When my wife and I were bestowed the opportunity to pick up a very low mileage one owner Polo Green / Gold Z03 Heritage Edition RS we jumped at the chance. We love anniversary year cars and a 25th was always on our radar to go with our 2012, 2002 and 1997 . . .



A friend of ours in IA happened upon the car on a dealer lot and told us we HAD to buy it, he really wanted it, but he and his wife were not prepared to buy another Camaro . . so we drove down to check it out and were amazed at the time capsule someone had chosen to trade in . . . The car was traded in with the hood bra on it so we were very worried that the hood paint or stripes would have been adversely affected, thankfully they were not! We brought him home on July 11th and been tinkering with him ever since.

He has been fondly named "Marco".



It was clear that the previous owner absolutely loved his Camaro, and cared for it very much. Originally from South Carolina, it was necessary to tint the windows (the annual inspection sticker from 1993 is still on the windshield - the owner relocate to IA for business shortly there after) . . but now it was time to get rid of the nasty film.

Over two weekends labored to carefully remove the tint from the side and rear windows.









Using straight ammonia, black trash bag liners and Mother Nature's sunshine worked pretty well on loosening the film and getting rid of the adhesive, Goo Gone worked to get rid of the rest of the sticky stuff. Below you can see the black trash bag stuck to the backside of the glass soaking the film with ammonia.



In the process we found a trim tag behind the passenger side door panel.



I will continue to document the updates that have been happening . . . thanks for reading!

 

Wheels and Tires . . . amazingly the car is still rolling on it's original tires with just under 17,000 miles on the odometer . .



We do not believe that the inside of theses wheels have ever been cleaned . . they were pretty gross!





The finished product of the front wheels:





And the rear wheels . .





My wife an I really do not want to disturb the originality of the wheels and tires, they are original only once! So we took a cue from the Chevrolet Heritage Edition Camaro Prototype, and put on 17" x 9" GTA Gold Lace Wheels with 275/40ZR17 BFG Comp TA's so that we can enjoy him safely on the road, and preserve the originals safely in the house.




The original wheels and tires are neatly decorating the game room in the basement:

 

 

We did get him a fitting personalized plate and time era license plate frame:

 

As I said before the previous owner deeply loved his Camaro and enjoyed slopping on copious amounts of wax, which did save the paint, but was a nightmare to get out of the nooks and crannies!



This is just a corner of the hood stripe!

Under the spoiler . .





Nose emblem:



I'm still working piece by piece and nook by nook cleaning out all the old wax . . .

 

In the ever crazy efforts we take to restore / preserve these cars, here's one that always makes me laugh . . The car had ONE incorrect headlight . . . so as the story goes . . one thing leads to another . .



Which in the end was great, because the headlight buckets were all gross and rusty, so was able to take those out and re-finish them, and address all the filth back there!



Unfortunately have never been able to get my hands on a 100% correct "Guide" headlamp, so replaced all four with correct GM replacement bulbs. If anyone is willing to part with headlamps that look like below, PM me. I had called Hawks, and they sold me a correct bulb but all the chrome was gone . . rather useless . .



Show of hands . . . how many member's wives let you use the dining room for car part storage? . .



The fully cleaned, polished and rebuilt front nose clip waiting to go back on.

 

Your DETAILING goes beyond ****. Very well done. Those GTA Gold Rims look great, but I would have kept the stock ones on there. They really came up new looking. Sometimes you can NEVER figure out, why someone would TRADE in something like your 25th Anniversary CAMARO, and realize that all they were getting was a wholesale price and the Dealer made ALL the profit. Plus where are you going to find another one just like it. The original owner was a maroon to just dump it without seeing if there was a TRUE collector to keep after it, when they spent time and effort to pour tons of wax on it. Well LOL and a really awesome find!

 

Stunning!

What did you use on the wheels?

 

Nice work!

 

I've been looking for a Guide sealed beam to replace on my convertible that has a tiny rock chip. Even NOS parts seem to have GE or Sylvania, still haven't found a single NOS Guide.

 

Nice work!

 

Are these the guide lights your talking about?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NOS-AC-GUIDE...RXEvzz&vxp=mtr

http://www.ebay.com/itm/301938745213

 

Thanks for the info . . the top add is for the 85 - 89 Camaros, with the word "GUIDE" in the upper left corner . . . the 90's it was in the center . .

