The backstory on this is I used to do a lot of side work for one of my mom's friends any time I happened to be in California visiting and she had this Camaro just sitting in a back garage, and I'd joke with her to "let me know if you ever wanna get rid of that thing". Recently, she decided to start cleaning out all her storage areas and she'd given up waiting for anyone in her family to touch it, so she told me to come get it. Spent Thanksgiving week tinkering with it, trying to get it to run at least enough to get onto the trailer to bring home to Las Vegas with me. It's now parked behind the shop I work at so I can mess around with it on my lunch breaks and after work somewhere where I have all my tools.
Things done to it so far:
-Replaced 25 year old tires
-Replaced Battery
-Removed Viper security system
-Replaced Fuel pump and filter
-Replaced Plugs and Wires

It went from cranking and refusing to start to cranking and trying to start but not quite being able to turn over.
Since I've had it home, I've pulled the fuel rail and injectors, I'm planning to put new injectors in it as the a couple of the original ones were had debris in them, and if they look anything internally like the fuel pump did, I might as well. Also going to rebuild the fuel pressure regulator while I have the rail out. Also going to replace the idle air control valve as well because I'm pretty sure I may have jammed it up trying to clean it.

This poor car has been sitting in a garage for about 20 years, so getting it back up and running is definitely going to be a project. Once it's running, at the very least, it's going to need a water pump (found it leaking after cranking the engine quite a bit), all of the rubber hoses are in bad condition, the radiator is full of rust and I assume the thermostat will be too. From there it's a handful of little stuff, its got a broken high beam, lock switch on the driver door is broken, and other little things. Either way, I've always loved Camaros and am excited to have this one as a project.


Before I even touched it. 20 years of dust built up on it.



Loaded onto the trailer and ready for the trip home.



Decided to clean it up a bit since I had the time before I left.



Where it sits now behind my shop. (Bonus Corvette project that belongs to one of our customers)

 

On a side note, these hood inserts were not installed when I got the car and I'm not sure exactly how they are supposed to be secured. I'd appreciate any insight on this. It almost looks like there are larger coarse threaded nuts that go onto the posts?

 

I think they are them thin metal nuts. maybe check in the parts manual. go here https://www.mediafire.com/?40mfgeoe4ctti parts manual at the bottom.

 

Snapped a photo for you, my car has been repainted so not sure how accurate they got reinstalled...

 

Thanks to both of you. Between the manual and the picture, I was able to find the part number. Appreciate it guys!

 

Spent some time after work on it today. Got the fuel rail with new injectors installed along with a new IAC valve. Got it running, which was pretty cool. Added coolant since it was pretty low and as soon as it built up pressure, the heater core blew out. I knew it needed some cooling system work with how degraded the hoses and such were and the fact that the water pump was leaking, but I'm still gonna take the win! New heater core, thermostat, water pump ordered. Got plenty of bulk hose at work to replace sections of the hose too. One step closer to drivable though!

 

Could be a good idea to give the cooling system a flush to get old gunk out while at it, you could bypass the heater core with a hose while doing it

 

Oh yeah, that's definitely the plan

 

Actually drove it under it's own power to get it into the shop this evening. Did a lot of work on the cooling system.



Got the new water pump and thermostat installed. Cleaned up the mating surface and knocked a bit of rust off the inside of the impeller area. It's not super pretty, but it works.



And the old water pump. It definitely needed to be replaced aside from the leaking.


Also got the new heater core in, and fabricated some new heater hoses.



Decided to change the oil at least while I had it on the lift too. All in all, it was a very productive evening. Still having an issue where it runs kinda rough on first startup, sometimes dies, but fires back up and runs relatively well. That's the next project to sort out. I do have an intake/valve cleaning kit that I'm probably gonna run through it tomorrow on my lunch break and see if that helps. I didn't have a chance to let it get up to operating temp to fully test the cooling system anyway, so I figure I can check off both of those boxes at the same time

 

Good progress and picts