Thought I would tell a bit of the car's story and what I've done with it so far, since I'm new to this place.

After an accident I had back in October 2024, my dad half-jokingly said that I should use the insurance money to buy another car. He told me about a Camaro he saw on an abandoned property and a Firebird someone in the neighborhood next to us left sitting for awhile, both of which happened to be 3rd Gens. I tried to talk to the people who owned the Firebird, but they never answered their door, so I went to go check out the Camaro. I walked around it for a bit and asked the neighbors about the previous owner, but didn't get too much out of it. I decided to look inside, and saw the registration on the driver's seat with the owner's name showing! I had the feeling it was a sign that I was headed the right direction, so I did some research with the information that I had. Come to find out, the previous owner passed away back in 2019, and his wife ended up passing in 2023. I tried to contact any next-of-kin I could find through public records, but nothing ever came out of it. I thought it was over, but a few months later I saw that the property was being seized by the city, so as a last-ditch attempt I left my email on the window in hopes that whoever owned the property would see it. Lo and behold, the administrator of the property saw it and contacted me to arrange a meeting! We had a bit of an impromptu auction with a couple other guys checking out the car, and I was able to get the higher bid at just under $2k! It was a gamble for sure, but something just kept telling me to keep going.

A few days later we had the car towed to my dad's shop. I was a little overwhelmed with the amount of work I had in front of me, but I was determined to get it running. My dad put a new battery in it, but of course it didn't start. The first thing I could think of was to change the fuel pump since I had read that they were prone to failing on these cars, so I ordered one for a fair price and went through the very arduous task of dropping the differential and squeezing the gas tank out of it, then doing it again in reverse. I went to try starting it again, and boom. She sputtered a bit, then roared as if she woke up from a deep slumber. I'll never forget how amazed and relieved I was seeing that I actually had a chance at restoring her to her previous glory, I wish I could experience it again. Of course there was much more to be done, since the engine would shut off after about 2-3 minutes of idling. I changed the spark plugs, wires and distributor cap, and she ran a bit better but still would shut down. I then changed the IAC and TPS, but still got no results. Somehow, I didn't even think to check the MAF Sensor until much later. When I did go to check it, the screen on the intake box side was torn and let in debris. After I changed that out, boom! She would actually stay on now!

At the moment I'm trying to figure out how to go about getting the A/C fixed, since the engine shuts down when I switch it on. Assuming that it's just low on Freon (and I really hope that's the case), all I need to do is recharge it. My dad seems confident that the previous owner had the system converted from r12 to r134a, so all I need to get are some some adapters for the high and low side valves (as well as new valve stems, since it just blows out air when I take the cap off). I really hope he's right about that, the last thing I need is to have the entire system get gummed up from mixing two different oils together, then having to spend a pretty penny on replacing everything. Other than that I'm actually pretty happy with how the interior and exterior looks right now, even if there's a ton of surface rust and a concerning lack of rear passenger seat belts. There will always be room for improvement, so I'm just gonna wait before I decide to drop a few bands on getting a quality paint job and having the interior redone.

She may not be the prettiest 3rd gen out there, but all that matters to me is that she's mine



Pic from when I first saw her


How she looks now after a good wash


All the work I've done with the interior so far. I'm probably gonna change the ashtray in the center console into a cup holder since that seems like an easy mod. I also got some mint condition OEM seatbelt buckles for the front, since the original ones were crumpled into pieces.

I'll probably end up updating this at some point in the future when I make a substantial amount of progress. Thanks for reading ^^

 

I really like the color combo, my first 3rd gen was a 85 with tpi 305. Kinda a heap but fun nonetheless. Subscribed to see the progress.

 

Love that color combo! Almost bought one just like it once H.O. car