The bottom add is the GE replacement headlamp which is what I've installed.

 

Head light bucket restoration . . the heat from the halogen bulbs must adversely affect the black coating on the head light buckets, since on virtually every Camaro I see they have a dusting of rust on them.



The grossness really did not photograph well . . GM used a nasty grease to lubricate the buckets against the fiberglass header which turned to concrete.



The headlamp trim rings were in really nice shape, just needed some bug guts polished off and a little touch up with a paint pen.



Headlamp buckets scrubbed smooth and repainted high temp GM satin black.





My wife and I re-assembled the bumper in the dining room . . . Thanks Honey!



Here's a finished bulb assembly;

 

When we got Marco, the original cigarette lighter was MIA . . . we assume the original owner was a smoker, since every once and a while I sense a hint of lingering odor . .



Luckily through the power of eBay, was able to secure an OEM replacement.



Like it was never missing . .

 

We were fortunate to get the original GM logo'ed floor mats with our car, so to preserve them got a set of ACC mats from Rock Auto . . . although not a 100% perfect match sure are really nice.





I see I have some spot treating to do on my OEM mats . . . Hmmmmm

 

My step son adores green and was so excited when we went to the dealership in IA to check the Camaro out home . . . Interesting enough his initials are "RS" . . . I'm pretty sure he has deemed this HIS Camaro.



This picture was taken at the dealership . . we could not get him out of the car, he wanted to make sure we took him and the car home with us.

 

Fantastic detailing job. Who cares how deep you go into areas you may NEVER see, but in your mind YOU know and that's what's important!
By the way, in the last picture (with your step-son), it looks like the upper seat belt holder is broken off on the headrest passenger side.

 

Paint correction . . . Marco's paint was in really good condition, honestly remarkable condition for a 24 year old car . . granted he does have some rock chips, scratches and bug gut etching, but I knew could bring back even more of the glory. Countless hours have been spent cleaning cracks and crevasses . .



Using Meguires DA Microfiber Paint Correction Kit purchased from AutoGeek, brought back the mirror gloss.



Extremely pleased at the results





I really like the Dual Action Polisher that Meguires sells, very nice unit for the price at Autogeek.



The color and metallic is just brilliant in the bright sunshine:





My stepson was in awe when I pulled the car out of the garage . .

 

Great thread and awesome car you're bringing up to 100%!

 

Awesome thread, Andy!

 

Thank you . . and good eyes . . yes, actually both of the original seat belt loops had gone all brittle and broken off before we had purchased . . . We still have all the "parts" safely stored away. If you look really closely in the noted picture, you can see the loop laying on the floor behind the seat.

To get by, we found that the 2000's Neutral Interior matches the unique color of the 1992 Light Beige Interior color very well so bought a pair . . looks OEM, but of course not correct . .





I have since found brand new GM in the bag NOS correct and correct 64I colored replacement seat belt loops from Modern Day Muscle . . . they came from GM pre-cut to slide over the seat belt and a little retainer "square" that sandwiches between the head rest and the base of the loop, I thought I had pictures somewhere but for the life of me can't seem to find them . . I really want to install them but am too afraid to, since now they are no longer available! . .

 

In the never ending quest to clean everywhere . . the tail lamps came out. I am pretty sure that although the previous owner loved his Camaro, he lived on a dirt/gravel road, the amount of filth is a little mind boggling . . My wife even joined in on the fun cleaning the tail lamps for me.















My wife loves taking pictures of me in strange locations . . Look Andy fits in the trunk! I think I was still removing window tint adhesive here . . .

 

Andy you have a super nice car and its good to see someone else who appreciates these cars as well and goes the extra mile in maintaining it

 

Very impressive attention to detail Andy. Great thread and nice to see others caring for these cars as I try to do.

 

I think the 91 92 rims look terrible (yes, I have them on my 92 Z). The IROC rims were so much better looking, GM should have stuck with them. The gold crosslaces look absolutely amazing on your car. I know the purists want to kill me, but you hit a grand slam when you installed those. You have a very nice car and seem to be enjoying it.

 

One of the worst projects to date was replacing the t-top weather stripping . . as somewhat typical, the tops leaked, and the previous repairs amounted to adding more adhesive, more sealant and just more mess . . and still leaked . . plus, the existing stripping was damaged. So a replacement was necessary.

