i found this 1984 berlinetta that i am getting for another project. it is a fully optioned berlinetta. i went to check out the car today. the floors are so rust free its almost impossible. for the car to be sitting on dirt for 17 years, i was just amazed. there is not a spec of rust on the undercarriage. the interior is mint. the car has under 70,000 original miles, and it is fully optioned.
-privacy shade,
-rear cargo cover and lock,
-overhead console,
-full digital dash and stereo,
-power windows,
-power mirrors,
-...power everything
-carpeted black plastics,
-leather and velour seats,
-upgraded interior lighting.
it is an all factory car, never touched.
-hard top, 2.8L,
-automatic,
-complete turbine rims and center caps,
-straight body,
all i have to replace are the doors because the water pooled in the bottom of them due to bad seals and rotted the bottom of them away.

my plans for this car:
-rebuilt 305 engine
-new transmission to withstand the new engine,
-upgraded suspension
-iroc rims
-filled nose holes
-grid tail lights
-posi rear end
-4 wheel disc brakes
-new doors
-new cowl hood
-hawks 5 inch spoiler
-new headliner

im going to pick the car up some time this week. so thats when i will continue the build with many pics (hense the "pic heavy").

 

Sounds like a cool car, Question? If you going to swap the 2.8 for a V8 then why not a 350 while your at it? I mean it's the same amount of work.

 

yea. i have a 305 that was in my car so we plan to use that one to save money. we are thinking of doing a 383 stroker instead though

 

Now your talking! So where are the heavy pix????

 

like i said above. im picking up the car on saturday, starting when i load it on the trailer os when it starts

 

Oh sorry, well hope it all goes well. I need to start taking pix when I work on my car and body parts for it.

 

Pic heavy? I see no pictures :P

 

if you guys could just read all of my first post

 

Sry I couldnt resist

Swapping in a 305 will be a huge regret. Dont do it. You can get a 350 for basically nothing these days.

You already doing the work to swap out the 2.8 mind as well put something in thats worth it. Nno one wants a 305

Obvoisly a 383 would be nice but if you look at it from a cost standpoint a 350 will cost you a negligable amoubt more than a 305 while a 383 will soak up more funds and more time

 

probably going to end up doing a 350 or maybe a big block??? it all comes down to budget and money though

 

i looked at the title of the car. i am the second owner of a 69xxx mile car. i worked on it all day today. cleaning it up. inside and out.

on my way to pick up the car


loaded the camaro up



got it home, unloaded it



after some intense scrubbing, i got her all cleaned up. she was covered in moss, tree sap, algae, and of course pine needles and dirt

 

and after the exterior i tackled the interior. all i needed to do was pick up the previous owners trash that has been in there since 1996. got my shop vac out and these are the results. the interior is mint.








ill get some more interior pics soon. next thing i am going to do is replace the hood. the one on it is about to fold in half if i try to lift it up. the bottom of the hood is rusted out. i am going to get an 82-84 z28 hood tomorrow morning and install it on the car. then the rear window louvers. then the doors need to be replaced. all the years of it sitting with crap window sweeps, the water pooled in the bottom of the doors and they rusted from the inside out.

 

well today i found two more mice nests, one in the dash and one under the center console. vacuumed those out,

oh and the dash pad is mint too. the interior of the car is amazing,
i also went to pick up my new hood today. an 82 to 84 z28 hood, and got that on the car. the other hood practically folded in half every time we would lift it up.


i then had to tackle the rust spots on the hood, the paint was bubbling. first i removed the paint around and on the rust


then i POR15'd it so it wont come back.


tomorrow im going to sand it, and apply some body filler and sand that to get it smooth and flush with the rest of the hood, along with a spot on the right scoop of the hood. im also going to put my window louvers on the car, along with removing any plastic trim on the outside like the door trim, and the emblems. looking at replacing the doors next. then the tail lights. and finally the front nose with one off an 84 z28. and of course the engine

 

Not a bad score. One thing I'm not sure how well mud will stick to POR15? I alway mud over bare metal.

 

im goin to sand it down. the por was just to kill any of the rust in the areas where it was pitted.

 

the only reason i por 15's it is because i wanted to stop the rusting and protect it until i can mud it. it was wet out last night, and is goin to rain tomorrow here

 

I know they exist, but I've never seen a metal 82-84 Z28 hood. All of mine are SMC. You must have gotten a late build one.

