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My new toy... BumbleBee
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With that off it was rinse & repeat on the drivers side followed by unbolting the large rubber nose of the car
The actual structural front bumper of the car was a bloody heavy piece of kit to get undone, lucky I opted to use my universal seat/heavy part holder during this process or I'd have smashed my toes for sure
I was expecting the two frame bolts that hold the radiator support panel to be rusted solid but they came undone really easy in the end... nice win
Then it was just a simple task of removing everything holding the engine in, I pulled out the headers too at this point to give me more wiggle room getting the engine & trans out as one block
Then with the engine mount bolts & the trans mount undone it was a simple task of hooking up the engine hoist & yanking the whole lot out
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Now with that done, I don't really have a plan as such (shocking I know) I'd like to get it up on the hoist before I start cutting into the rear Qtrs, so I guess I'll look to fix the GTO leak when the new transmission pan arrives for that & then I'll swap this up onto the hoist.... I have ordered my 2nd hoist but no details on delivery dates yet
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Decided to get back into this today, first job... remove the doors
Then pulled the boot lid & added that to the pile of panels
Then carefully remove the rear window trim, I bought this cheap ass tool off ebay for 3 or 4 dollars & it has to be worth it's weight in gold
Then moved onto the rear, first pulling out the lights
Then the plastic outer bumper followed by the actual crash structure bumper behind it & the wing end plates
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When I was emptying the boot, I was reminded that I have two rare spare wheels for this car, the second which is the space saver is an interesting design, the tyre is stored deflated & folded in on itself
Next up was the nerve racking task of cutting out the rear window without smashing it...
Good to see that the rust was eating its way through under the window too
So that's all the hanging panels off
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Tomorrow I might pull the interior out & if I have the time might start looking at cutting the rear Qtr panel off to see what the super structure behind looks like. I'll use the new Qtr to see when to make my cuts to remove the rusty one
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Oh & I'd also cut the exhaust off too before doing all of the above... it's an interesting patch work of many diameter tubes so this won't be going back on & I'm pretty sure that the rear tips are actually whole bike exhaust tubes.
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Pulled the interior out to see how bad the floor is... as bad as it is in places it's better than I thought it would be
In the rear of the car as I was unbolting the drivers side rear seat belt the floor crumbled away with each turn of the ratchet, makes it easier for the passengers to check the rear tyre thread for me I guess
The bolt holding the passenger side rear seatbelt in is stripped so I couldn't get that out but I expect the floor to be just as buggered to be honest
Up front both footwells have fiberglass laid in them... which is a sure sign of quality previous repair work that won't need to be redone at all
There is a special place in hell for people who do fiberglass repairs of metal cars direct over the rust....
Some nice foot ventilation speed holes here that I'll have to repair... but as I said all in all I actually expected it to be worse that this, so I'm oddly happy
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Under the close supervision of my floofy chief engineer I decided to take the joined edges of the Qtr panels back to bare metal so I can see clearly where the spot welds & joins are... note the clouds of bog dust
The more I dug into it the more rust & bog I found at the joins
Based off this I realised that the plan of taking the Qtrs off clean & whole (I had hoped that the rust was at the bottom only) was a waste of time so change of plan I'm just going to cut them off & leave the join sections to tidy up after
Ah.... love how thick the bog is
The front of the inner wheel arch & the superstructure looks fine
The front of the inner wheel arch & the superstructure looks fine
It's Xmas day so I've opted not to piss off my neighbours by grinding the other Qtr panel off today... so I'll do that tomorrow morning
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Cut the drivers side Qtr off today, again very happy with what was behind it. Again the boot floor upright needs replacing & has a previous repair section already, there is some small repairs needed to the front of the outer wheel tub as well but not enough to justify replacing the tub, I'll just patch that.
I've ordered the boot floor sections out of the US but tonight but all the part sites have notes to say that they experiencing delay with both stock & shipping so I've no idea how long it will take to get them here. I can't put the new Qtr's on until I have the boot floor repaired so I'll alternate between cleaning up the sections where the Qtr attach & back working on the XB again.
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Wow so it's been over a year since I did anything at all with this car other than push it around when it was in the way. I had the engine crane out anyway as I'd just put the engine back in the Challenger & I had an engine stand spare as I'd just taken the Challengers engine off the stand. It only made sense then to finally separate the engine & trans from the Camaro
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Whilst I was bleeding the brakes on the XB I had a LOT of time to spend with just my thoughts… this isn’t often a good thing but I was staring at this Camaro shell with the Qtr’s cut off & I really can’t wait to get back into the metal work on it. But I was just thinking do I really need another 70’s muscle car for the road…. This year I will have the GTO, Challenger, XB & also the Bullitt Mustang I guess as a set of road registered muscle cars. They are all different enough in their builds to make them all just a little special in their own way.
Now that got me thinking… do I really need just another road registered 70’s muscle car or should I do something different now with this Camaro. I have this 1:18 model in the display room in the house of the touring car racing Camaro that was run in Australia by Kevin Bartlett…
Now, don’t google what happened to Bartlett racing this car at Bathurst… it didn’t end well
But it’s ok, the cars been repaired & restored
I’m now thinking that I might make a pure track toy out of this, yes I have the GT-Four but there is a race series here called the Touring Car Masters (go look that up on YouTube) & I’m not saying I’d look to enter that series as I don’t have F-you money & sadly that’s the money you’d need to play in that pool. But it shows that racing classic properly setup Muscle cars on track looks like awesome fun. I’m thinking of Hillclimb’s & who knows just for **** & giggles maybe even give a Targa a go with it.
I’ve started googling to look at what I can do, mini tubbing the rear end is an obvious starting point & will be an easy job as the rear Qtrs are off the car anyway… I’ll look to order a set of mini tubs & I’m starting to do some research into who makes 4 link rear ends now, QA1 seem to make a complete kit that even comes with a shortened Ford 9” diff housing to suit a mini tubbed car, whilst the car is a shell is also the perfect time to fit a full Motorsport Australia approved & stamped roll cage so I can legally do any racing/rallying that I want with it. I’m think a full nose to tail cage setup that will go through the firewall out to the front chassis rails & the same into the boot to tie in the rear rails.
QA1 who's products I really like do a full front & rear suspension kit in fact
The question is… am I mad (well yes, I’m not right in the head at the best of times) but am I ruining the car making it a pure racecar? Once that cage gets welded in it will never see a set of plates or a Sunday drive ever again & it would be a big job to revert it back to a road car again… or do I just put her back to being a Bumblebee replica... answers on a postcard please
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