Sean's 78 Camaro Z28

[Texas82GP]

Looks great Jared! Sorry to hear about the window trim but glad you made things work out...

Thanks Kevin. It really was a shame that such a nice part survived that long and then got damaged in shipping. Sean gave the guy negative feedback and then later felt bad about it and retracted it. Sean is nicer than me. The reproduction piece looks fine. We'll see how well it holds up and make an adjustment in the future as necessary.

Sure is a beaut Clark! That hue of blue isn't meant for every car, but dang it looks so good on the Z!!!! Again, you guys have done a heluva job and should be very proud of yourselves!

Thanks Scott. I appreciate it. Blue is actually my favorite color and I've always loved this shade of blue on this car. The designers got this one right. It just works on this car. I am proud of how this car turned out. It's kind of funny to me that I say it though. The car has turned out better than I ever expected when we started out 11 years ago. To see it look like this and to hear how much Sean enjoys driving it makes it all worth it. It is something that I will always look back on and feel good about.

I voted to paint them blue instead of leaving them, I think you guys can use the extra work....🙂

You're the Lone Ranger on changing the wheel color Steve. Thanks for blowing the unanimous answer to the poll. 😛 I think Sean really had it in his heart to have the wheels painted to match the body color but the overwhelming consensus is to leave them grey. Not just here, but our family, friends, colleagues, almost everyone. I'm surprised how lopsided the poll turned out. I still like the grey and voted that way so I could see the poll results.

Jared,
I really don't need to add any complements and positive feedback...it's already been said....the car looks absolutely amazing. I'm sure you guys are proud of well it turned out...I certainly would be. Great job!!

Thanks Jack. As always, I really appreciate the kind words. What's going on with your wagon lately? I haven't seen much activity on it lately, which is understandable, given the time of year. We're in the same boat as you weather wise and we're just trying to get through the worst of the summer. I'll bet you're enjoying that A/C now that you have it wrapped up. How is it cooling?

Lol yea rip the hole car back apart and paint the trim black

Just kidding

Eric, We actually saw a blue 79 at a car show several years ago with black window trim. I wouldn't call it the same shade of blue though. Maybe a little lighter. I thought the black trim looked ok but our research indicated it wasn't original to the car for 78. We wanted the car to look totally stock with the exception of the updated wheels. Also, I think we both like the bright trim better. I know you were just kidding. I just wanted to share. Here's a pic of that car with the black trim. It was a pretty nice car. This will also give folks a look at the original 15" wheels painted body color....

still think that's a beautiful color.... then again, I could be a bit biased...
my DD

That color looks great on that truck Darin. I agree with your fondness for that color.

Speechless.

Wow. Thanks Mike. That's high praise from someone that built a car as nice as your wagon. I really appreciate it.

That's the Z28 Camaro every 78 Camaro wishes it could be.

Thanks! I really appreciate it. The 78-81 Camaros are largely unloved. I think that is because they were very lacking in the horse power department. As others have stated the Trans Ams of the era got all of the attention but I always thought this car was a styling masterpiece. They are called 'sticker cars' and 'disco Camaros'. I don't think all that many survived since they were largely reviled. It is rare to see one restored and even more rare to see a clean survivor. It has to be one of the nicer ones out there with everything we gave it. I hope so. We sure spent a lot of time and money on it. Thanks for the kind words. I love your handle.

Thanks everyone for the kind words and likes. It means a lot to us. We really appreciate the positive feedback. We're very happy with the car but it's nice to be validated by folks who know what a nice car is and who know how much work it takes to get there.

 

[Clutch]

Thanks Kevin. It really was a shame that such a nice part survived that long and then got damaged in shipping. Sean gave the guy negative feedback and then later felt bad about it and retracted it. Sean is nicer than me. The reproduction piece looks fine. We'll see how well it holds up and make an adjustment in the future as necessary.



Thanks Scott. I appreciate it. Blue is actually my favorite color and I've always loved this shade of blue on this car. The designers got this one right. It just works on this car. I am proud of how this car turned out. It's kind of funny to me that I say it though. The car has turned out better than I ever expected when we started out 11 years ago. To see it look like this and to hear how much Sean enjoys driving it makes it all worth it. It is something that I will always look back on and feel good about.



