1970 Camaro Z28 Restoration
Project Undertaken 15th October 2011
Ian's Camaro came to us already stipped down and with underseal etc removed. The car has been in the UK for a while, and appears to have a motorsport history as well, so not suprisingly has it's fair share of rot and damage!
Here is the car as it arrived.
First job is to make up the brackets to mount the 'shell on our rotating spit. We also remove the scuttle panel at this stage, as it will need replacing anyway, and removing it will allow us to blast the enclosed area beneith it.
Then it's blasting time!
Then after a good clean out, straight into the booth for an all-over Zinc Phophate coating.
We decide to start the repairs on the nearside front corner. Firstly the rot in the footwell/'a' panel area. This is repaired in three sections as you can see here.
Next there is a section of floor than needs attention. This is cut out and a new panel made, complete with original strengthening beads.
Moving on, we tackle the awkward lower screen pillar area. Both sides need attention, although the nearside is much worse. All the rot is cut out and repair sections made accordingly.
In the meantime we've whipped a quarter panel off to inspect what lurks beneith.
The offside footwell area requires similar repair to the nearside.
And repairs around the screen aperture complete the front end work except fitment of the new cowl panel. The enclosed area has been sealed and will be painted prior to fitting the cowl.
Heading back to the quarter panel area, we start to investigate the rot, and discover it to be quite extensive. Ian gets inner arch tubs and lower, inner side panels ordered, and we begin to repair all the corroded sections in the surrounding area.
Then it's on with the new inner arch, inner side panel and rear scuttle, followed by a couple of repairs to areas that sit beneith the quarter panel (the sill has been left 'open' at the back to allow the bottom flange of the quarter panel to be welded in otherwise there would be no way of accessing it!)
And finally, time to get the new quarter panel on!
with the nearside complete we turn attention to the offside, removing the old quarter and beginning the repair work. this side is not quite as bad as the other, and we decide only to replace the outer lip of the arch tub rather than the whole panel.
with both quarter panels replaced, we move on the the 'colander' boot (sorry, trunk!) floor.a large section is cut out and unpicked from the chassis rails, before a new section is let in, edge-to-edge and plug welded to the chassis rails.
we then replace the corners of the roof which needed to be removed to free the old quarter panels. these sections are fabricated using the english wheel and joggling dies in our Pullmax machine.
One of the final rotten areas is the chassis rails near the axle mounting points. these a repaired accordingly which almost completes the job... just a few bits to tidy up including the rather roughly cut gearshift hole in the tunnel.
