Sean's 78 Camaro Z28
- Thread starter Texas82GP
- Start date
Time for an update!
When we left off in September we had a running, driving car that blew cold A/C and had a dash. Sometime in October we worked up enough nerve to test the seal on our windshield and rear window installations. We wanted to do this before we put in any more interior. As I mentioned previously, we didn't feel good about how the install of either window went at the time and the test proved us correct. We ended up getting an expert to come out and cut both windows out of the car and reinstall them in November. He was great. I can't remember how we got turned onto him but he was our age (40's) and had been doing this type of work for 20+ years. He knew how to work on this car and was willing to come to our house on a Saturday to do it. He wasn't sure he would be able to save the windshield but he did. He did a great job.....
In December, my brother tore down the bucket seats and back seat to prepare for their restoration. Below is an original seat to the car. We had a seat out of the red car the doors came from on the drivers side with a seat cover since when we got the car back from our Uncle the original driver's side seat had a busted seat track...
Sean got everything cleaned up, primed and painted. I had to do a little welding repair on the seat base of the original driver's front seat. It had suffered from being sat in with a broken seat track. We decided to restore the original seat though and parted out the red replacement seat...
In retrospect, I think he left the red seat in the car so he could drive it, but we later parted it for the seat track we needed. That's why we repaired the original driver's seat, so the car wouldn't be laid up. I remember riding around in the back floorboard of the car with no seat while logging data for the tuner during this time period. There is a bit of a gap in time. I think there was some saving money to buy the parts needed like all new seat foam and some of the interior trim. The next batch of pictures is from March of 2016 where we were getting ready to paint a bunch of the seat plastic and inner trim. I think he got some of it from me and my sister-in-law for Christmas and saved and bought some of it.....
More to follow....
When we left off in September we had a running, driving car that blew cold A/C and had a dash. Sometime in October we worked up enough nerve to test the seal on our windshield and rear window installations. We wanted to do this before we put in any more interior. As I mentioned previously, we didn't feel good about how the install of either window went at the time and the test proved us correct. We ended up getting an expert to come out and cut both windows out of the car and reinstall them in November. He was great. I can't remember how we got turned onto him but he was our age (40's) and had been doing this type of work for 20+ years. He knew how to work on this car and was willing to come to our house on a Saturday to do it. He wasn't sure he would be able to save the windshield but he did. He did a great job.....
In December, my brother tore down the bucket seats and back seat to prepare for their restoration. Below is an original seat to the car. We had a seat out of the red car the doors came from on the drivers side with a seat cover since when we got the car back from our Uncle the original driver's side seat had a busted seat track...
Sean got everything cleaned up, primed and painted. I had to do a little welding repair on the seat base of the original driver's front seat. It had suffered from being sat in with a broken seat track. We decided to restore the original seat though and parted out the red replacement seat...
In retrospect, I think he left the red seat in the car so he could drive it, but we later parted it for the seat track we needed. That's why we repaired the original driver's seat, so the car wouldn't be laid up. I remember riding around in the back floorboard of the car with no seat while logging data for the tuner during this time period. There is a bit of a gap in time. I think there was some saving money to buy the parts needed like all new seat foam and some of the interior trim. The next batch of pictures is from March of 2016 where we were getting ready to paint a bunch of the seat plastic and inner trim. I think he got some of it from me and my sister-in-law for Christmas and saved and bought some of it.....
More to follow....
And here are the parts painted. We were a little crammed in there with everything we were wanting to paint at once but the paint on these pieces turner out really nice. It would have been a lot easier to go back with a black interior since all of the reproduction stuff is black but there are very few cars with the light blue interior and we wanted to go back original....
And here is a pic that shows how the seats turned out after being reupholstered. We farmed that job out. The shop did a great job. The bright blue color is close to the color of the body of the car is a happy accident. I was initially aghast the first time I saw them but they look great in the car. This is our spare bedroom being used as a parts warehouse...
