I really enjoy and learn from others when they post pictures and give advice as they complete thier restoration so I figure I would begin a post of my own for my restoration and share my experience..

The wifehad a daily driver '69 up until three years ago when we sold it. She hasregreted that sale ever since A few weeks agowe see the bad a$$ new yellow camaro in the Transformers movie (Autobot named .. Bumble Bee) and I say... would it not be nice to own twin '69 and a '09 Camaro sitting side by side in the driveway??.. then low and behold, as if by Destiny.. this'69 pops up in our local Craigs List that same week and I am the first caller... with some anxious waiting and then $1,500 later we own another 1st Gen.

The car is a X-11 code,which is for the basic model.. or it could be for a SS350 (thanks to the guys on this forum for ID help). No matter which now... the car came with no engine nor tranny.. lots of rust and many missing parts... so no chance of it ever being restored back to original. The car had a 4 speed and factory front disc brakes. It has a Ford 8" rearend with mulit leaf springs in the back.. I was told it was a 9" when I bought the car.. and since learned different.

My goal is to buy a '09 Concept when they come out late this year.. no wait, make that sometime in 2009 as no way am I going to compete $$ for the first run of the cars..I am hoping they offer the car in the same golden yellow as in the movie. In the mean time I will begin a restoration of this car and in the endpaint the cars tomatch.. Twins! I will mention.. I neither have the time nor money to do a concurrs restoration on this car... that is not what I am after. My intent is to do the best job I can with the time and money I have avaialable. I want a thumper since our previous Camaro ran a 327. I am after a Big Block for it.. I also need to change it over from a 4-speed to a Auto so the little lady can drive it (thats the deal to get her to 'buy' into this project I live on the northern california coast.. it is very wet here.. my plans are to by lots of stock in POR-15 and armour this car as best I can against future rust.. after all the rustoration the car needs.. I need to make sure I protect it as I can.

Enough of that lets get to the meat and potatoes... here are some pictures of what I am starting with...

The whole front wrap and hood is new.. GM and aftermarket parts..





The back window readily shows some rust out at the bottom, also some holes behind the side window and this LH quarter is suspect. I took the rear fin off the trunk and found more rust..




why is the RH quarter always in worse condition? My previous camaro was the same way.. this one will need to be replaced and the car came with a new skin. Notice how the metal along the sides of the back window look OK? My plan was to only replace the quarter and not the sail... we will seereality once I start stripping her down



I found a 'black hole' when I first opened the hood.. original power brakes are there. Hmm.. looks like such a small hole for a big 454, but I am sure I can shoe horn it in






I have a big box of parts the car came with..the previous owner started the breakdown... this is one ugly interior.

 

What your budget? That thing is gona need a lot of metal work. If you have not done a restoration before you should write up a plan with a budget. You can post the plan here and we can help you. Makesure you list what you want in the end. Just by your pictures id say you were into both full quarters, trunk, trunkfloor, Inner quarters, wheel wells,rockers and i'll bet after sandblasting there will be some weak spots in that frame that will need patched. You will not know until you get it blasted. You doing the body work yourself?

 

man people really do a number on cars

 

Hi Gorn- my budget? I am hoping to keep the cost down to around $8-10k. That is how much I can afford by next fall, when I am hoping to have it running,altho not painted until I can the correct paint codes for its twin. As you will see in my next post, I plan on doing pretty much all the work myself, from body work, engine to paint. I have restored a vintage '67 VW bus and one '56 oval convertible bug, including some pretty hefty sheet metal replacement from rust on both of them. I have sourced a '85 suburban with only 15k on a454 carb crate motor and Turbo 400 tranny for a $1000. Not bad price, but I am not sure it will fit in this camaro. I am not very knowledgable when it comes to engine/tranny specs. I had another post on this but is sizzled out. Engine wise, I am not after HP, but just the thump of a big block. So with headers, flowmasters and maybe a cam/spring/rocker job I will have it with this engine/tranny. With my own work going into this car with a little wheeling an dealin', I am thinking I should be OK with the above number, but the idea of a budget plan is a great idea so I will do one..

