The Camaro Club (UK)

Working the rear end I needed to 'persuade' my panels a little! I saw this on another thread, can't remeber who's but remember thinking that's a damn good idea...



In the photo above you an see the three welds I put in the rear window lip to hold that square. A heavy duty ratchet strap looped through the side marker holes allowed me to roll the top half of the panels over to close the gaps to the trunk lid...



With the gap closed up at the bottom I got a few welds in to hold everything in place. I then shifted the strap up to close the gaps to the filler panel, It wasn't quite snug enough for my liking so I used the strap again and pulled them in a touch.



Once the gaps had closed up enough I again put a few securing welds in to hold things right. The two photos below show the gaps to the filler panel left and right...





With the trunk lid laid in place with about 1/4" gap...





The edge of the trunk lid curved in a touch at the top, nothing major though. At this point everything was tacked and secured, so I started adding welds in around the door frames.



I managed to cut the original trunk lid catch off the old panel, It's hard to believe just how rotten some of this car was...



One last shot after more welding...

Next job on the list was the front subframe, I needed a break from the rear end and had an appointment to keep with the shotblasters/powdercoaters!

The subframe was completely untouched so first job was to strip it...



Fortunately I had my Dad on hand to help out!



Without doubt stripping down the subframe was one of the biggest PITA's since I started the project. It took me nearly two full days to strip out all the rusted components. The bushings were rusted in, so for each one I had to blowtorch the bushing until I could punch out the sleeve, then punch out the rubber, then hacksaw each one out. Add to that some rather unwilling ball joints for which words of encouragement were no use... anyway I digress!

I got to repair the subframe mounts which was a breeze after the trouble of dismantling it, measured and marked up where the repair washers needed to go...



Marked round with a pen...



Opened up the holes and trial fitted the washers...



Rubbed off the black coating to leave clean steel surfaces to weld and hey presto...





To add some strength I ran a seam of weld on the underside which was left unground, It cleared the bushings so I figured the extra strength wouldn't hurt...



We got our truck loaded up with the frame, upper/lower control arms, spindle carriers and a pile of brackets etc and ran them down to the coaters for shotblast, dip, anti-corrosion and powder coat in satin black.



One final shot of the old springs and shocks. The springs had been cut down about a coil at some point, not sure when and the shocks looked pretty tired too! These went to join the rest of the scrap!

Thanks for all of these updates! Looks like you got a mammoth task completed with the rear end. Nice repair on the subframe mounts too, it will look great when it comes back powder coated Very impressive work, look forward to seeing the next stages!

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Thanks, here's the next instalment!

Here was how the frame came back from the coaters...





I got all the parts unloaded and hung a load of the bits up for later. The subframe was finished in Satin Black (I was a bit nervous) but I'm really pleased with the finish. The guy at the coaters suggested satin instead of gloss because he thought the gloss would show up every single pit after blasting, he was right, the satin just takes the edge off any noticeable pitting from corrosion...



I had some minor repairs to make on the underside of the front mounts and used new bushes...



The frame tucked under easy enough and I got it loosely fitted...





For those who don't know here are a couple of shots of the factory alignment holes, drivers side has a hole, passenger side has a slot the same size. I used a piece of bar the same diameter to square things up...





And a quick mock up of things to come...



Thanks.

Great looking car......so far.

The pictures are top quality.

Great project
Watched your progress on Nastyz28, you certainly showed great skill and perseverance ,lesser men would probably have given up ! You don't seem to be intimidated by a challenge and the end result is outstanding, inspiration to the rest of us.
Great to see something really good being built

Thanks for the kind words, there's still plenty of updates to come, I'm not sure how I've fallen so behind! Poor show on my side!

Here's some more...

I got new ball joints all round and after removing the powdercoat from the bores was able to install the new ones...





I had my new Energy poly bushes which I got way back, so next on the list was to install these. Again it took hours cleaning up the bores but I got these all pressed in ok...



Installing the lower arms back on the subframe was a real PITA, it took both me and my dad cursing at it loads to make them fit! Incidently the other side went in a charm, maybe because there's a 'knack' which we eventually figured out on the first one! Anyway, lowers installed...



Next job was to rebuild the uppers and again, you guessed it, more powdercoat!...



The nicest part was working with clean, rust free parts! More to come...

If I was stripping mine all down again.. (tempted) I'd be very keen to get the frame all suspension bits powder coated. I know a guy that'll do it cheap too..

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“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

It's definitely worth the extra few quid to have it powdercoated, the only problem I had was keeping the powdercoat clean during the build! Still looks great though!

Deja-vu seeing the powder coated suspension parts I didn't have the frame off but took all the suspension apart and had it p/c'd. The guy only had a Bentley grade material in so used that, apparently it's super tough. At the moment though it's super dirty with sanding dust lol. Also had a PITA getting the driver side lower CA in, but pass side installed like butter. Looking very good there Cowman, will be a nice milestone when it's all bolted in place, keep it up!

_________________
How to post pics: When writing a message, scroll down and use the "attach file" option. Where possible, a photo sharing service can be used such as Flickr, Imgur etc. The image location (usually ending in .jpg) can be copy and pasted between the ][ brackets that appear when you click the 'Img' button (you can find this button at the top of the message box).

How to post youtube vids: Click on the 'youtubeHD' button at the top of the message box and in the middle of the ][ brackets that just appeared, copy and paste everything from the youtube web address that appears after the = sign i.e if this is the url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cNqaPSHv0 just copy "K2cNqaPSHv0").