I have a good friend who has been stationed in Japan since 1998. He recently retired from the Navy, came home to Virginia, only to find out he can't get a decent job. He has moved his family back to Japan and left his 69 Camaro with me. The car is in fairly decent shape, although not very original. He's put disc brakes all around, rims I don't like, and several other items that I wish were original. Long story short, motor runs great (350), suspension is pretty good, brakes are great, and overall in pretty good shape.

It definitely needs some body work, as there is rust around the windows and just about every panel on the car. It appears the rust has been painted over. My question is, how do most people go about beginning the body work on their cars? Should I save my money and do it all at once or should I tackle a section at a time? It came with two doors from a 69 RS that are basically perfect, plus a spoiler from the same RS that's perfect. I can post pics if it would help but I guess I'm just trying to figure out how most people approach body work projects that basically cover the whole car. Other than the body, this car is pretty nice and runs great. Any advice would be appreciated. I'm a COMPLETE newby so please be kind.

 

I sometimes like going by the "fix as you drive" method, but that depends on the extent of how far you need to disassemble the car. You can do a panel at a time and shoot that one area with primer, and move on to the next. If you have rust around the back window though, you'll most likely need to remove the window to fix it right.
I have an old Vette that I'm in the middle or restoring. I took it apart, did the body work, got it painted, and now it's ready for reassembly. I started it over ten years ago, then other stuff got in the way of my time. It's been sitting in the garage all painted for the last (almost) six years. My point is, if you plan on doing a complete resto all at once, make sure you plan on enough time for the project. Figure it to cost you twice what you thought, and take you four times as long to complete as you thought it would.

 

If you go into my project thread you can see what I did with my 69. Maybe it will give you some idea of whats in store for you and a complete restoration. I did tear it apart myself and we took a good long look and decided that the body work needed to be done by a professional. I am doing the interior myself and with the help of my husband I am learning how to build a motor from the ground up.The subfame cleanup was messy but I really enjoyed doing it myself.

 

Thank you both for the replies. Being that the car doesn't really belong to me, I'm going to have to go with my friend's plan. While I'm sure he would love to tear it completely down and do a complete restore, I have a feeling he's going to do it "panel by panel". The good thing is that the interior is in really good shape and the motor is in great shape. Pretty much the only thing needed is the body work. I'll post up some pictures later today.

 

OK, for whatever reason, every time I type an apostrophe, it comes out as a quote?? Just didn't want everyone to think I'm an idiot.

 

That's because of one of the many current quirks of this site. It's to be fixed IF...I mean when the site is upgraded.
EDIT: And then if you edit your post, those apostrophe "quotes" become a double set.
EDIT: And if you edit yet again, they become a triple set of quotes, and so on........

 

Pics as promised. You can clearly see the rust issues.