Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I've been in the thirdgen community for ten years and not until now have I had the chance to properly and completely overhaul (properly to my liking) a Camaro. I have been able to build plenty of engines, alter suspensions and change interiors but my projects were always limited time wise to a few months at most. Life kept getting in the way of long projects, ie college, multiple jobs, renting, getting married,

The 92 RS Camaro I had was never a good candidate for an overhaul because it had developed rust in the body seams and in the worst kind of places were rust would be very difficult, time intensive and costly to remove. I decided my best bet was a rust and collision free shell. I struck gold (mostly) when I was able to purchase a 1991 Z28 convertible rust free roller--it was an abandoned desert car that I purchased from the owner of the land/property.








There are a few problem areas but nothing to concerning. For the most part the car was in very good condition and the top is in wonderful shape. I'll be doing some be doing some body alterations and a bit of engine bay work followed by a complete respray of the Artic White. Everything on the 92 RS (except for the body) is in good shape or has been altered/replaced so much of this might turn into a "transplant" thread.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

One of the only setbacks of the car was the hack job the prior owner did with the wiring of an aftermarket stereo and car alarm. He definitively proved that just because something works doesn't mean it's not a hack job.










He managed to make use of every item in the Hack jobber's electrical toolbox. There are twisty wire ties meant for residential wiring, there are T taps, there are wires twisted together with a layer of electrical tape, huge globs of solder forming cold solder joints and of course butt terminals. I love wiring so fixing this mess properly won't take but an hour... when I get around to it.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

As it sits now



Removed some of the flimsy 20 gauge metal behind the headlights and the metal that goes along side the radiator. I'll be welding in 18 gauge metal to cover the battery trays, all of the holes on the firewall, smoothing the shock towers and welding in a sheet on top of the radiator core support to smooth it.




The above picture is from two weeks ago so I now have the engine bay pain stripped 80% or so. Front bumper is also off and I am partially making my own bumper as this, as you can see is maybe 16 gauge sheet metal with some plastic honey comb attached.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I'll be relocating the battery to the trunk and running a 0 gauge power cable to the front to a junction block. I do not like the stock version that is a stud so, I'm making my own. I bought an aluminum bar 0.75" x 1" and am cutting them to 7" long. I will drill the holes for the wire in the side(s) and then a hole perpendicular to it from the top and thread it for a 3/8 set screw. It will be attached to a pvc base and have a pvc cover to protect the positive power distribution block from creating any accidental mischief. My current thought is to mount this under/inside the dash. I removed the entire heating and cooling system so I have ample room inside the dash for running nice and easy to use wiring.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I'm also working on a "duck tail" style spoiler but am not sure if I will keep it, alter it or just abandon it. https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/auto...l-spoiler.html

MoJoe

iTrader: (5)

Subscribed. Looks like you have a nice starting point.

Like, you I am comfortable with the wiring, and (maybe like you) a bit of a freak to overdo the wiring to high standards. Dashboard came out, and re-wrapping everything. I think I am done with the dash wiring after the auto-to-T56 mods, general cleanup and a few custom mods. I need to start my own build thread..

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

The convertible is an original automatic but I will put my manual transmission in. Right now Im leaning more towards removing the dash wire harness and using the harness from my 92 RS. But I might just pull this harness and take all the power and ground wires that went to the heater and radio and diagnostic port and air bag sensors and route them to a pair of power distribution blocks for wiring in LED strips I want to use in the cabin and for the shaved door solenoids and other stuff.

I'll throw in a picture but once you remove the Heating ducts and heater core and a few miscellaneous things you can free up several cubic feet of space in the dash! very surprising

When you say re-wrapping what do you mean?

MoJoe

iTrader: (5)

Re-wrapping = using non-adhesive vinyl tape to cover/wrap the wire bundles. Either Elliott Tape 302 or 501 (higher temp).