But before undertaking this task, took due diligence and researched on our very own TGO forum to determine who's product was best, and in the end it came down to using genuine GM parts. Sure they cost a pretty penny but they fit! . . At the time 1AAuto had some in stock and seemed to have the best price. So armed with my new knowledge and new parts undertook the task!

I don't have many before pics, but here's one where I actually have cleaned up some of the mess, and you can also see the passenger side weather strip has been glued back together with clear silicone.



You can also see the little sections of additional fabric that was added to the head liner to hide the gaps caused by its de-lamination.

In the process of removing the weather stripping I removed most of the interior, for many reasons, deep cleaning, protection and to have the headliner re-done.



Then came the arduous task of removing as much of the adhesive and what ever stuff the other hacks used . .











Never in a million years did I think I would have been able to get the center bar to release, but thankfully it came out unharmed and has been restored to near original beauty.

Using, Goo Gone, lighter fluid, plastic tools and cussing got most of the crap off . . . oddly enough a pink eraser worked wonders.





In the above two pictures the bright white areas are reflections, not worn off paint . . . sure looks like it though!





Thankfully this was the worst spot of rust I found . . . all of the missing paint was caused by previous repairs . .

Hit the limit on pictures . . to be continued . .

 

T-Top weather stripping continued . .

Oddly the center t-bar was justified too far forward on the car and cut the paint on the windshield frame.



I was able to find very similar foam from all places a washing machine parts depo to replace the ruined squares at the front and back of the center t-bar.





I did order custom touch up paint from Automotive Touch Up, which made a pretty decent match for 24 year old paint off of just the car codes.





Here you can sort of see though the screw holes how misaligned the center t-bar was . . I slotted the holes so that I could justify the center bar.





Although not pictured, all of the missing paint was touched up with color and clear coat, the rust re-mediated and touched up as well. Then came installing the weather strip . . . for the time being it is installed dry (w/o adhesive) but was it ever simple to set the two plastic clips in their respective received and then press into the slots, the hardest part I would say is the a-pillar, especially at the bottom behind the side mirror.







I do have a couple of scratches to address on the windshield frame cause by a sloppy t-top replacement . . but I am loving the new weather strip, almost too nice to cover up!

 

Another jaw dropping job. The old glue residue that was smashed in there was unreal. Man if this IROC only had the L98 in there WOW!

Just another question, at the end of the 1992 build, some of the motors had Black valve covers and noticed yours were. Was your model a late build and how far from the end was it?

 

According to Compnine, the car was built 06/19/1992

 

When we were on the look for a Heritage Edition we really wanted a Z28 Convertible . . . which was a dream in itself . . we honestly never considered looking at a RS . . but this was was so unique and well cared for we couldn't let it go.

Looking at the door jamb, appears to be a 06/92 build, since Polo Green was introduced late, not surprised on the build date.



Our Invoice is dated 6/19/92 . . . with a in transit date of 7/5/92



I will have to plead some ignorance on the valve cover color . . ours are black, and I assumed that all L03 engines came black . . . the cover color change affected only the TPI's did it not?

 

Thanks, they actually came clean fairly easy . . . my wife cleaned the inside of the wheel using Purple Power degreaser, for any "chunks" used a plastic scraper, then with some very mild rubbing with a scouring pad for the tougher stuff and a "Dobie" for the not so tough stains. The front side used various brushes, including an old tooth brush and a 50/50 diluted mix of white vinegar.

 

That's actually something the factory did on some later cars. Don't ask me why, but I've seen the add-on strips enough times to know it's too consistent to be an owner repair.

 

The pleasure of Lexan T-Tops . . . . the original Lexan T-Tops are in nearly perfect condition . . . note nearly . . . the passenger side top has a very odd focused shatter mark . .



What caused that? . . no clue . . it must have happened very early in the life of the car, since the owner included with the car (and the dealer did not re-purpose) a brand new in the box GM replacement T-Top . . . great news, but . . . will a new in the box T-Top even remotely coordinate with a 24 year old top . . let alone the date codes, so this has stayed wrapped up for prosperity sake.

So pursued a different route . . get a matching pair of take offs . . . I searched high and low through eBay, other online sources, and in the end found a pair through TGO classifieds! I was so happy that got myself a set of very lightly used take off T-Tops . . . so I thought, uhm nope . . they were beat up and scratched to all get out . . the pictures below do not do the damage justice.