Moving into April of 2016 we started putting the rest of the interior in the car. I found the interior work to be much harder than I anticipated but it turned out well. We used ACC mass-backed carpet and the fit was nothing short of spectacular.
Next we needed a handle for the shifter. The shifter for the T56 Magnum was in a pretty decent location relative to the reproduction four speed console, but it wasn't centered...
As I mentioned previously, my brother had wanted to put a T5 in the car in the 80's. He loved the look of the 3rd gen Camaro shifter in those cars. He didn't necessarily care for the look of the stock 2nd gen Camaro four speed shifter or recessed 'tunnel' boot. So, we fabbed up a shifter handle to move it more into the center of the console opening and threaded it to accept the 3rd gen shifter ball and boot. Sean then made a custom 'shift plate' to fill the void between the 2nd gen console and the 3rd gen boot...
And after some swearing and some repair sewing, we actually got the 3rd gen boot on there. We're really happy with how it turned out. It is a one-of-one setup.....
You may notice, we don't have the door panels on yet. We left them off because we anticipated some disassembly to get the car painted. We have them for the car but they still aren't on to date. This gets us to the end of April of 2016. This is a good place to leave off until tomorrow. There is some exciting stuff coming. Thanks again for following along and all of the positive feedback. More to come....
And here is a pic that shows how the seats turned out after being reupholstered. We farmed that job out. The shop did a great job. The bright blue color is close to the color of the body of the car is a happy accident. I was initially aghast the first time I saw them but they look great in the car. This is our spare bedroom being used as a parts warehouse...
Moving into April of 2016 we started putting the rest of the interior in the car. I found the interior work to be much harder than I anticipated but it turned out well. We used ACC mass-backed carpet and the fit was nothing short of spectacular.
Next we needed a handle for the shifter. The shifter for the T56 Magnum was in a pretty decent location relative to the reproduction four speed console, but it wasn't centered...
As I mentioned previously, my brother had wanted to put a T5 in the car in the 80's. He loved the look of the 3rd gen Camaro shifter in those cars. He didn't necessarily care for the look of the stock 2nd gen Camaro four speed shifter or recessed 'tunnel' boot. So, we fabbed up a shifter handle to move it more into the center of the console opening and threaded it to accept the 3rd gen shifter ball and boot. Sean then made a custom 'shift plate' to fill the void between the 2nd gen console and the 3rd gen boot...
And after some swearing and some repair sewing, we actually got the 3rd gen boot on there. We're really happy with how it turned out. It is a one-of-one setup.....
You may notice, we don't have the door panels on yet. We left them off because we anticipated some disassembly to get the car painted. We have them for the car but they still aren't on to date. This gets us to the end of April of 2016. This is a good place to leave off until tomorrow. There is some exciting stuff coming. Thanks again for following along and all of the positive feedback. More to come....
Do you happen to recall the product name and color used to paint the interior panels? My Cutlass has light blue interior as well and I'd like to address some fading in the near future.
Opie Knievel
Rum Fueled Midnight Mechanic and Moderator
The interior looks great and I love how you did the shifter. Watching this thread reminds me of how much work I have to do on the Monte Carlo.
Thanks Kevin. I appreciate the kind words.
Thanks Steve. I appreciate it. Yes, that steering wheel is still on the car. Those rope style steering wheels are Z28 specific so they are not that easy to come by, especially in that color.
We used DuPont vinyl paint on the interior. We couldn't find SEM pre-mixed in this specific color and weren't aware that we could get SEM mixed to a certain color. We took a piece of interior trim that was hidden from the sun and wasn't faded, and they matched the color off of it. We had mixed results. In general the paint worked well on rigid plastic but not so well on flexible plastic. The paint on the dash is a bit of a problem. We have to touch it up with a small brush from time to time. It doesn't stick well and is not flexible like it should be. We followed the paint system tech sheets to the letter. We cleaned the plastic with the special soap and a gold Scotch Brite. We applied DuPont adhesion promoter. Then we applied 2k primer with flex additive in it. Then we topcoated with the DuPont vinyl paint. I will PM you with some pictures of the label on the can and the mix ratio of the color.
