Hey guys. Late post from the work I did on saturday. Finished cleaning the engine compartment for now, so I moved on and removed the front bumper and the fenders, put the car up on stands, and took the wheels off. Brakes are all good, so its time to start ripping the front suspension off. I took the front sway bar off, and wire wheeled it, but not completely. Thats as far as i got. Heres some pictures

Hey guys. Fridays work here. I disassembled  the passenger side steering (strut, caliper, rotor, spindle, inner and outer tie rods). Ill put up some more pictures tomorrow as well. 

Early in the morning, we took the 4.3 motor and transmission and an extra rear axle to the scrap yard. Later, we also took the 1988 Camaro to the scrapyard. The guy that runs the crane seems to like having fun with the cars, as every other car we have taken, he as picked up and threw a little bit. Knowing this being the end of the project, I took a video. So without further adeu (<--- However you spell that), here it is....

After a long and arduous struggle against the control arms. bushings, and ball joints, they are finally in. The control arms are oddly shaped, so putting the ball joints in proved tedious because every push put it on an angle, and we had to beat on it with a hammer  (Not the joint itself. of course). The bushings were annoying at first, but even more annoying was finding out that pushing in the shell first without the bushing in it made the job so easy that a toddler could do that. So anyone putting in new polyurethane bushings out there, put the shell in first if you have a third gen camaro (maybe the same for other cars too, depending on the design of the arm and bushing. My fresh paint got chewed up a bit, but ill touch it up when its time to put them back on the car. Here are the pictures of the joints with the new stuff in them. 

Im one step closer to re assembling the front end of the car. I plan on going out and cleaning the junky undercoating on the wheelwell, and cleaning the crossmember to match everything else Ive done. Gotta blast up the springs too. Think im going to paint them red to match the bushings. 

Ben 

It's sure looking fine Ben..Keep at-er.. Say I am not sure if you are aware of Rock Auto.. Google them..They are a great source for parts for that car..You should check out their site and PRICES.. they ship direct to your door ,they are set up to pay the hst on the site, no brokerage fees, no hidden fees. they use their own broker, so there are no suprises at the door, the price you pay online is it ..notbody will be looking for more..the only trick to pay attention to is shipping make sure you pick your parts from the same location if you pick parts from different locations it will drive your shipping costs to high.so pay attention..they have excellent exploded picures of the parts and anything you may need for that car they probably have at half of what you will pay here..Check it out..just google Rock auto..they are great to deal with ..returns can be a hassel so pick your parts correctly ..you can't beat their prices..keep up the good work just keep a steady pace..your doing real good

Ben's been doing work at school in his tech class on his control arms. He's building his own project and getting marks for it as well!! By buying parts through summit...he is keeping costs of this project way down but the quality way up. Car should drive like new and if ever he wants to do a V8 swap..all the ground work has been done and up graded.

Oh yeah ...  6 more weeks until we start the body and paint. 

Hello. So I finally get around to do an update for you guys. The last post was in january as far as I know. But, that still doesnt mean that I didnt get any work done. As a matter of fact, I go quite a bit done, and the front end is almost ready for reassembly. 

So the last thing I posted was pictures of the control arms, and the next step was to clean the ugly undercoating off the car. So after a few hours of chisel work, and some final solvent cleaning, the wells came out like this...

After that, the next step was to clean the crossmember underneath the motor, and over where the control arms mount up. So I wire wheeled the heck out of it, and scraped and cleaned and I got it to come out pretty good, considering the small amount of hand room around and under brakelines, and other lines and everything else. 

I also cleaned the steering box up, but I dont have any before pictures of that. It was rusty though. So I finally got it clean enough to paint after removing some brackets that I didnt know were safe to take off, so after I got some re assurance from my dad, I took those off and cleaned it better. Then I masked,  primed it up, and painted the crossmember and steering box. I painted the crossmember black, and the steering box cast colour.

So after the crossmember was painted, I painted the wheel wells with ruberized undercoating stuff. It looks really good in the pictures, and even better in person. I also predict it will be easier to clean.

So after all of this was done, the next step for me was to paint my springs. The sandblaster wasnt working too well untill I put more sand in, but after that, the blasting became really easy, and I got them finished. I decided to paint the springs a red, because with the paint scheme that I have on the car right now, has a small red stripe between the gunmetal and silver, and the red in the steering area will be a nice accent in my opinion. 

After this, I had a bunch of random little bolts to do and the strut mounts.

Finally, I decided to organize everything for the front end, and put it on a couple tables. I have more pictures, but ill post them soon.

So now, all there is left to do is to clean up the calipers and paint them (red) and then quickly touch up the cointrol arms like I said in the last post. As a side note, I also painted other bolts, tie rods and the sleeves, and a couple other things, but I didnt have time to up load them this morning. Either or, enjoy the pictures, and the front end (if the springs go in easy) will be back together by the end of the week. YAY! 

Hey guys. Heres a couple more pictures of the tie rods painted and the bolts for the struts.

fatstax wrote:

---

so its not getting a 4.3 engine now? 