 

the 454 will fit in the car, u just have to pull all the fuel injection stuff off the top of the motor and put a carb. Budget? I am sorry but I get a good laugh at people who are building the a car. I mean think u have the most expensive hobbit in the world. I had one of those too. Check out my car there is a update thread in 1st gen section, I have 13k just how it sits NOW!

 

Well I started to dig into the sheet metal work this week. The car came with a aftermarket RH quarter skin, I am have been wondering how far I will get with only this repair panel

I learned a bunch from jonnyNITROand his work on his '69.You will see some similiarities in our work Thanks bud!


Well.. here are some pics of the my start:


Right off I see that I will need an outer wheelhouse and also the trunk extension drop.




I did some swipes with the grinder to see what was inside of the repair panel..



A shot up the inside of the quarter towards the back window... ugly ugly.. I see cheap repair work. Its going to be tuff to sand blast in here and paint... I see I will have to prepare and paint before I put the panels back on..




See... life is not all that bad..looks like my rockers are good! I also checked out the rockers under both doors. They appear to be solid with no Bondo.



Test fit of therepair panel I got with the car. It back end fit is poor... Not even close. Now I know why guys spend $800 for a GM sheet metal...



I decide to try to butt weld the panel on the inside of the existing ridge line at the back as I can... the existing has much better lines.. I still need to do a lot of trimming here.. but you get the idea. Not sure what I am going to do with the top edge..



Not sure what I am going to do in the below pic.. I did some offset measurements like I seen jonnyNitro do. But damn.. butt welds are tough. An overlap weld would be much easier like you see now,then I have a 16 ga lip to massage out with filler.I wish the panel had offset edge on it. I will have the same problem on thefront end of the panel near the door. I dont want to take the repairaround the dooredge.. i want to hold back as the existing metal is better shaped. I am open to suggestions from anyoneon this...





[IMG]local://upfiles/11104/677F58F29D3F447CAD4F2A1F73C62DAA.jpg[/IMG]

 

Iamgman, looks like you're gonna have a few busy weekends! That 454 will fit, especially since the Camaro was originally available with a big block. The physical difference between a passenger 454 and a truck 454 block is the deck height (top of block above the cylinders) on the truckis a little higher. The one place where you could run intoissues would be the clearance betweenyour valve coversand thepower brake booster. I wouldn't let that stop me though, there are other work-arounds for that.

 

Blade, I hope to prove you wrong Remember, I am not aftera show car, but rather a driver that is solidly built that I can drive in this lifetime and not get a divorce in the process. This car is probably too far gone to be a show car anyway.. well, without dumping more money into it that it could ever be sold for and I am not all about that.I am going to hold my guesstimate$10k for now.. and that includes the $1,500 purchase price I will do up a budget like Gorn says..

Oh, the 454, I mentionedalreadythat it is acarbureted motor, it is the year before they went to fuel injection on the suburban so the guy told me. I am hoping that engine and tranny will just fall into this car with some mods that we discussed in my previous post.. change heater panel, motor mounts, tranny mount, pedals, etc. I just hope the mounts on the motor are the same as the early big blocks..???

 

Since your original body lines were better than the replacement panel, I think you may have gotten a little carried away with the cutters. To retain the original lines, you could have left the extra metal below the top edge as shown in one of your pics, as well as in front of the rear corner and behind the door opening. Then flangethe original panel with a tool like what's shown below. Cut the replacement panel to fit inside the channels and weld it in place.

[IMG]local://upfiles/10318/1B7DEA4AE6D140A6AC9CC757BD3C3799.jpg[/IMG]

 

damn.. damn .. damn.. your right on the cuts. At least I am OK in the back and front, but I did go over the line with the top. I will check around for that lflange tool... harbor freight? At least I can get it right on the other side..

Oh, thanks for the engine info.. good stuff. Sounds like the taller truck block dont really matter if I am OK with a smaller booster.