I have owned this car since 2001 and am slightly embarrassed to say it's never been on the road. The engine has never fired. It hasn't moved from my dad's garage since the day we rolled it in there. I paid $3,800 for it. It was some awful burgundy color painted over the original Nantucket Blue. According to the VIN it was number 3,200-ish off the line, built in August 1966. Pretty cool to be an early assembly date, but it's so far from original it doesn't matter.

It had no fenders and the sub frame was bent from an accident, it had a cracked original 327 block (didn't know it was cracked), the powerglide transmission, and a set of double hump heads that were supposedly out of a corvette. The interior was complete, and we got some odds and ends and spare parts, etc. The top was pretty rusty, along with the trunk lid. I was 20 years old and really got way too impatient and ambitious, and although I wasn't over estimating my dad's capabilities, I put a huge job ahead of us that I convinced myself would be a small to medium job. We got a rebuilt TH400 transmission out of a 90's model full size Chevy pickup. A 350 out of a '70 Chevelle, and a disc brake sub frame from a 70 Nova. Both were rebuilt and put into good working condition (or we at least presume as far as the motor is concerned)

Then I met my ex-wife....then we split...and I was dead broke, so I sold dad the car..then I got divorced and had a little cash, but lived an hour away from the car, so we did very little to it. A lot of time was spent sitting on it as we occasionally pondered media blasting the portion of the body that we had. One guy quoted us $3,000..LOL. We never did it. We never did anything really, after that point.

Then I got married again in 2011 and have a super cool wife who has been supportive of my desire to see it completed. I also have two small stepdaughters that I love spending time with, so our weekends were generally tied up. I've managed to get down to my parents house maybe a dozen times in 2 years, since dad is still working and only has Saturdays free for Camaro work, when he doesn't have anything else planned. We came up with a little cash and we decided to just buy new sheet metal. He welds, and I'm pretty good at it for having only done it half a dozen times. We got everything we needed for about $2000 from Rick's Camaros and saved on shipping by having my uncle bring it down since he lives close to Rick's. We (and by we, I mean mostly dad because I'm still an hour away) replaced all the sheet metal from the firewall back, and found some fenders. I've had a set of inner fenders since right after I bought the car and we have two hoods if I recall correctly. We have a little more work to do on the metal and a couple small pieces to replace. I'm glad we didnt waste any money on media blasting because the quarters were a complete mess. The wheel area was bascially made of bondo. We found screen wire and a pepsi can from the 70's in there for "structural support"..LOL

So..here we are in 2015. I have access to probably as much as 10k if I'm being reasonable. Dad is retiring in August and I'll be able to drive down on my weekdays off (I have one every couple weeks) and maybe some Saturdays if things get rolling along. Plus he'll need something to do with all those newly acquired and well-deserved days off.

I REALLY want to finish and drive this car. I am not and have never been trying to build anything amazing. I want something solid, without cutting corners, a decent paint job and a reliable motor. The only modifications I care about are modern seatbelts, maybe some AC (a portable unit would be fine), and a slightly lowered stance. I want to drive this car semi-daily in nice weather and go to cruise-in nights with dad, and obviously he'll have his alone time with it since technically he does own it and would have done the majority of the work on it. I don't want to be afraid of rock chips, but I don't exactly plan on parking it close to other people at Wal Mart. My goal is to be able to grab the wife and drive it several hundred miles down south, and if all goes well take it across the country with fun stops along the way. I'll settle firstly for daily driving at home though.

I'm not 100% sure what all we'll need to finish it. Dad bagged and saved as much stuff as he could during disassembly, like brackets, interior clips, hinges and trim pieces, motor accessories,etc. We have a bolt kit for the front end, assembly manual, (no build sheet was found), and How to Restore Your 67-69 Camaro. I don't want to get the money until I know roughly what I need. I'm guessing dad will have some money too when the time comes. I made a list of what I can think of that we need.

paint
Read end rebuild
leaf springs
brake lines
master cylinder
fuel tank, lines, neck, sending unit
brake shoes
fenders (getting new ones instead of the originals we found. they arent great)
carpet
heat shield under carpet
upholstry (could get away with not having that really)
headliner
radiator
headlights
windshields
windows
exhaust manifolds and exhaust system
ignition
probably emergency brake parts?
wiring harness
rubber seals
rear disc brake conversion
4 link suspension?


Not sure what else we need. Here are some pics. I'll take some more detailed ones when I'm down there next. I don't know if this project thread will be very active just yet. Maybe I'll just post some status updates without pics as we buy things or make plans, etc, so it'll keep my motivation up. Life can get busy in a heartbeat.

Any tips, trick, suggestions, etc, are welcome and appreciated! Thanks for reading!


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I would go with American auto wire for a harness,, and add like 4 extra wires to the rear harness and 2 speaker wires.. The extra wires would include if you so choose electric trunk release, alarm trigger, trunk light, if you have an antenna in the rear add two wires for it plus run the antenna wire down the opposite side of the car. If your going to need an in tank fuel pump that's another wire..

 

That's the kind of info I need. Thank you. The original harness was in good shape, but I suppose it'd be better to just get a new one and avoid any issues that might creep up. Plus, as you've made me aware, I probably need some more wires. I'm updating my list.

 

If your going to order fenders now is a good time to consider if you want to go RS headlights. There is a difference for the inner fender liner and fender between RS and standard headlights. Since your replacing so much in the rear you might also want to think about a 4 link system. It costs more but not a lot more and you get way better rear suspension control. These things in 67 had a horrible problem with rear axle hop and the 4 link is the way to go. You can order the rear axle assembly with the 4 link tabs already welded on and that makes everything else a bolt on in the kit. As for the sub frame I would watch craigslist and you often see people strapped for cash selling sub frames. I would also replace all bolts and bushings while your doing that part...

 

Also I would contact classic industries and apply for there credit card its free. You get 15% off on any purchase and lets face it who would not like to save the 15%... As you go and get things done I will have more words of wisdom as what your going through I have just finished and I am ready to the point its all assembled everything works. Next for me is to take it all apart again and send it out to media blast and paint then begin re assembly ...

 

Thanks for the tip. I'm not sure if it'll be in the budget, but I see a kit for 1500 that appears to include the rear end. I don't want to regret not having it either though. Probably wouldnt be too hard to install later on if it doesn't happen right away. Dad threw a few more parts at me so I'll just keep adding stuff to my list of needs.

 

If anyone has swapped to a manual transmission I'd be interested to know how difficult that is. I'm probably not gonna push to do it, but I'm still curious. I love the sound of the revving engine at a slow crawl. Just something about it..

 

What's the difference for the RS kit on the inner fender? Would I actually need different inner fenders than I currently have?

 

Manual transmission swap is easy at this point. Your going to need the pedal assembly and the Clutch crank that goes to the frame, and couple other pieces that will run about 100.00 plus the manual trans figure 2000 to 3000 depending on 4 speed, 5 or 6 speed. I would caution to think about the RS kit as now would be when you weld in the rear pieces for the lower valance lights. Just thinking about things like rear leaf springs and you don't want to buy them and then decide to go 4 link because you then throw away the leaf springs and all the mounting hardware.

 

yes the inner fenders on the RS are different and they come with the correct holes and places to mount the RS lights etc...