Once the engine got replaced thought to myself that I don't really have a whole lot else I want to do with it besides perhaps a tune. Which led my thoughts to the suspension, which hadn't had any work done on it for several 10's of thousands of miles. That resulted in the installation of several new suspension parts-KYB strut mounts, front and rear gas-a-just monotube shocks, new rear bump stops and front and rear springs from Moog. Sprayed some rejuvenator on the controls arms while I was in there (black rust stop paint-they were turning the wrong color red). BMR front and rear sways, Energy Suspension sway bar bushings and end links rounded out that swap. The change in handling was significant-I didn't realize how soft the suspension had been until I drove it for the first time after the swap. I believe that the monotube KYB's are a bit better than the dual tubes these came with or the ones I had mounted. Also found that my power steering rack had developed a leak.

 

Which brings us to today-where I ordered an AC Delco Professional rack and pinion along with a pair of Moog outer tie rod ends and a new pressure line for the power steering. Should get those sometime this week. Also ordered a set of trim screws since I lost a couple doing the suspension for the interior and an ash tray cover which has been missing since I bought the car. Only recently realized that these cars also came with a cargo divider. Found one on Ebay and ordered that too-looks like it's the right color of gray to match the rest of the carpet and the plastic ends weren't even broken. Washed both of the DD vehicles yesterday and replaced my driver side seat cover in the Camaro and a couple of cheap Wal-Mart front rubber mats. I've been considering pulling out the interior and doing a remodel there. Dynamat, carpet, and reupholstering the seats would be ridiculous amount of money to spend on the car that I'll never get back. Sounds perfect!

 

It's been a hot minute since my last post on this car. Haven't got to the interior redone yet, but there's been a lot of work on the car this year in particular. Since my last post I've been away from her for almost two years at the behest of Uncle Sam on a couple separate occasions. Last year I had a local exhaust shop put a custom 3" stainless exhaust in, Flowmaster 40 and a high flow cat to go with it, black powder coated exhaust tips. Exhaust was starting to decay from the absolutely acidic to steel solution they spray on the highways here in the winter, definitely returned me to a nicer exhaust note. Fuel pump failed on the 4th of July weekend this year while I was about 400 miles from home. That was an expensive shop trip, as replacing that thing on the side of the interstate in scorching temperatures just wasn't on my to do list. Then two months later transmission failed. Lost Reverse and I assume pretty much every gear above 1st. Fortunately this happened about two miles from a transmission shop. Unfortunately this was again 250 miles from home, and the shop had a two week backlog just to pull the transmission. So there she sits at present waiting for the shop to pull the transmission. Planning to get the 4L65E rebuilt with some better parts once the extent of the damage is determined. Damage hopefully shouldn't be too bad as I parked it shortly after realizing I had lost gears and got a flatbed to the transmission shop the next day. I had been planning to rebuild the rear (axle replacement and Positrac primarily) but at this point not certain when I'll be able to start that, if funds allow it to happen yet this year. Probably due for a tune up as well, at least plugs and wires. Also had a run in with a poorly graded gravel road construction area earlier this year, which resulted in replacement of the Specter oil pan (and quite possibly is the incident that pushed the transmission over the edge eventually.) Good thing that I'm a contrarian who likes this particular model of Camaro! Hoping to have her back mid to late October, I'll have to make a trip back and forth to pick her up first, so she'll get a good long break in cruise.
Paint is getting rough on this car. I did a clear coat repair on it in 2021, but as the paint around those corrected areas has aged further it's started to peel clear coat there, creating clear coat islands in the paint job where the original correction occurred. Either another round of corrections or a full repaint-if it's a full repaint that'll be a dollar or three. The rat rod look is growing on me but isn't impressing the wife. Either way a full paint job is probably not in the cards this year considering some of the unexpected repairs.

 

Dang if it wasn't for bad luck you'd have no luck at all.
Hopefully she's sorted out and you can nail down some fun miles after all that.

 

Yeah, does seem that way this year-but to be fair to the car we're at ~225,000 miles at this point. So both the transmission and fuel pump made it over 220k, which I think isn't that bad. On a positive note I did get in touch with the transmission shop yesterday, he had the car on the lift and was pulling the transmission, so probably Monday I'll call back and we'll talk about what parts were busted up and what parts I'd like to upgrade, possibly Kolene steel swap for durability/heat dissipation and a stronger sun shell ("basket" between the rear sun gear and front ring gear) as I understand that the factory ones weren't the best/are currently considered a poor/weak design with several potential failure points. I'm not 100% on the Kolene treatment though, as I have seen conflicting reports on them (that they can glaze at high heat and produce more heat-on the other side that they are more durable and dissipate heat better.) I haven't ever used them personally, so I'm curious if they're actually worth using or not. Some performance transmission outfits seem to say yessir, put those in! while others indicate they have them for when a customer insists.

 

I have full thickness kolene steels in mine but also a mess of other upgrades in my level three trans https://transmissioncenter.net/shop/...-transmission/