 

today i decided since i had very little time, to just take out the interior. i started with the drivers side. i took out the ds seat and then pulled up the carpet. it was very moist under there. the carpet has a rubber bottom, which i have not seen before, and it keeps the moisture from evaporating away if it gets under the carpet. there were some rust spots here and there, more like speckled, i removed the paint on or around them, and on wednesday, since it is going to rain on tuesday, i am going to POR15 it. luckily it is all surface rust. no holes.



i also tried to get it running today. the v6 needs a new fuel pump and since we are replacing the engine, im not going to bother spending money to fix it. it did start up with some some starting fluid sprayed in the carb, we had it running good, and it sounds great, but when we stop spraying it in it just stalls.
this is a pic of the engine before i cleaned it up. ill get an updated photo soon though. now its dark out.

 

i have began to refinish/refurbish my headliner. i wil post pics when im done, its on hold now because of the cold.

 

i pretty much have decided to just delete everything on all of the threads about my new project since no one really cares. CHRISFROM NJ "you should junk it or just stop posting every little thing you do on every third gen website i go on njfboa,thirdgen,and a few other sites and i see your car and what you did to it no one cares" so yea. ill delete this one

 

ill keep this one i guess see what happens

 

**** on anyone who doesn't like what you post or how trivial it may seem to them. You are excited about your score, as you should be. If nothing else, it will be here for posterity, for you to look back on when you finish your project. I like to see people take the intitiative to put all the time and effort into bringing back one of our family from a possible grave. Seventeen years in the dirt, and who knows, it may have rotted to nothingness had you not come along.

 

Actually, I'm kinda interested. I used to have an '84 Berlinetta about 10 years ago. Things I remember are the floaty suspension and the crazy interior design.

Honestly, I wouldn't go the route you are. You already have the 350 TBI, so why stuff in another v8 in a car that won't perform as well?
I'd rebuild the 6 or drop in a 3.4L from a 4th gen. It's a direct bolt in. Put in a T5, chrome the stock wheels, find tires with an even bigger white wall, slap on some louvers and have yourself a fun to drive cruiser. Leave the speed for the car that's already a v8. Otherwise, you're looking at the hassle of a v8 swap into a car that still wont handle like an IROC.

 

im lookin at v8 305 with upgraded suspension, upgraded transmission, posi rear end, sportline springs, and navy blue metallic job. with silver rockers/gfx. i think im gonna do the paint myself with this car but actually try this time. on the weekend im going to pick up an 82-84 z28 nose and chin spoiler. along with a new carpet, some grid tail lights, and possibly some new doors. then its time for me to start to save for some iroc rims or some american racing wheels

 

i asked him to do that actually. mike is a pretty good guy for doin it... many actually want to see my progress, its just you dont so just get out of here and stop bothering me.

 

Mac86, Take all the pics you can, step by step, I do and I post them all over facebook! It is the only way you can show what all you havedone/changed on the car from start to finish. Now when someone has a hothead amd wants to bash you, ignore them man. I personally, like looking at other peoples projects and transformations as they happen! We ahve all at one time been where you are today, if not those others where born with parents that have money, so they dont get it, we do! rock on man, keep the pics comin!

 

Mac86,



I have the same car, well I do but you can't tell. Mine was the same with the exception that mine had t-tops. I love these cars and always have. I have done a ton of changes to get to where I am today and seeing your car and your love of the car to me is inspiring. Great thread man. Haters be hating. That's just the way it goes. I for one am subscribing and want to see where you go with this. A moderator should intervene here and remove this individual as he has added nothing but conflict to your thread. Good luck with the car Mac.

 

Lets keep this civil... nobody forces anyone to read anyones thread, you don't like it, move on.

 

Thanks for taking the time to post your progress. I like seeing cars like this saved, I'm interested in seeing you restore it.

 

Glad to see the thread cleaned up. Back on the progress with the saving of another third gen!

 

I like like the car and think it's cool that your working on it so hard, if I would on my RS half as much as you work on that car it would be done LOL!