You're the Lone Ranger on changing the wheel color Steve. Thanks for blowing the unanimous answer to the poll. 😛 I think Sean really had it in his heart to have the wheels painted to match the body color but the overwhelming consensus is to leave them grey. Not just here, but our family, friends, colleagues, almost everyone. I'm surprised how lopsided the poll turned out. I still like the grey and voted that way so I could see the poll results.



Thanks Jack. As always, I really appreciate the kind words. What's going on with your wagon lately? I haven't seen much activity on it lately, which is understandable, given the time of year. We're in the same boat as you weather wise and we're just trying to get through the worst of the summer. I'll bet you're enjoying that A/C now that you have it wrapped up. How is it cooling?



Eric, We actually saw a blue 79 at a car show several years ago with black window trim. I wouldn't call it the same shade of blue though. Maybe a little lighter. I thought the black trim looked ok but our research indicated it wasn't original to the car for 78. We wanted the car to look totally stock with the exception of the updated wheels. Also, I think we both like the bright trim better. I know you were just kidding. I just wanted to share. Here's a pic of that car with the black trim. It was a pretty nice car. This will also give folks a look at the original 15" wheels painted body color....View attachment 70535




That color looks great on that truck Darin. I agree with your fondness for that color.



Wow. Thanks Mike. That's high praise from someone that built a car as nice as your wagon. I really appreciate it.



Thanks! I really appreciate it. The 78-81 Camaros are largely unloved. I think that is because they were very lacking in the horse power department. As others have stated the Trans Ams of the era got all of the attention but I always thought this car was a styling masterpiece. They are called 'sticker cars' and 'disco Camaros'. I don't think all that many survived since they were largely reviled. It is rare to see one restored and even more rare to see a clean survivor. It has to be one of the nicer ones out there with everything we gave it. I hope so. We sure spent a lot of time and money on it. Thanks for the kind words. I love your handle.

Thanks everyone for the kind words and likes. It means a lot to us. We really appreciate the positive feedback. We're very happy with the car but it's nice to be validated by folks who know what a nice car is and who know how much work it takes to get there.

Now that you mention it I seem to remember black trim on some F-bodys I was repairing years ago I just don't remember what they were I did a hole lot of those cars

 

[Longroof79]

Thanks Jack. As always, I really appreciate the kind words. What's going on with your wagon lately? I haven't seen much activity on it lately, which is understandable, given the time of year. We're in the same boat as you weather wise and we're just trying to get through the worst of the summer. I'll bet you're enjoying that A/C now that you have it wrapped up. How is it cooling?
========================================================================
Thanks Jared,
The color really turned out well on Sean's car. It probably wouldn't look as good on some cars.
The Z28 in the pic also looks very nice with the wheels painted body color, but I still like the grey. It's got more of an aftermarket wheel look...and you made the right choice keeping the windshield trim bright. I think it helps complement the color of the car.
I'm sure he gets lots of smiles and thumbs up wherever he goes.

As for my wagon, there's really nothing new to report. I'd like to have the windows tinted and get eventually get a trailer hitch for it. The A/C has been working great...no complaints.
I still have plans to rebuild the 200-4R. That will most likely be over the winter.

Hopefully, the next build thread will be your GP. Hope you've been feeling well lately.

 

[sportriderOK]

I just read this thread beginning to end. It did nothing to cure the Camaro jones I'm trying to resist. Beautiful car, color and wheels. Congratulations!
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to read your Dad's Galaxy thread...

 

[DrFrankenstein]

Wow. Just wow! That thing came a long way! The fact that you shared every detail of her story with us is incredible too. That's just awesome.
She looks beautiful, and the color is great. My best friends big sister had a Z-28 in that color, so I've always had a crush on that shade of blue. 😉
Seriously, great job. That's one clean machine with one helluva history.

 

[Texas82GP]

Thanks Jared,
The color really turned out well on Sean's car. It probably wouldn't look as good on some cars.
The Z28 in the pic also looks very nice with the wheels painted body color, but I still like the grey. It's got more of an aftermarket wheel look...and you made the right choice keeping the windshield trim bright. I think it helps complement the color of the car.
I'm sure he gets lots of smiles and thumbs up wherever he goes.

As for my wagon, there's really nothing new to report. I'd like to have the windows tinted and get eventually get a trailer hitch for it. The A/C has been working great...no complaints.
I still have plans to rebuild the 200-4R. That will most likely be over the winter.

Hopefully, the next build thread will be your GP. Hope you've been feeling well lately.