Here is the back side of my dashboard, ready to go back in. I applied a little Dynamat on the dash, and some Ensolite (close cell foam) to reduce noise and rattles. I agree the heating duct work takes up a lot of volume. But, as a semi-daily driver, heat and AC will be important.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

This past week was hot so I didn't do too much. I finished up the body of my power distribution block for the engine bay. It has an inlet for 0 gauge on the side, an outlet for 2 gauge, an outlet for 4 gauge, two outlets for 8 gauge and two outlets for 10 gauge. On all but one hole I remembered to make it a stepped inlet so I could push the wire in easier. I think I will shop off one inch from the blank side as I don't need that much room.




I also started welding the strut tower caps but it was so hot in the afternoon (I'm in the desert) I just couldn't keep going. I went through the metal in two small spots because I assumed GM used a thicker metal than they actually did...whoops. Easy fix though. Just using Flux core because I have a lot of sanding and grinding to do anyway so I don't care about splatter. I don't have a lot of welding experience so no need to critique harshly. Again, it has to be ground and sanded and bondo'd anyway.







Did some sanding on the body too. This week I'll continue welding the engine bay, prepping some areas for patch panels and maybe I'll be able to weld some panels in this week. I'm working on a spoiler too and that's in another thread in the appearance area.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Decided to remove the front emblem and smooth it over with some plastic bumper repair resin.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I don't like the stock stamped steel radiator core support. It's flimsy and doesn't look as nice as some of the newer vehicles or even some older ones. It also provides virtually no support to the front end. It is made of 20 gauge sheet metal, maybe 18 on the top cross support. It is held on and together by a few spot welds. You can flex it with one hand. This is what a Camaro looks like without the core support.




Took an hour or two in order to remove the spot welds without ruining the surrounding metal. I used a hammer and several chisels, vise grips and of course a Sawzall.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Next I went to work making my new core support. I believe I used 1x2 tubing on the top and 0.75x0.75 square tubing for the supports. The 1x2 is ~0.125" thick and the supports are 0.83". Not sure if I should have used 0.125" thick on the supports also but they aren't long and with me putting all my weight on them don't flex. I triangulated the supports to the frame but am waiting to weld them to the frame until I weld the sub frame connectors on and that wont be until the floor pans are painted. So for now I will have a removable upper core support.




I am keeping the same +9* angle the stock core support has




The middle of the top support bar isn't burnt or over heated from welding, it's just some Dykem blue I used to mark the middle. I still have to make the lower radiator support but I haven't decided which way exactly I want the bars run. Figuring out the exact location without a radiator to use will take a moment too. Also wondering if I should weld a plate onto the frame where the support bars will be welded. Im unsure if that is too small of a foot print.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Also started work on the cover panels for the engine bay. I'll cut out the panels for the sides of the fenders by the battery tray this week. Engine bay is taking me a long time.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Made the template for the sides of the engine bay by the front trays. I bought a contour gauge for making the second side and it went much faster.







I haven't welded them in yet, I'll be working on sanding and cleaning up the old metal, putting a coat of paint or undercoating on them before I weld the new panels over.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

This coming week I will be following this thread by 92RS_Ttop https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/body...eel-wells.html to remove the flattened and raised areas on the wheel housings and smooth them out. Hope I don't ruin anything or make it an obvious patch job!

I started on post #18

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I also worked on the lower radiator support this past week. I welded in flush some nuts so the stock air dam still bolts in. Next I'll weld in some bolts on the back side mounts to mount the stock fans and after that I will grind and primer the whole thing. The back side (or fan mount side) is the side that has the angle iron welded on. My original idea was to also weld the angle iron on the front and bottom so I had the front tabs to hold the radiator and the bottom part of the angle would make the lower metal thick enough to make a threaded hole but I had a brain lapse and forgot to do it that way. O well, the flush welded nut idea worked out fine.







I put the top of the core support back on and used a plumb bob to find the exact position of the frame rails on the core support and then centered my upper radiator cover to that. I then made a mock up radiator out of wood and will start to mock it up to find out the exact spot for mounting the lower radiator mount. You can see what I meant with the plumb bob on the passenger's side of the upper radiator cover.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Worked on removing all of the rust from the front tray areas and after that I etched the surface with Phosphoric acid, put down weld through primer on the perimeter and sprayed the rest with a rusty metal primer followed by a layer of undercoating.