Thanks Opie. We're really proud of how the shifter turned out. We made it out of a piece of angle iron and a piece of steel rod, so it was from scratch. I think your Monte is a cleaner car than we started with so I think you can do a rolling restoration like we wanted to. It's just nearly impossible to do that and depend on it as daily transportation. Stay with it. I love your low budget build and that you are enjoying your car.
I'm glad you kept that wheel. I don't think that wheel was used in any other brand and it's great to see the original wheel in the car, especially in the condition that wheel is in
and I just noticed something, the rules of the road in my part of the world are that you have to have the shift pattern for a standard either on a decal on the center console or the shifter ball. I guess where you are you can go incognito. ....😀
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Update time. Later in the day than I anticipated but here it is. When I last left off it was April of 2016 and we had put most of the interior in the car. Sean was driving and enjoying the car. We were working on the tune and small bugs. We also started looking for someone to paint the car. We took the car to several shops and talked to folks. We had one fellow out to the house to look at the car. We had quotes all over the place from $6k to $30k. The $30k job was to basically take the car completely apart and start over. I was very much against very much disassembly of the car. I pretty much wanted the car painted mostly assembled (fenders and hood on the car, doors on the car). I figured on pulling all the lights and trim, and both the bumpers since they have to have the flex additive in the clear. Sean settled on a shop not too far from the house. I didn't really have a warm fuzzy feeling about the shop but we went and looked at a car they did and it looked good. My main concern was that they were only familiar with painting a car completely disassembled with the body on a rotisserie. Sean decided on the place and based on the work I saw from the shop, I supported his decision.
As some of you know, 2016 was a pretty tough year for me. My Step-dad passed away in May. He treated me as his own son and he meant a great deal to me so it was a tough loss. He went down hill fast and died fairly unexpectedly and that made it more difficult. In late August we moved my mom from Baton Rouge here to Spring, TX. As soon as we had mom settled in, I fell ill. Without going into too much detail, I had suffered from diverticulitis for 12 years. All of the scar tissue in my colon had caused it to fuse to the back of my bladder. An unwanted connection had formed between my bladder and colon. Surgery was required. I was in the hospital for about three days in early September. I went home and went back to work part time. I was "home infusing" hospital strength antibiotics three times a day. They took care of the infection but they also took all of my energy. I was basically out of commission. Sean's car was supposed to go to the painter in late September or early November. In September he tore the care down to get it ready to take it to the painter.....
The surgeon wanted to give the antibiotics a month to beat back the infection in my belly before cutting me open. I went in for surgery in early November. They cut away about a foot of my colon. The surgery was a success but the recovery was easily the most difficult time of my life so far. I went back to work part time, midway through December. I had to get out of the house. I went back too soon, in retrospect. I didn't feel like myself until mid January. All this time the Camaro sat in the garage, disassembled waiting on the painter. He was in paint jail and the car hadn't even left the house. Around this time, James (JAMCAR223) reached out to me and asked how the Camaro and the Galaxie were coming along. I told him that Sean was in paint jail and that the car hadn't even gone to the painter. I told him that I didn't have a good feeling about the painter my brother had chosen. James remarked "yeah those painters. I only know one who does what he says he's going to do." The light bulb went off in my head. I asked James to introduce us to his painter. James asked for some pictures of the car and some explanation of what had been done to it. He explained that his friend had a booth at his house and only took on certain projects. I sent James the information. Somewhere in this time Sean got disgusted and put the car back together and started driving it again. Then the original painter started calling asking Sean to bring the car over. I didn't want the car going over there. I reached out to James and told him, if your friend is interested, now is the time. James arranged a meeting between us and his friend Justin. We met at a small car show on a Friday night. We took the car. Justin looked it over. He visited with me and my brother and decided he wanted to take on the project. He had us out to his house and showed us his booth and his custom truck that he painted. We agreed we would bring the car over Sunday evening. I felt great about it. We took the car that Sunday evening. Justin estimated eight to ten weeks to finish the project. This was in late March. Justin was great about sending pics of the progress.
