Impressive! Great work. Such talent between you and bother father. I look forward to updates on the camaro, Galaxy and GP.. Keep the updates coming and best of luck
Sean's 78 Camaro Z28
- Thread starter Texas82GP
- Start date
Very nice work, Jared.
Of course you had shown me pics of Sean's car before, but now I can appreciate the amount of painstaking work that went into it.
Well worth the effort..I love it. Thanks for sharing the details and a little history of what went into the build.
Of course you had shown me pics of Sean's car before, but now I can appreciate the amount of painstaking work that went into it.
Well worth the effort..I love it. Thanks for sharing the details and a little history of what went into the build.
Thanks Steve. It will outlast us if we have anything to say about it. We intend for it to live inside the garage for the rest of our lives, and hopefully afterward. We hope it will be like some of those really old restorations you see on the TV shows. You know, old horseless carriages that were restored in the 30's and still survive. 🙂
Thanks Kevin. I really appreciate it.
Thanks man. The Camaro is almost finished. They are never finished, so call it almost substantially complete. LOL. Progress is good on the Galaxie. I think we may have them both 'finished' by the end of the year. I plan on hitting the GP hard this fall and winter. That was the plan last fall but I fell ill and suffered a major medical event and that ate up the cool months of the year. Once I got to feeling better I was needed again on Dad's project so it will likely be September or later before I get back on the GP. It's in a storage and its just too hot until the fall.
Thanks Jack. The fact that some of you are enjoying the thread really makes it worth posting it. I'm also enjoying going back and reliving the journey.
the car is getting built but who is going to grow the mullet?.....😀
Ok, next installment. When I left off earlier today, we had completed the passenger rocker and quarter replacement. You may have noticed Sean had done a great deal of seam sealing work as well. Next we rolled into putting the new skin on the passenger door. Starting with the usual prep....
We were also working on stripping, rebuilding and epoxy priming the hinges. I don't seem to have any pictures of putting the skin on the door. It's a shame but we probably did it in one evening. Here it is on the car....
Next we moved on to replacement of the tail panel. It wasn't terrible but was bent up at the bottom where it looked like the car had been pulled or had pulled another car by a hole in the tail panel. It also had a little collision damage where evidently someone had tapped the rear bumper and pushed it into the tail panel. Here's a look at some of the damage....
Since we had a genuine GM NOS tail panel and had done that much metal replacement, we decided to go ahead and replace the tail panel. We also had to cut away some of the tail panel to do the quarter panel replacement on both sides. Here's the tail panel off the car...
Followed by the usual prep...
And the new panel...
And primed...
We were also working on stripping, rebuilding and epoxy priming the hinges. I don't seem to have any pictures of putting the skin on the door. It's a shame but we probably did it in one evening. Here it is on the car....
Next we moved on to replacement of the tail panel. It wasn't terrible but was bent up at the bottom where it looked like the car had been pulled or had pulled another car by a hole in the tail panel. It also had a little collision damage where evidently someone had tapped the rear bumper and pushed it into the tail panel. Here's a look at some of the damage....
Since we had a genuine GM NOS tail panel and had done that much metal replacement, we decided to go ahead and replace the tail panel. We also had to cut away some of the tail panel to do the quarter panel replacement on both sides. Here's the tail panel off the car...
Followed by the usual prep...
And the new panel...
And primed...
Jared, when you get the engine in the Camaro compare where the engine sits in the Camaro vs your Grand Prix. In our race shop we were building a G body and a 2nd gen Camaro circle track cars they were sitting side by side and I was surprised how much the Camaro engine sits further back and lower than the G body. That is a big part of the reason the Camaro is a better handling car...
By the time we completed the tail panel replacement, it was around the middle of July of 2011. We moved into mocking up the front clip.....
It was exciting. It was really looking like a car again after looking like a shell for so long. Most of the family went on vacation but I stayed behind. I had to work. Evenings I worked on restoring the hood hinges. It was bigger than it sounds. They were greasy and crusty. I had to clean them up with solvent before I blasted them. Then I had to clean the blast media out of them. Then I primed and painted them. I did this all as a surprise for my brother so that when he came home the hood was ready to go on...
When he got home we installed the hood and started cleaning up the lower fender extensions....
It was exciting. It was really looking like a car again after looking like a shell for so long. Most of the family went on vacation but I stayed behind. I had to work. Evenings I worked on restoring the hood hinges. It was bigger than it sounds. They were greasy and crusty. I had to clean them up with solvent before I blasted them. Then I had to clean the blast media out of them. Then I primed and painted them. I did this all as a surprise for my brother so that when he came home the hood was ready to go on...
When he got home we installed the hood and started cleaning up the lower fender extensions....
By the end of July of 2011 we had the lower fender extensions stripped, primed and installed. We also had the hood on it...
Next we got into a really big project stripping and restoring the front and rear bumpers. The urethane bumpers had to be hand sanded and it was a big job...
This got us to early October of 2011. Note the ill fitting reproduction deck lid. Grrrrrr.... More on that later.
Next we got into a really big project stripping and restoring the front and rear bumpers. The urethane bumpers had to be hand sanded and it was a big job...
My brother sorta had one in the late 80's. Maybe he'll grow it back? I guess we could get some wigs.😛