I'll be flange welding the panels in and using a few plug welds and I believe it should be fine. The panels are flanged from the factory with spot welds and unless its the rear wheel wells the rust doesn't start in the flanged area. The area will have the stock holes so draining water shouldn't be an issue and both panels will be 100% covered with primer and undercoating and I live in the dessert were after 24 years the only rust the car had was in the battery tray and probably caused by a leaky battery.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I also started the metal working process of removing the bumps/humps on the wheel wells that the coolant and washer fluid reservoirs were mounted on. I have had the washer fluid reservoir removed for years and I relocated the coolant reservoir like FuedSoul did in his write up. I'm not sure if I will remove the really big hump on the drive's side wheel arch that touches the strut tower cap. It's just so big I'm not sure if I could do a good enough job of shaping the metal to the point you didn't know it was there to begin with.

Any way the process is straightforward and easier than I thought. I just cut and "X" in the hump and just fattened the X until I could pound them all down. I will need to weld them back up and weld in a small panel. But easier than I thought!

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

In the next week I'll see about welding the panels in and work the old strut tower/wheel well mounting humps enough to weld them up. Once I get those two things done I can work on the Radiator core support some more and start the sanding and bondo process.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I decided to remake the top half of the radiator core support. I had originally used 1"x2" steel tubing at 1/8" thick with 3/4" square tubing. After talking with more guys and seeing more frame pictures I decided to agree that my support was overbuilt and heavier then it needed to be. I remade it out of 2" angle iron with a 1/8" thickness and used 5/8" square tubing. It is still strong and doesn't seem to flex. It weighs less than the top half of the radiator core support that I removed too.



I also cut part of the fender rail to make it into a smooth radius to where it attached to the new radiator core support. Looks better. I also made the new core support flat horizontal as opposed to having an angle as the factory did. This way the fenders aren't at one angle, the core support at another angle and the radiator cover at a third different angle.








I Kept working on removing the bumps or homps or attachment points on the wheel arches. I got two of them welded back up but on one of them the welds cracked in a few small spots so I will going back and grinding and re welding it.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Figured out the locations of the new radiator cover hold down bolts and welded in flush some more nuts.



I also ended up welding in some backing plates for the areas where the humps / bumps had been on the wheel arches. There was too large a gap to fill with filler metal and still be strong enough to hammer. At least for my welding skills.



I also welded in place the side of the tray on both sides. I still have to do the panel on the passenger side behind the wheel where the wire harness comes through. There is a triangle opening there where the harness passes and the panel will cover that and I will use a 1.5" hole saw to make a nice opening for the harness to pass through. Should clean it up nicely. I also still need to weld up the firewall.



I have also fitted the new tubular lower radiator core support that I made and should be able to weld it in place soon. So I guess the agenda next is to weld in that lower core support, weld in the panel for the rear corner and keep welding the strut tower seams to blend them in.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Got the lower radiator support welded in place. I didn't have the will to pull the radiator from my other Camaro so I was triple measuring and checking everything. The measurements I took once it was all together were spot on for what I needed. The radiator now sits forward an inch and down an inch and is perpendicular instead of having a 10* angle.

I used a straight edge (cnc machined level ) clamped to the upper radiator support to ensure it would line up with the bottom. I went perpendicular to the clamped straight edge and made a line on the frame rail that the lower support tube would need to follow. Made a template with poster board that matted to the frame rail, traced it on the bar and cut and did some final grinding and welded in place. Used a piece of mdf that I cut to size and checked to be flat enough and used that to check the "fit". Seems correct...

EDIT: I really should have first welded in a square section of 1/8" metal as wide as the frame rail and that long and then welded the core support piece to that. I thought about bracing the sides of the core support as well as the center section to be able to use it as a jacking or towing point but I still questioned the ability of the very front of the frame rails being able to handle it.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I'm also nearly done welding and blending the strut tower caps. I wanted to use as little Bondo as possible since we all know the strut towers can and do flex or move under hard driving. No sense in putting in the time only to finish, go autocrossing and find a crack in the filler. Even your fiberglass fill body filler would probably fail long term.

