The Camaro Club (UK)

I set up a part time business called Avon County Road & Race about 18 months ago and rented a good size unit with a view to collecting and restoring a few cars and also to provide a place of work for my two lads where they can work on my cars, friends cars or their own projects when they are not busy working away on motorsport activities of their own and its been a really good arrangement, but really good to have the space to make as much noise and mess as I like away from home!!

Some may remember from my opening topics on here back in Feb 2011 that I bought MLL 40L being a 1969 Camaro that was well known back in the 70's as Red Devil and then Rampage... Well the car was quickly sprayed matt black all over for uniformity of colour and used sporadically on the road during 2011 and mechanically it was fine only needing replacement UJ's on the prop.

In August 2011 the MOT ran out and it was obvious it would not pass another MOT without a number of issues being attended to. How it came to have an MOT in the first place is another question, however we move on... I knew when I bought it that it had some serious bodywork issues to resolve as well. You could see it had been crudely tubbed, the nearside rear quarter panel had loads of filler and fibreglass on it, the roof was badly rippled round the sides and rear and the offside rear quarter had also been badly replaced as the welded seam joint below the wing line went in and out like a rollercoaster !

The following panels were ordered in from NPD back in the summer;
Roof panel
Gutter sections
Full rear quarter panels
Inner and outer wheel tubs
Rear deck panel
Rear tail panel outer & inner
Front inner wheel housings (as these were 'missing' on the car as well)

The car was stripped of all lights, wiring, interior and front sheet metal and bumpers back in the summer as well.
Finally I've started work on the bodywork and taken the following pictures. I'm doing all the work on the Camaro on a one day per week basis so this ain't going to be a fast build thread but we should make some reasonable progress.... All the pictures are on our Facebook page here for those who want to tag along and see what else we're doing https://www.facebook.com/colin.fox.359# ... 1896471714

Started work by just chipping off the filler along the top of the rear wing and pulling a lump of fibreglass off by the rear boot lip corner and revealed this wonderful welding effort. You can just see the seam running along the line of where the filler has been chipped off.


There's no metal at all holding the outer roof panel to the inner structure along the roof gutter edge above the drivers door....



Here is an inside shot of the drivers side rear wheel tub made out of pop rivetted aluminium sheeting, bits of fibreglass and with a sizeable chunk of the inner body panel chopped away to allow for the bigger tub. No wonder the rear quarter window wouldn't work properly either as the mechanism had been chopped off as well so thats on the next list of replacement parts!



The usual body rot at both lower corners of the rear screen but again the nearside corner is the worse side. Oh yes, the rear window wasn't even bonded in but just laid on a bed of mastic and was easily pushed out from the inside with no effort at all.........



So, after a quick whiz round with the air chisel this was the result. NOt much original metal in there at all.....



And then a few tugs with some mole grips removed the aluminium wheel tub pretty quick and this is what we are left with



And then finally I removed the rear deck panel to reveal the inner deck panel which although looking quite rusty is actually quite solid except for the rearmost 1" where there are numerous pin holes. The rear 2" will be cut away and a new boot lip repair section will be welded in here (its just visible lying in the boot)



Well thats the state of play at the moment and I'm looking forward to tackling the other side in due course. This weekend may well see the removal of the outer roof skin.

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See the sort of stuff we get up to here https://www.facebook.com/colin.fox.359# ... tos_albums
Its only a hobby that keeps us off the street !!

Do you have final plan on how the car will look? are you going to "restore" it back in the Red Devil livery?

cheers...Nige

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Too much power...not enough hands!!

I remember seeing this car when it was the 'Red Devil' with Sam Connell driving. I always felt it went downhill once it was repainted as 'Rampage'. I used to spend a lot of time at Santa Pod back then and remember many of the great cars that used to grace the Pod's 1320.
Seem to recall also that another board member and I found body parts of 'Rampage' for sale at a swopmeet a few years ago and may even have bought some.........
Cheers, Martin
PS, I am jealous of what you are doing with your business!

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fantastic effort going on here!
keep us posted
NB I have the odd bits and pieces for Camaro resurrection somewhere - see my post on this

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Kind Regards
TopCat
Secretary
Classic Camaro Club
Member of The Association of American Car Clubs UK
Email :tboles@strathnoon.co.uk Websites: http://www.classiccamaroclubuk.com and:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdhLJtR_ZY4

I'm still torn between what to restore it to.... On the one hand I feel a duty to history to repaint it as Red Devil, however I've always wanted a glorious Hugger Orange camaro with black stripes but is that too 'common'...... ? In the meantime whatever it becomes it needs some serious body work to save it...!!!

