Well its been a month since the last report and progress on the Camaro has been really good... Here is the next sequence of photos;
After looking at the shoddy parcel shelf that was badly cut about for the roll cage to pass through I has ordered a new shelf and seat back braces so the old ones were cut out and work continued on cutting back the trunk floor to its natural joint with the floor tub. So;
Braces removed and more trunk floor gone...
Between the shock mounts there is a double skinned box section that provides the necessary strength and bracing for the shock absorber loads. In this picture, from inside the car looking back to the boot, the top skin has been removed leaving the lower skin of the box brace and you can see the nearside rear shock mount in the upper right of the photo
By carefully peeling back the various layers of metal, so as not to damage the chassis legs, this exposed the very substantial nearside shock absorber mounting plate which also had to be removed by carefully drilling through all the spot welds
The offside plate is nearer to the body tub and is therefore smaller in size but still needed careful removal
So with both shock mounting plates removed and the 'box' cross member removed you can now see the two chassis legs extending from the rear of the floor pan and the natural joint where the new trunk floor section will join
It was obvious very early on that this Camaro had taken quite a rear end shunt as both chassis rails were badly creased at the first bend and there is a huge crease in the transmission tunnel where the console finishes. Some time was spent straightening out and strengthening the chassis rails along with removing all remaining spot welds and various minor metalwork repairs and tidying all the edges with a hammer & dolly to receive the new panels. After this both wheel tubs were loosely clamped in place
Followed by laying in the new complete trunk floor assembly and the nearside rear quarter panel
Together with the offside rear quarter panel and the rear tailight panel
And then finally the new parcel shelf with the outer deck panel and the old boot lid laid in for good measure. Amazing how quickly the Camaro took its shape again.
At this stage all the panels (eleven new ones in total so far, plus the roof to be laid on) have only been loosely fitted in place with clamps, mole grips, self tapping screws and a couple of strategically placed bolts . I was amazed at how good they all lined up and fitted so well with no metal bashing at all and even the door gaps are near perfect. I will be inserting a few more self tappers and bolts to pull it a bit more into shape. As the next step is to remove all the panels and prepare them for welding, these screws and bolts will act as reference points to ensure it will all go back exactly in the right place as they get progressively fixed back onto the car and welded in sequence. Considering the accident damage to the chassis rails I was expecting a bit of a nightmare getting it all to square up again but its all gone very smoothly. Next weekend we will lay the roof panel in place to check alignment with the rear quarter panel roof join and see what that looks like - I'm still expecting a major snag somewhere.............
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