I thoroughly believe the old lead based body filler while being more expensive would take far less time and probably be strong enough..

EDIT: Now that I have been learning TIG and TIG welding techniques and have more knowledge with MIG I think the lay wire technique for TIG or a form of this for MIG may work well for this type of work. This is essentially a lap joint so putting a piece of welding rod in the welding joint and then running your MIG or TIG over that to melt it in is a quick way of adding lots of filler. I'll link a YouTube video of this technique.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

You can see the drivers side fender cover in place in this picture too. Slowly coming along.
Hoping this week to do the firewall and more welding, grinding and smoothing!

BADNBLK

iTrader: (11)

Awesome man! Really stoked to see all the fabrication you got going on under the hood. I have plans for much of what you are doing with mine, so keep those pics coming.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I made the firewall template this morning, unfortunately I'll have to cut it with the Jig saw because of all the curves. Thinking I'll also put a triangle support on each side of the lower radiator support.

BADNBLK

iTrader: (11)

I'm really interested in how the firewall plate ends up. That is how I have chosen to do my firewall, instead of a bunch of small filler plates and whole bunch more body filler.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Was able to get the firewall sheet spot welded in place. I drilled it for a few plug welds to help keep it firmly attached to the real firewall. I used 18 gauge but after finding out how flimsy the stock wall is I think 16 gauge would have been a better choice. I thought this shape was the most easily concealable. I only started two small fires from the interior insulation on the firewall.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I have the corner piece fitted in, I'll see about welding it in this afternoon. For the wire loom I'll either do a hole saw with a grommet in the same location as stick or try to have it exit where the heater hoses were. Leaning towards the original spot.

BADNBLK

iTrader: (11)

Looks great man. Its like you read my mind and have been working on my dream lol. I think we are gonna hole saw near the tunnel area to run the harness out of sight... I think.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Fueled soul did that exact thing. I'm worried about the space available for doing it that way.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I made the decision to also "shave" the side emblems along with the stripe on the rear bumper. I'm undecided on whether or not I want to shave the rear bumper emblem. My two options seem to be filling the void with flexible bumper filler or to weld some abs sheet in. I got the idea (more like copied exactly) the idea from another member's build thread found here: https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/memb...86-iroc-z.html Hope he chimes in to help me out...

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

The member got back to me. You can see how it works in the pictures. I scraped the graphic off of the back of the plastic they used and then sanded it with 60 grit. Also sanded the indentation with 60 grit and removed the paint. Then I drilled opposing holes in the ground effects and the plastic piece, this allowed some fingers to form and more firmly hold the two together. Then I used a flexible bumper repair resin to meld the two together. Once it dries I'll smooth over the top and sides around the emblem. For the rear bumper I'll be using a plastic welder, only because I'm Leary of using that much resin / adhesive. I'll post pics in a fee days when the bumper is done.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I decided to go ahead and remove the large raised and flattened mounting hump on the drivers side wheel well. I was nervous about it just because its large size but if you want a totally smooth strut tower on a thirdgen it must be removed. I still AM surprised that the strut is mounted to nothing more than an arch of sheet metal. Relatively thin sheet metal at that.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Welded it up.

If someone is reading this and wanting to do a totally smooth strut tower like this I wanted to come back and offer a spot of advice. I removed the humps or bumps or mounting points two different ways. One was to just make one big "X" cut in the metal, hammer a little down and then cut more out of the X, hammer, weld, cut, hammer, weld. The other which worked out better and is the way that 92RS_Ttop did his is to make diagonal cuts only on the angled portion of the metal and then to make a square cut on the raised flat portion, trim that and weld it back in once the other parts are hammered down. You can kinda see what I mean if you look at where the top or big mounting spot was vs the bottom mounting spot.