Thanks Jack. I am feeling well, thankfully. I hope you are doing well. Glad to hear your A/C is keeping you cool. The 200R4 sounds like a nice upgrade.

I just read this thread beginning to end. It did nothing to cure the Camaro jones I'm trying to resist. Beautiful car, color and wheels. Congratulations!
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to read your Dad's Galaxy thread...

Thanks man. I hope you enjoyed the Galaxie thread as well.

Wow. Just wow! That thing came a long way! The fact that you shared every detail of her story with us is incredible too. That's just awesome.
She looks beautiful, and the color is great. My best friends big sister had a Z-28 in that color, so I've always had a crush on that shade of blue. 😉
Seriously, great job. That's one clean machine with one helluva history.

Thanks man. I'm glad you enjoyed the thread. I fell in love with the color the first time I saw the car in the mid 80's.

 

[Texas82GP]

There is a little progress to report. Last Sunday morning, my sister-in-law and I got on a pressure washing project. We pressure washed the patio and everything on it. It was a big job. Meanwhile, Sean worked on putting the additional sound deadening in the trunk. He is great with this type of project (measure, mark, cut). He did a great job.....

He also took the car and got it inspected. Here it is at the station.....

Later, feeling good about the day's progress, we did some grilling.....

It was a good weekend. Thanks for tuning in guys. I'll follow up when there is more progress.

 

[pontiacgp]

I just noticed 2 more voted for blue wheels but I didn't see you call them out on it....I must be special....😀

that BBQ sure looks good, my mouth is watering looking at it....🙂

 

[Buckeye79]

My vote is for the blue wheels as well. The 79-81 also had black widow trim in stead of the bright. I think it looks good either way. Mine was black from the factory, so I just had it powder coated. The trim at the top of the doors, back of hood, and door handles would have been chrome on mine, but I had all of that powder coated as well. I think it looks good.
This is my 79 Started in 2007:

 

[Texas82GP]

Time for an update. Last weekend Dad was out of town so Sean and I got some work done on the Camaro. We started with logging some data to send to our tuner. It's a small thing but it's something we've been trying to get to for some time. We got some good data so hopefully we'll make some big progress there. Next we worked on the spare tire/jack project. Sean has been a little hesitant to drive the car long distances since until recently it didn't have a spare tire. We started the project some weeks ago by purchasing a 6"x15" plain steel wheel. Sean sprayed it with VHT Chassis and Roll Bar Paint. If you haven't used that stuff before. Check it out. It is epoxy based and I really like it. We ordered a tire online. I did some calculations and was shooting for something very close to the same height as the tires on the car but somehow I blew it. The spare is a little taller than what's on the car. I'm not sure where I went wrong. My theory is that since it's a 205 tire mounted on a 6" wheel, it has it 'squeezed' a bit tall relative to the 245 tires on the 9" wide wheels on the car. Anyway, here's a pic of the wheel and tire after Sean got the tire mounted and balanced on the wheel....

Our next move was to figure out some way to tie the spare down in the trunk. These cars came with compact spares so we knew some ingenuity would be required. We started out by buying a J-bolt, wing nut and washer from a third gen Camaro for cheap. Sean got the hardware cleaned up...

After putting the spare in place, it was clear that the 3rd gen Camaro J-bolt wasn't going to work. There was too much of an offset from where the loop was in the trunk floor to the center of the spare wheel. We went to Home Depot and bought a 5/16" steel rod. We went to the local True Value hardware store and bought a M8x1.25 die nut (thread for the OE wing nut). A little measuring, bending and threading and we had a custom fabbed J-bolt......

Now for a mock up....

Next, we needed to figure out what to do about a jack. These cars came with a bumper jack that hung under the package tray in the trunk. There are square cutouts in the front and rear bumper covers where the jack would be placed to jack up the car. We repaired damage to both bumper covers that was caused by the use of the stock bumper jack. We had already decided there was no way we'd ever use a stock bumper jack on this car and booger up all our hard work so there was no need to get one and hang it under the package shelf. We elected to go with a small floor jack in a blown plastic case. It so happened that we already had one on the shelf from our early wrenching days when we were too poor to afford a nice 3-ton floor jack. Sean cleaned up the jack and the case and we started looking at where to put it in the trunk and how to secure it. We lucked out and were able to fit it between the spare tire and the tail panel. We used a small ratcheting strap that we had on hand to secure it. The ratcheting strap passes through a slot in the spare wheel....