Well I had them and the seller did refund some of the monies . . . so what to do? I recalled from my Mom's past 1991 RS that the protective coating on the top does come off and I can polish the Lexan.

I set off experimenting . . I learned that if you spray the top with a generous coat of ammonia and apply a plastic bag to prevent evaporation, after about an hour or so the clear flakes off . . .











In the last picture you can see how badly scratched the top was, those were there before removing the clear coat . . . I then set about wet sanding them with 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200 and 1500 . .



Then the top was thoroughly buffed and polished with various machine polishes, and was coming out really nice . . but . . the Lexan text and date code was quickly disappearing, so for a driver car they would work great, but not for trying to do a period correct restoration, I stopped at this point to pursue a different path . . these tops provided me with lots a spare parts to play with, so on to the next venture with Lexan T-Tops . . thankfully I still have my near perfect OEM set . .

 

The extra fabric on you see in the top inside corners of the headliner are factory and they cover up the cuts needed to make the material follow the odd contours.

 

Only the TPI valve covers were silver until 1992 some time they ran out and put the black valve covers on the TPI cars as well. Also the TPI nameplate on the throttle body was dropped and if you notice some of the runners looked a lil rougher around the edges as well.

 

Those black valve covers, rough runners and blank t-body plate also have a little bit different oil pan and the LT1 PM rods and pistons. (even the 305 tpi auto cars)

 

Absolutely love all the tid bits and history shared on this forum!

 

Here's an inquiry for the history buffs . . . what year Camaros came with GM on the T-Top Bags? . .



Yes . . the bag is strapped in upside down . . I do that on purpose so that the bag rests on the straps in lieu of pulling down on the straps. . . . I see this must have been when the rear struts were weak since I have my shower rod in there! LOL

 

I know my 89 bird had GM on the bag and some of the early ones have body by fisher and the GM logo on them.

 

My '89 bag has the GM logo as well.

 

Mine does NOT have a logo on it . . forgot to mention that part . . LOL

 

Maybe something else GM ran out of last year of production for the Third Gen F-body. Lol. My 89 has the logo on the bag as well.

 

My '85 bag says GM my '83 said Fisher Body with the emblem embossed.

 

Beautiful car, and beautiful work you are doing!

My '88 T/A has it's original GM logo'd bag.

 

Unbelievable job on restoring this car back to mint.

In post 19 I see you are wearing a Camaro Superfest shirt. You said you bought this car in Mid July, so what car did you have at the 2014 show? Are you bringing this car this year? Id love to see it!

As for my T-Top bag, it has a GM logo stamped upside down....

 

Thanks for sharing! I'll probably make my own thread about my car after seeing this... probably in "Members Camaros," though.

Also, I thought I treated my Camaro well, but this thread makes me feel neglectful.

 

I have always gotten a funny look from people when telling them this. When I had to remove tint I tried goo-gone and some other products and all it would do was smear the adhesive around. But I poured some gas on a towel and just wiped the window and within a minute all the tint adhesive was off. And no the car didn't smell (I put the gas on the towel not the window).

 

Yep been going to Superfest since 2003, last year we brought our 2014 SS Convertible. We are planning on bringing the Z03 this year, it's the tribute year, since it is also the 25th anniversary of their show.

 

We have a finished roof! Finally got the NOS Lexan T-Tops finish detailed and assembled last night. Melrose Corvette out of Dekalb IL secured a stock pile of various brand new old stock T-Top parts from a supplier/vendor they use, so picked up a set . . a bit on the pricey side but where are you going to get brand new Lexan T's? . . sadly they did not have all of the parts so after some time and a thorough scouring of eBay got the OEM drip edges, large pin locking mechanics, handles and key kits. Kind of fascinating building your own lock cylinder so that the key matches your existing. . . I could have used my original T-Top parts, but they are in too good of condition to take apart, and the date code matches the car, these have been carefully packed away. Sadly these tops have a date of 0702 but for how beautiful they look I can get past that.



I did paint the edge trim over the side windows to match the center bar with SEM Trim Black . . all of the new seals have been given a gentle coat of NAPA Sil-Glyde (which I see in my pic I smeared on the center bar) . . the tops fit great with the new weather stripping, albeit a bear to get seated due to how fluffy the new seals are. Some adjustments to make here and there, but really happy with the end result.