 

Good to see progress on your car! I'm getting ready to get off my dead A** and work on mine here today. Rumor has it that spring is near....never know it around here since it's a high of 34 degrees today with snow/rain mix.
Cleaning up the engine before you yank it out?...or are you going to get this one running?

In the end, posting up detailed progress pics is a good thing...it's the detail stuff that raises questions on the board..i.e. "how does this clip thinga-ma-jig fit on"..etc. If you don't delete or move your pics, it'll be there for years for others to reference. Not a bad thing IMO.

My car rose from the dead too...I didn't own a digital camera back then. I had the same surface rust under all my original ground FX...metal was just pitted and not rusted through at all. In my case, I figured it was better to just preserve all those areas real good to stop any further rust and put the FX back on after it was painted.

 

Very nice find man, i love those seats! The car is so clean, can't wait to see the swap!

 

did some experimenting with a scrap tail light

 

The red signal lights are ok, but I don't think it will pass inspection without back up lights. Otherwise, its a good look.

 

yea i did not wanna mask the reverse parts since its just a scrap lense that cracked. on the actual ones im going to

 

I guess it's easy enough to change out for an inspection once a year if you have spares. I like it, it's different.

 

today's update:
re-covered my headliner.
what it looked like previously:





got it out of the car, and took off the fabric and used a shop vac to get the old foam off



peeling off the old glue:



then i got the new fabric in the mail, and applied it with headliner glue and trimmed. here is itfinished



its not show quality but its good enough for me. id say its pretty good for the first try.

here are the sail panels. they look perfect



headliner semi installed:

 

i began to rebuild/refurbish the tail lights. i only got one done today.

the refurbished one is on the left. i still need to buff it and polish it one more time





i repainted the inside of the housing since the paint was poorly done and peeling



here is the old one



and then after everything was cleaned up i felt like taking a pic



tomorrow im going to por15 the floors, and finish my tail light refurbishing on this car and my black one

 

Hey man. Your cars looking great. I've always like the digital dash F-body's. They are definately 80's cool. Mine is an '84 too, but not a Berli... I would love to have one though. It's different and to me, that's cool.

 

Cars are looking good! Nice interior work there. What's with the license plate placement? Would almost look better in the windshield. A camaro grill insert would fit that car perfect.... like this one.

the one pictured is a bit beaten up but you get the idea.

 

i actually just replaced my "camaro grille with a 91-92 grille. my reasoning and more pics are here if u want
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/fabr...ate-mount.html

 

well look what i woke up to today...

 

What the heck? A giant tiger walk by and use your roof as a scratching post?

 

haha idk. the cover blew off of it when it was raining and i had to put it on wet. then i took the cover off today and it all started to come up haha. each layer of paint is so thin though. there is no clear on the car, the white is extremely thin along with the primer and primer sealer its like gm didnt even paint this car right.

 

Onthewindow, where did you find that grill insert? I need one to my 87 sport coupe and all I can find is one for z28/ iroc and those ones are too big.

 

Lol my username isn't onthewindow...lol but hey that made me laugh, so here is your prize! Found this one on ebay,


Here is the url to the auction....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/85-90-CHEVY-Z28-CAMARO-IROC-GRILLE-FRONT-RADIATOR-WHITE-CAMARO-LETTERING-/221213253175?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&fits=Model%3ACamaro&hash=item3381565e37&vxp=mtr
hope this is what you wanted.

 

nice build, just like to say that car has the best looking interior you could possibly get in a thirdgen, and howrare you have the tweed/vinyl seats with no rips or tears, and a working digi dash, great car, glad to see it saved

 

It's been very interesting following your build. I am in the process of restoring my 84 Berlinetta. It has sat for 13 years without being driven but in a dry climate and I covered all the zebra pinstripe seats to protect from sun damage. Mine has the same colors as yours. I am learning it's going to be a challenge dealing with the digital dash. Couple things are wonky now. They may come back on. This is the first week I have driven it in 13 years. The blinker came on as my mechanic/friend said it could. I truly love the car's
dash. You seem very enterprising and I'd like know how you plan to revive the dash if you start to have problems with it. I know there are parts out there but I am unsure of that
situation. Got everything lined up to have it worked on, but I need to know the dash can
be worked on. Have you researched that at all?
Thanks for all the pics.

 

mine is an extremely low mileage car, the dash is in 100% working shape has 0 problems