68 Camaro - Almost Done!

[frankzlt1]

Looking really good, I haven't seen finned drums like that in a long time.

[jeff68]

Originally Posted by DavidS

Did you get the springs from Heartbeat City?

No, the front springs are factory original to the car.

[jeff68]

OK, so instead of giving the rear end of the car a quick cleanup and fresh coat of paint, I decided to take everything apart. Hey, why not, right?

I had installed the wrong replacement style U-bolts and the e-brake cables weren't correct anyway. Luckily, all rubber bushings & spring pads were replaced with GM parts 20 years back when they were still available, and everything was still like new.

Here is an original T-bolt (right) next to an AMK repro. I'm going to stick with the originals on these to retain the correct "M" head marking. I'll use new correct U-bolts & nuts all around at final assembly.


Springs were cleaned up and given a fresh coat of satin black:


3M Body Shutz was used at the body shop to duplicate the undercoating in the rear wheel wells. Mike test-sprayed some samples to get the right texture, but the final texture came out too much like sandpaper - imagine like a 20 grit paper, very rough. So, I used a very stiff bristled scrub brush (plastic bristles) to knock down the peaks, which really smoothed it out. However, it still wasn't the exact texture I was looking for. So, I topcoated it with 3M 08883 undercoating and it came out perfect. A nice heavy texture, but not 'scratchy'. I wanted to be able to clean the undercoating with a damp towel, and this finish is perfect. I'll also give the rear subframe rails a fresh coat of satin black - just haven't gotten there yet.


Next up is cleaning & painting the rear end.

[DavidS]

Nice!!! It's looking great Jeff.

For the undercoating, did you look at original cars to determine the texture?

A friend of mine in North Granby has an original 67 396 SS and I took a few pictures of his wheel wells about 6 months ago but I have to find the pics. In front there was nothing for undercoating, but quite a bit in the back.

[frankzlt1]

Looks great. The car is going to be to nice to drive lol.

[jeff68]

Originally Posted by DavidS

For the undercoating, did you look at original cars to determine the texture?

Yes, my car actually had the original undercoating in the rear wheel wells. Very thick, with heavy texture, drips, and 'striping' where passes overlapped. Only some of the u-coat was stripped in the rear when the quarter work was done. So, the plan was to keep the original stuff and build up new u-coat in the stripped areas, then blend with the original. However, after Mike sprayed & blended the new u-coat, things went bad quickly. The new u-coat started to lift the existing stuff around the edges. When Mike started scraping with a plastic scraper, the original u-coat came off in big sheets. You could see the original Ash Gold paint underneath! So, everything got stripped, epoxy primed, then undercoated.

I'm actually glad it went down this way. I feel a lot better knowing that there is nothing hiding in the rear wheel wells.

For the front, I still have the original inner fenders off the car. They have heavy u-coat, mainly in the area behind the tire - just like the AIM shows. I tried all sorts of things to duplicate it, but I eventually just ended up spraying the entire inside of the new inner fenders with many coats of 3M 08883 undercoating.

[jeff68]

Originally Posted by frankzlt1

The car is going to be to nice to drive lol.

Drive it? Are you kidding? It might get dirty. Hehehe.

[frankzlt1]

How's the car comming?

[jeff68]

Slow ... and frustrating...

The rear end is finally back together. New brake shoes & hardware along with new e-brake cables.

Now, I wanted to make sure that the pinion flange nut was properly torqued - good idea I figured. So I removed the driveshaft and cleaned & repainted it. Then I pulled the pinion nut, inspected & cleaned the threads. For re-assembly, I figured I would simply apply the brake by jamming a 2x4 between the brake pedal and one of the floor reinforcements, allowing me to torque the nut. But the brake pedal went almost to the floor - and I could still turn the rear drums by hand. WTF? No fluid in the master cylinder for the rear circuit! Argh! I had the shop install my original (rebuilt) brake master cylinder and all new stainless brake lines, so I was a little upset about finding this. I found a slow leak at one of the fittings, so I tightened it, added fluid, and bled the brakes. I kept hard pressure on the pedal for about 12 hours, and all looks good. Still not sure what really happened there. Anyhow, I finally got the pinion flange back on & the nut properly torqued.

I also took a little detour on the shifter. Figured I should remove the shifter and clean off all the body shop dust & grime. It is the original Muncie shifter that came on the original M20 Saginaw transmission. The thing is super sloppy, and it would leave the trans stuck in gear at times. So I talked to my dad, and he cursed the shifter as well, saying it left him stuck in 2nd gear more than once. So, I located an older (read as "made in USA") Hurst Competition Plus shifter. My dad said that's what he wanted to install 'back in the day', so that's what I did. Just finished installing it last night and I can't believe I put up with the original shifter for so long. Night & day difference. I have the chrome ball for it, so with the exception of the HURST logo on the stick, it looks fairly stock. Sorry I didn't take any pictures, but it sure looks pretty!

Then I went to hook up the backup light switch, only to find that the switch doesn't work. Oh well...

[frankzlt1]

Wow looking good. The shifter problem I think they were build that way I had a same problems with 79 z28 with the Saginaw I had lol.