stock rims and think they would look good black with the orange body.

I can't wait to get back in the garage and continue on it, but still have to finish the tie rod ends and sway bar on my girlfriends car. Hopefully I'll have that done by Thursday between work and all and then by next weekend have more progress here.

 

Well, I got her car out of the garage and the z28 back in so I can get back to it. There's going to be a little break coming up only because this project just keeps growing as I kind of thought it would and I need to get my daily drive up and running before the winter when I have to put the bike away.

So that being the case my daily driver is an 88 SC with the little v6. Still a fun car though. I got her senior year of highschool and she's been sitting for almost 5 years.

Not too much I need to get her road ready compared to what I'm doing with the z28 so I need to get to work on that. Eventually I'm going to do the same tear down that I'm doing to the z28 to the high school car, but that's going to be a few years away. Right now I just need it on the road.

I think all I need (until I get in and find the surprises) for the 88 is:

tires (going to use the ones from the z28 since it's down anyway)
starter

transmission (tore the one out of this for the z28) - actually after reading around I believe I was a dumb *** so I don't need a transmission. Just a rebuild kit because I bought a crazy strong rebuild kit from probuilt for the z28 using this transmission as the base so it looks like I need to get a basic rebuild so I can put this back together (it was a perfectly running tranny... waste of time to rebuild it when I could have left it alone) and go to the junk yard and pull one for the z28 later. I didn't realize they didn't match up. I thought a 700r4 was a 700r4. Now I'm just really glad that when I stripped the transmission case I kept all the parts that were being replaced in case I needed them.

brakes and lines
gotta fix some surface rust on the quarters
transmission mount
rear axles (taking the axles from the z28, but not swapping rears as I want the 6's 3.42 gears)

I think that's all for now.

 

Yeah, so I did realize I screwed up pulling the tranny out of the 88 since it's a v6, but oh well. Now the v6 is just going to have one kick *** built tranny and later I'll hit the junk yard for a new one to rebuild for the 86.

Hopefully I'll have the 86 completely stripped by next weekend. I'm building a stand for it so I can strip the axles and all and still leave the garage open to work on the 88. I'll take some pics once I finish stripping it later next week.