UPDATE: If you cut and weld it as 92RS_Ttop did you may end up with better results. The areas where I simply cut a big X in i have noticed that I needed to use body filler on, the area where I did it 92RS' way I needed to use almost 0 body filler, which is the ultimate goal. So now you know which way is probably better.

cheesehomer

iTrader: (2)

Subscribed, great pictures, nice work.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Thanks. I'll see if I can get the long horizontal indent on the rear bumper smoothed out this week. Lots of grinding to do also. The firewall is so thin it makes welding on it difficult, I'll measure it but I want to say it is at most 20 gauge.

LC2 TECH

iTrader: (1)

If you have the interior and dash completely removed .Spot weld the cover panel to the firewall from the back is some times easier?

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I spot welded the cover initially then went back and put a line or bead(s) to help blend the weld in (the less body filler the better). I did it the wrong way technically, I'm sure the American welding society would shun the way I did it. I simply cut out a 18 gauge sheet to fit and welded it on top of the existing firewall. Argument presented is that water "could" get between the sheets and then "might" cause rust to occur. I used weld through primer and then undercoating on all the surfaces and I live in the desert so real life chances of anything negative happening are very small.

LC2 TECH

iTrader: (1)

You be amazed at how many shop do that. Nothing wrong with it as long as you didn't leave bare metal and try to make sure it as sealed as possible. Can't wait to see it done. looking good so far.

BADNBLK

iTrader: (11)

Its all looking good man. Can't wait to see it in primer or color. Make sure to take some good pics of the rear bumper process. I plan on doing the same at some point, with a twist.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

What's your twist? I grinded some more on the strut tower welds and firewall welds and am impressed with how smooth it is even without body filler. I started using little 3" cut off wheels on a die grinder for some of the weld grinding and it works pretty well for some spots!

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

In for a penny, in for a pound. I decided to weld and smooth the other seam on the firewall that is on the drivers side. With the motor in and everything installed only 1/2 of the seam is visible but with everything else I'm doing in the bay area I would be upset if I didn't blend it too. I also noticed that the section of firewall around the wiper motor has those indentations around it. Probably GM's attempt at strengthening the flimsy 20 gauge firewall around the wiper motor. I'll go ahead and weld that smooth while I'm at it. I hope all this work smoothing a thirdgen firewall is worth it in the end.


EDIT:
Thought I would post this as somewhat of a before and after shot. You can see throughout this thread I went through quite a bit of work for areas that others may have opted to skip over. This shows how much is visible on the bare bones engine bay that I have. So for anybody reading this making future plans you can make a better decision.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I'm doing a great bit of work on the firewall and strut towers to make them smooth so I knew I couldn't ignore the other areas of the visible engine bay. The frame rails on the thirdgen are not very good looking. They have lots of holes and spot welds and indentations and metal overlap. I have filled lots of the holes and decided to tackle the sides of the frame rails in the engine bay. I cut out a panel to cover up the side of the frame rail to keep the whole visible engine bay looking smooth. I did spot and stitch welding around the top perimeter and also made a few plug welds. When I drop the K member I can weld the bottom perimeter of the frame rail smoothing panel. I'll do the drivers side rail next. There is a lot of work in smoothing out / making a thirdgen camaro engine bay look good and smooth.

EDIT:
Showing what is visible after installing the engine and headers. If you were running an A/C system or possibly even a heater box this work would very hard to notice.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I'm at or close to the point of diminishing returns. I smoothed out the rear side of the camaro's strut tower on the passenger side. There was originally a big gap and overhang, much better now.

BADNBLK

iTrader: (11)

Get after it dude! Gonna be worth all the extra effort when you get it done. Looking good.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Looks great so far! You went a lot farther with smoothing the engine bay than I had the patience for. If you haven't already cut the hole for the passenger side wiring harness, I have an idea for you. If the hole in the original firewall for the blower motor is still there behind your cover plate, you could cut a hole in your plate to pass the wiring through right there. Size it to fit the C100 connector on the drivers side, and pick up a good used one at the junkyard. Then you can get a couple packs of the terminal ends(Packard-56 style) and use that to bring the wiring into the engine bay. Done right, it would make for a really clean install and match up nicely with the driver's side.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

That's an interesting idea, never thought of it. How do you remove the connector on the body side? Is it just tabs?

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I managed to get the other side done