We were really pleased to be able to squeeze the jack in between the spare and the tail panel since this left just enough room in the trunk to put a medium sized suitcase or perhaps a few small bags. The trunk on these cars is not generous like our G Bodys.....

The lug nuts that are already on the car, holding on the grey rally wheels will work with the spare wheel. Both use a conical seat type lug nut so we're good there. All this left was the need for a tire tool to remove and tighten the lug nuts. We had an old tire iron on hand but the hex size was 13/16" instead of the 3/4" we needed. After doing some looking around online, we settled on a new tire iron from PepBoys online. It was $13 shipped. It's brand new so we don't need to sand it or clean it up or paint it. We'll just strap it to the handle of the case for the jack with the ratcheting strap, and then done.

Feeling good about the progress, we pressed on. The right front running light wasn't working since the car came back from paint. This gave us fits but it ended up being the bulb fitting somewhat loosely in the socket, and also one of the terminals pulling out of the connector in the harness. I attribute this to the front of the car being taken apart and re-assembled for paint. We got it working. Another small issue was that one of the horns wasn't working intermittently. This was relatively quickly diagnosed as a loose connection. We've got both horns working but we may have to revisit this issue and tweak the connector slightly to get a tighter connection. At least we know what the problem is. When I initially heard one horn wasn't working and one park light wasn't working I started fearing a wiring nightmare under the dash so I was relieved that the issues were simple.

Another 'gremlin' we've been working on is the emergency brake. The brake isn't holding the car as securely as it should. It will hold the car on an incline but you can make the car move with your hands while the brake is set. If you remember, we put the rear disc brakes from a 79-81 Firebird with the optional WS6 package on this car. The rear calipers for that system have levers that that the emergency brake cables pull to engage the emergency brake. Those levers turn a stud that goes into the caliper body and engages and pushes the caliper piston out. The problem we have is that with the emergency brake disengaged and the car sitting normally, there is play between the rear pads and the rotor. When we engage the emergency brake, the play is taken up but the emergency brake levers run out of travel before the pads are really clamping tightly on the rotors. This is not an issue with adjustment where the rear cables meet the front cable. I have all the slack out of that and if you tighten that adjustment too much, you actually pull the levers off of their 'resting' stops which is not correct. I did some research/reading online and from what I understand, the interaction between the caliper piston and the stud that the levers turn has a ratcheting action and ours are out of adjustment. I found a thread that indicated we needed to unhook the cables, remove the return springs, remove the levers, and then rock the stud back and forth with a wrench to get the mechanism to ratchet and take up the slack. I tried that on both sides last Sunday to no avail. I did that leaving the calipers in place on the car. What I found is that when the levers are on the 'resting' stops, they are pointing down to about 7 o'clock. The slack between the pads and the rotors isn't taken up until about 6 o'clock (pointing straight down. I'm out of travel at about 5:30. What I wanted was nearly no slack in the pads when the levers were in the 'resting' position. No matter how much I rocked the wrench on the stud back and forth, nothing changed. I'm a bit stumped at this point but I ordered another caliper from Rock Auto to play with and take apart on the bench to get a better understanding of how the mechanism works. My gut tells me we are stuck between 'clicks' on the ratchet mechanism. The upside is that if we can work the slop out of the rear pads, the brake pedal feel will improve and so will brake performance. I've never been satisfied with how the brake pedal felt but it has always seemed normal to Sean. He's accustomed to rear discs since his '02 Sierra daily driver has them. The pedal in it has always felt soft to me. We'll see where we get with this after the guinea pig caliper shows up.

Our last little project was alignment related. The car has not had an alignment. We simply put the shims back in the front end that it had when we took it apart, eye-balled the wheels for straight, and set the toe-in with a tape measure. The car has 2500 miles on it and there is no sign of tire wear. The car tracks straight and doesn't pull one way or the other. However, going straight down the road, the steering wheel was not straight. We couldn't just pull and re-clock the steering wheel because it will only go on the column one way. So we got out the string and the tape measure and adjusted it at the tie rods. We got the wheel nearly perfectly straight. I don't think we could get closer doing it ourselves. We have 1/4" of total toe in. In other words, when we make the same measurement at the front and at the back of the tires, the front measurement is about 1/4" narrower. How does that sound to you guys? I did a little looking online and that looked to be the spec.

That's it for now. Thanks for tuning in. I'll follow up with more updates when there is more progress to report.