Hey TGO!! Been lurking for many years now, finally decided to join in. After about 10 years of wanting a third gen, I pulled the trigger on one a few weeks ago. She's not much to look at now, but has good bones (75k original miles), was kept stock, and importantly was dirt cheap. Starting a build thread to document the progress. Her name is "Carmen"

It will undoubtedly be a long, slow process for me - but I want to do it right and take my time. My goals for the car, on the long term is to build a street/strip machine that's fun to drive and halfway decent looking (don't we all?) while keeping a good amount of it's original third gen charm aesthetically. It's all about warm weather cruises, sundays at the track, and maybe the occasional autocross race...a fun car for sure. Aside from some rust repair, bodywork, paint, and interior "re-freshening" I'm hoping to drop a forged 383 stroker in here, along with building up the trans, rear-end, and chassis to handle the power. The ultimate end goal is a Procharged 383...but baby steps first! Likely won't be a few years before I get there. For now, I need to focus on having a rust free roof and getting some paint on the car first!





As you can see, the paint is rough all over the top of the car. I'll be repainting, DIY-style, it's original metallic blue (or close to original). There's also some rust around the ttop channels that will definitely be a time suck. More on that below!

So I bought the car knowing there was rust on the roof, and that the ttop channels were probably gone-zo...it was my primary bargaining point. I removed the headliner before buying and verified that the rust didn't get through, so it's what seems like a manageable repair (knock on wood). Surprisingly, the ttops did not leak. Fingers crossed, there won't be any surprises when I pull the carpet. That being that, the first project I'm tackling is getting the roof & ttops straight.

I had some good weather the other day, so I pulled her out and started on the roof. With the weather stripping out, you can see the horror show underneath:



The rust from the roof also got through the sheet metal and rusted out some holes. Going to need to do some fabrication here to patch these up.

I got so, so incredibly lucky that this didn't go through the roof and cause inside leaks. It looks like the weather stripping was sealed up TIGHT and there was evidence of a half-assed bondo repair on the roof. Whatever was done kept water out of the roof.

I've got some replacement channels en route from Chris @ Auto Fabrication & Design (https://www.facebook.com/AutoFabricationandDesign/), along with a new center piece from eBay to bring this roof back to life. The first step is removing the existing channels by drilling out the spot welds (and boy was that fun with all the welds GM put in there):



Thankfully, just a little surface rust & sealant gunk under the demolished channels. A little light cleanup before calling it a day (BTW, that black crap is duct tape residue, I had taped a tarp over the roof while I was rearranging by garage to get it in there, she's inside now):



Yes, it looks horrific. But I hope to change that in the next few weeks! Stay tuned for updates

 

I don't know if you know this, but the T-top center bar is available in stainless steel.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/82-92-Camar...z5PApA&vxp=mtr

 

Yeah, I saw those. It's appealing, but I couldn't justify the $300 price tag. For some reason, people also think that the original part used is worth over $200 too. Saw a few on eBay that were rusty, needed paint, and clearly were junkyard pulls selling in the $200-$250 range. Craziness!

I was actually going to get the stainless ones as a last resort, but out of nowhere an excellent condition OEM piece popped up for $90. I'm going to strip it down, coat in POR-15, and paint over top. Should be just as good for a lot less!

 

Welcome aboard jm3686! That's a good looking project car. Sounds like it will be a lot of fun when you are finished.

 

Nothing like a plentiful mail day! Center bar & replacement channels came in today:





For those in the market, these replacement channels are TOP NOTCH. A bit pricey, mostly since they're being shipped from the UK (plus conversion rates from GBP) - but worth every penny. They even come pre-shaped and the rear piece was drilled for spot welds already. If anyone needs these, contact Chris via email: autofabricationdesign@gmail.com. His FB page is also: https://www.facebook.com/pg/AutoFabricationandDesign. He's got great reviews and quite a few people from here have used his stuff.

Quick test fit...welding these in will be the easiest part!



Hope to get the roof patched and all welded up this weekend provided the weather is nice. All I need now is weatherstripping and I'll be able to finish up the roof. Next step, pull the carpet and check the condition of the floor pans. After that...paint!

 

Keep at it and thanks for posting the good info.

 

Good job. Start at the top and work your way down. It's gonna be worth it.

 

Quick update!

The weather has been terrible here in PA, just hit with a huge nor'easter that brought almost a foot of snow. With my tiny garage setup, I don't have as much space as I'd like to comfortably weld/fabricate so things are at a bit of a standstill. When I get good weather, it's much easier to pull the car out a bit to give me more space.

With the crap weather, I took some time to get started on the rear hatch. The key did not work, the switch was totally dead, and the lock cylinder was destroyed. About an hour of cursing and one cracked rear plastic later...I got the hatch open. Thankfully the bolts at the top of the plastic were already out, so I just yanked it off only cracking along the top piece. I can easily glue it back, and I'll be painting the plastics black later on anyway so I should be able to hide that rather simply.