But with its roll cage and the centre lines fitted it becomes more of a racing car.... and I like modified cars over 'standard' cars and the idea of a blast up the strip so who knows... I guess its best to start out as Red Devil and then go for a show car Hugger Orange in the future rather than the other way round.....

Removed the other rear quarter panel and crappy wheel tub today and inserted some angle bracing to reduce the flex in the shell. Tack welded in the new repair section to the inner deck panel to maintain a point of reference for the rest of the new boot gutter surround at some point. Started to remove the rear tail light panel..... Also decided that the 'new' boot floor in the car was also a right bodge job so thats coming out as well as there are way too many individual repair patches all round the edge which have been welded in over rusty metal....

Forgot the camera so pictures will have to follow in due course..... Off to order some more metalwork now........ !

_________________
See the sort of stuff we get up to here https://www.facebook.com/colin.fox.359# ... tos_albums
Its only a hobby that keeps us off the street !!

Both of the really badly fabricated wheel tubs have been removed. It wasn't hard to just pull them out as they were only held in with a couple of pop rivets, some fibreglass and lumps of resin and some silicon adhesive. What a right old bodge job.... Just trying to remove the back panel in this picture below having welded in some temporary bracing



This is the nearside rear corner looking at the inner valance panel that sits behind the tail light panel. Why someone has cut it with a torch and left it is another weird thing?



As you can see in the last photo the rear upstand of the boot floor was pretty rusted out and it had been patched along its length quite badly so I decided we will fit a new trunk floor panel. Out came the air chisel again and within minutes most of the trunk floor has now gone. This does make it a lot easier to clean up the chassis rails and will make a much tidier job of the whole rear end.



Poor old girl is looking a bit sorry for herself now but there is still more rusty metal to cut away....



What was left of the old nearside original inner wheel tub has now been removed in this photo and all the edges cleaned up ready for the new steel tubs to go back in. Unfortunately this can't be done until the new trunk floor panel arrives and has been fitted into place (more panels on their way now from NPD)



So there she is at the moment with most of the nearside rear quarter fully exposed and waiting for new metal to go back in. All the residual bits of the old quarter panel in the door shuts has now been removed, so there is a lot of tidying up of edges to be done while I wait for the new trunk floor to arrive. In the meantime work will now start on removing the roof panel............

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See the sort of stuff we get up to here https://www.facebook.com/colin.fox.359# ... tos_albums
Its only a hobby that keeps us off the street !!

Questions
1. do all Camaros have staggered rear shocks ?

2. this Camaro has been fitted with single leaf rear springs - are they OK as I thought they should be multi leaf ?

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See the sort of stuff we get up to here https://www.facebook.com/colin.fox.359# ... tos_albums
Its only a hobby that keeps us off the street !!

Hiya,

As far as i'm aware they had both staggered and non staggered, on the 1st gens. Not sure what differentiated them though. You can buy replacement replacement shock mounts that are factory replacement and staggered.

As for leafs i think they were all mono, but you can get multileaf, the 2nd gen leafs will also fit with a bit of modification as they are a little bit longer. Need to make sure that the doohicky that is welded onto the axle, that bolts onto the shock plate and sandwhiches the leaf spring, has enough space to accommodate multileaf. If not, then it's putting the torque forces into the U bolts as opposed to having the 2 plates compressed against eachother. A lot of people do have gaps so it doesn't appear to be a big problem (same as having lowering blocks) but if you can have the right gap, then bonus!

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Only the '67 had shocks on the same side of the axle. All others had them staggered in an attempt to prevent wheel hop.All 6-cylinder 1st gen cars came with monoleaf springs and all 1967 models used monoleaf design rear springs. In 1968, only models with the 12-bolt rear end received multi-leaf springs. This included all SS models, the Z28, and the L30/M20 327/275hp 4-speed. All other 1968 models used monoleaf springs. In 1969, all models with 12-bolt axles received multi-leaf springs and all models with 350cu in and 396cu in engines (10- or 12-bolt) received multi-leaf springs. Vehicles with 307 and 327 engines received mono-leaf springs.hth

I'd also recommend bracing across the doors prior to cutting off the outer roof skin as these cars do tend to bend & twist if not supported.

cheers...Nige

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Too much power...not enough hands!!

Mmm interesting thanks Guys..... I had a feeling the new trunk floor in the catalogue did not have staggered shocks but it was difficult to tell and catalogue pics aren'ty always right anyway! Basically then a 69 trunk floor should come with staggered shocks - fingers crossed as its on the high seas as we speak....!

Bracing Nigel...? Is that just straight across the door latch posts ? Kinda been relying on the 6pt roll bar providing the rigidity at the moment

_________________
See the sort of stuff we get up to here https://www.facebook.com/colin.fox.359# ... tos_albums
Its only a hobby that keeps us off the street !!