---

No 4.3 anymore.  The wiring, E-test and computer were over our heads but The fact that he found a 119k original rust free car with a great running 2.8 V6

 kinda swayed the decision.  The only engine plans are cleaning as he has been doing and we will be taking the pleneum off and also replacing the intake gaskets as they are historic

for being bad.   

Started some more assembly. I got the spindles on, and the struts out of the box and bled. The big day is saturday, where we will compress the springs and then put the struts and everything in place. Then I can just motor away at the rest. Plan is for it to be down on its wheels tomorrow, so I can jack up the back and start on it. Then the adventure stasrts all over again. 

Great job, very impressive. Nice to see another young guy like my boy into cars and wanting to get his hands dirty and stay off the xbox.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10203073922066431&l=1319825113918312634

Video of the Camaro Running and Reving it up a little. Highest was like 3500 - 4000. 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10203072581632921&l=5467393378597311770

Trying to start the Camaro. 

-- Edited by 66-67-88Chevy on Friday 14th of March 2014 09:44:54 AM

Wonderful project and well reported progress (photos)    I must be getting real old     You are like the Engenerzier Bunnies     I haven't done that much work to a car since the 90's

Hey everyone. Some start of the week progress to show.

Once again, more cleaning and painting of stuff, but it is turning out great. 

Just because I dont have pictures of the small stuff, I have painted a bunch of bolts, but not the springs yet.

That will be coming later this week.

Either or, to start it off, my panhard arm. 

This is where it started off.

Torque arm and drive shaft.

Some random bolts

Wheel Wells.

^^^ Sorry for the lighting, my phone was almost dead, and no flash.

Drive Shaft in Paint

Finished products

Wheel Wells

Got quite a few things to do yet. I have two broken bolts to drill out, I have to prime and paint my springs.

I ran out of rockerguard, so my one wheel well isnt completely finished yet. Ill get some more and do that quick. 

I have to wire wheel my whole real axle, get the control arms off, and replace the bushings (more of that bull crap). 

I also broke another bolt, and need new sway bar bushing clamps (basically exhaust clamps).

The goal was to have it done this weekend, but with my dad being extremely busy this week and unable to help me out with things

all the time, I dont know if it will happen. I can get all the cleaning done, but the bushings, torching bolts, and removing/finding/getting new

bolts I cant do. (Well I have to drill the 2 out but I need the tools).

Also have to run a couple brake lines on the rear axle to the splitter. Im getting close, but still a ways to go. 

Either or, Ill keep motoring.

TECH QUESTION: Does anyone know whether standard grade bolts (I dont know what they are but my dad has a ton of them) (he should be on

in the morning so maybe he can shed some light on what they actually are) 

would be good enough to use on my panhard/track bar bolt? Its rated at like 60-70 ish ft.pnds. It would be nice if I didnt have to buy 

another bolt. If anyone knows whether this should be ok, that would be great.

Thanks alot. 

Ben 

-- Edited by 66-67-88Chevy on Monday 24th of March 2014 10:27:16 PM

Hey everyone. Put some coal in the steam engine and rock and rollled on the car all day. 

Friday- Prep work for the installation

Ok, so friday was getting ready for saturday. This basically consisted of motoring on 

blasting, primering, and painting. I finally cleaned the rear axle, and then the control arms were ready 

courtesy of my dad. So I primed those up. Then, while the primer was setting up, I blasted the rear 

drums, and then primed those too. I then painted the rear axle stud area bare metal along with the 

brake drums, and then proceded to paint the axle and control arms black. I then arranged some things on

a table, and pressed in some bushings and called it a night. 

Any ways, Picture Time

AXLE IN PRIMER

CONTROL ARMS AND DRUMS

AXLE IN PAINT

DRUMS and CONTROL ARMSs

SATURDAY - FINAL ASSEMBLY 

So on saturday, it was basically motor to get the last bushings in, and then start assembling the rear end. 

I had a little brake line issue and had trouble with the torque arm bushing, but other than than, it was smoooth sailing.

So quick step by step thing. We put the arms on the axle. Put the axle under the car. Tightened the arms onto the frame. 

Jacked the axle up with springs on and compressed those and also got the shocks on. Put the drive shaft on

Put the torque arm on, followed by brake lines, panhard bar, and finally the swaybar. Then Brakes. 

Either or, the final product, like the front, looks amazing (if I do say so myself)

Contrasting colors and the fact that it just looks new is awesome to me. Either or, pictures again.

AXLE ASSEMBLY

Et voilla ! The rear end is now completely painted, but more importantly, has new bushings and is safe.

Now to the final part of this insanely long post. 

SAFETY ASSEMBLY AND CHECKUPS

Since we are going to take the car for a safety, I went over and talked to the mechanic that does the work,

and my straight exhaust doesnt cut it. So I am getting a stainless cat back system with a magnaflow muffler 

on it sometime this week. The car also has to be together, so I put the front end back on today as well. I had some light problems with the signals

not working, so I had to fix that, but other than that, everything is turning out good.

All that is left to do is adjusting the rear brakes, and then bleeding them. 

Either or, pictures again. 

So this is the end of this post. Hopefully, as long as we can co ordinate with the exhaust guys and the safety and alighnment people, the car should

have a new exhaust system, and will be ready for the road this june. 

Time for me to hit the hay.

Ben