Onto the next surprise...when I got the car, I didn't really look in the back. There was a plastic bag with a bunch of junk in it, and I thought nothing of it. So I finally take it out, it was full of random crap...brake cleaner, wd-40, some spray paint. UNDER the bag was BRAND NEW IN THE BOX t-top weatherstripping!!



Anyone have any experience with Metro? Did a little searching and found mixed reviews. Also, I noticed that from sitting in the box for so long the rubber itself has deformed a bit. Is it toast or can it pop back into place? I'm all for saving a couple hundred bucks and using these, but with all the work I'm putting in I want to make sure things are right from the start.

 

Leave it in the sun on a warm shiny day, periodically apply silicone grease, it might come back.

 

Nice work so far! Wheels look damn clean. Subscribed.

 

Lotsa progress today! Nice weather this weekend, so I took advantage and got a bunch done before the snow hits again this week.

Laser-focused on getting the major rust repaired on the roof, particularly the passenger side. There's some small spots here and there, but this was by far the worst of it. Cut out, cleaned up/weld-thru primed the inside and got to fabricating a replacement piece:



Fabricating this piece was a PITA, to say the least. It's an angle piece with a slight bend to it from the roof angle. The rust was on both planes of the angle piece with no good steel to weld to, so I had to totally recreate it. I first tried to bend it in a vice...quickly gave up. A quick trip to Harbor Freight, scored an 18" bending brake for $30 - made the job loads easier and cleaner:





With the bend in place, next came the hard part which was matching the curve of the roof. I don't have a torch (don't think that would have worked anyway), so I cut a series of v-shaped notches to put the curve into the piece. I spent all day Saturday on this. Wound up remaking the part 4 times! Tons of slight bending, grinding, measuring. Finally was happy with the result. Here you see a test fit:



Before welding into place, I plug-welded and tacked a small strip behind the piece to fill in those notches later:





Took a little "convincing" with some magnets, but finally got the piece tacked in place and ready to stitch weld:



Turns out after I looked at it in a different light, the angle was a little on the soft side (womp womp). Probably going to hack out the tacks, and tap a little with a hammer to make it perfecto. You won't see any of this since it's behind weatherstripping, but I am too much of a perfectionist.

Really learning a TON about how much work goes into body work. This is actually my first patch panel ever (and first time MIG welding in 7 or 8 years), it took me forever but I am impressed with myself! Got a little burn through at first, but after I got the settings dialed in I picked it right back up again. I'm used to welding thicker plate and tubing...20 gauge sheet metal is a lot tougher to work with.

BTW - anyone have any tips for filling in tiny gaps on patch panels? There are some edges that don't butt right up against and have about a 1/32" gap. I can't quite get a good tack there and tend to get more burn through on those areas.

 

Copper does not stick to weld, so if you are able to get to the back side, back it up with a piece of copper. Also with sheet metal that thin, don't try to do a continuous weld. A series of tacks works much better. Try not to put too much heat into the metal to avoid warpage. For thicker sheet metal where warpage is less of a concern, use the spot and move method: make a quick spot weld, while it's cooling move the torch for the next spot (about 1 second), spot, move and cool, lather, rinse, repeat.......

 

I've heard of the copper trick, only issue is that I can't get behind the piece. I think I'm going to cut it out, adjust the bend angle, then plug weld in some doubling strips that will sit underneath the gap. That will provide more metal to actually weld and bridge the gap.

In other news, BIG BIG BIG update here! I wound up getting my tax refund, plus a larger than expected bonus AND raise for hustling by butt in 2017. So needless to say, I had some extra cash lying around. I pretty much religiously check FB marketplace, CL, and eBay for random **** that I need/want every morning - today a 383 popped up in excellent condition. Someone had it come with their '66 Nova and was swapping to a big block...long story short, I ran over and made a deal! The motor has only 700 miles on it since it's last rebuild, used sparingly in a show/street car.



The owner is also claiming forged internals, but doesn't know for sure since it came with the car - we're gonna pull the oil pan and check it out further when I go pick up in a week or two. 010 block, 4-bolt, 10.5:1, Holly Aluminum Heads, Crane Full Roller Rockers, MSD Street Fire Ignition, Comp Cam w/ a 490 lift & 238@.050. I am rolling the dice a bit here with a used motor, but I am getting a 383 in my car for about a 1/3 of what I was initially planning on spending starting from scratch that still hauls ***, has good parts, and is ready to run out of the gate.

Looks like I've got a motor swap going on in the next couple weeks! I think I'm going to shift from cosmetics to trying and get this thing ready for some track days. Now to figure out the trans & rear

 

Congrats and let me give you the link to what I just wrote in another post.
If your new 383 has a flat tappet camshaft, you'll want to know this:
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tech...ml#post6209206