April 9th, he had partially disassembled the car and was blocking...
Taped up for some primer for blocking....
April 14th and he'd sprayed some primer and was blocking....
April 22nd, blocked out. It's a pretty familiar sight...
April 24th, blown apart to go in the booth...
May 1st, parts in the booth...
May 1st, wet sanding the body...
That's 10 pictures. Stay tuned. Pictures of paint coming shortly....
As some of you know, 2016 was a pretty tough year for me. My Step-dad passed away in May. He treated me as his own son and he meant a great deal to me so it was a tough loss. He went down hill fast and died fairly unexpectedly and that made it more difficult. In late August we moved my mom from Baton Rouge here to Spring, TX. As soon as we had mom settled in, I fell ill. Without going into too much detail, I had suffered from diverticulitis for 12 years. All of the scar tissue in my colon had caused it to fuse to the back of my bladder. An unwanted connection had formed between my bladder and colon. Surgery was required. I was in the hospital for about three days in early September. I went home and went back to work part time. I was "home infusing" hospital strength antibiotics three times a day. They took care of the infection but they also took all of my energy. I was basically out of commission. Sean's car was supposed to go to the painter in late September or early November. In September he tore the care down to get it ready to take it to the painter.....
The surgeon wanted to give the antibiotics a month to beat back the infection in my belly before cutting me open. I went in for surgery in early November. They cut away about a foot of my colon. The surgery was a success but the recovery was easily the most difficult time of my life so far. I went back to work part time, midway through December. I had to get out of the house. I went back too soon, in retrospect. I didn't feel like myself until mid January. All this time the Camaro sat in the garage, disassembled waiting on the painter. He was in paint jail and the car hadn't even left the house. Around this time, James (JAMCAR223) reached out to me and asked how the Camaro and the Galaxie were coming along. I told him that Sean was in paint jail and that the car hadn't even gone to the painter. I told him that I didn't have a good feeling about the painter my brother had chosen. James remarked "yeah those painters. I only know one who does what he says he's going to do." The light bulb went off in my head. I asked James to introduce us to his painter. James asked for some pictures of the car and some explanation of what had been done to it. He explained that his friend had a booth at his house and only took on certain projects. I sent James the information. Somewhere in this time Sean got disgusted and put the car back together and started driving it again. Then the original painter started calling asking Sean to bring the car over. I didn't want the car going over there. I reached out to James and told him, if your friend is interested, now is the time. James arranged a meeting between us and his friend Justin. We met at a small car show on a Friday night. We took the car. Justin looked it over. He visited with me and my brother and decided he wanted to take on the project. He had us out to his house and showed us his booth and his custom truck that he painted. We agreed we would bring the car over Sunday evening. I felt great about it. We took the car that Sunday evening. Justin estimated eight to ten weeks to finish the project. This was in late March. Justin was great about sending pics of the progress.
April 9th, he had partially disassembled the car and was blocking...
Taped up for some primer for blocking....
April 14th and he'd sprayed some primer and was blocking....
April 22nd, blocked out. It's a pretty familiar sight...
April 24th, blown apart to go in the booth...
May 1st, parts in the booth...
May 1st, wet sanding the body...
That's 10 pictures. Stay tuned. Pictures of paint coming shortly....
May 6th, color is about to happen.....
Color...
Some Shiney!!!!!
May 7th, parts out of the booth and in the sun...
Car in the booth for paint...
Color....
Clear...
May 20th, partially reassembled...
May 27th, more assembly. It was hard to accept that this was the same car...
May 28th, decals going on...
That's another 10 pics. I can't believe it. Payoff coming....
Color...
Some Shiney!!!!!
May 7th, parts out of the booth and in the sun...
Car in the booth for paint...
Color....
Clear...
May 20th, partially reassembled...
May 27th, more assembly. It was hard to accept that this was the same car...
May 28th, decals going on...
That's another 10 pics. I can't believe it. Payoff coming....
