pulled the front clip off the Z/28
 

Time to start cleaning off the surface rust, get the engine rebuilt and rebuild the front end/subframe.

I measured all shims as they came off and bagged everything. Then took the clip off in one piece.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...-07-14_887.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...-07-27_467.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...-07-33_600.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...-35-32_661.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...-35-55_647.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...-39-49_577.jpg

The car was brought to John at Laurel Automotive in Simsbury. He is going to take the motor off and bring it across the street to Norm Case at Precision Engines. John will then take off the subframe, rear, etc and mount the body on a body cart. Then he's going to give everything back to me except the motor for me to clean up and fix.

nice winter progect.
if ya need a hand you know who to call.

TWO Camaro's apart already? Guess you have plenty of money to spend! lol

Good luck David!

Thanks Dawg!!! I will definitely need some help getting the clip back on. It was a pain taking it off. This is definitely the winter project this year! I'm going to need a lot more Roloc discs.


Thanks Ron!

Two apart....but not much going back together yet....HA

At least you have a running one to keep you occupied LOL

nice...good luck with it!

Holy cow that thing is clean. Your gonna have issues picking which to drive once they are done.

ya might concider a small bead blaster to use on the parts?
then sell it when done to recoup some money?
bead blaster will save alot of time!

i dont even know what to say right now. honestly. i can barely handle one f bucket an you 2 in pieces!!!! you either have brass balls or a gluten for punishment!

HA!!!! The 68 is the only one without big problems right now. It idles high, but I am not doing anything to it or the cam since it runs well enough, at least for now.

Thanks Maddie! I will do one small piece at a time and not rush things.

Not too bad....Long drives like the Quabbin Cruise = 68, Short Drives like to Marks cruise night = Big Block 69, and just cruising around town = 69Z


Got one at work but it can only do small parts. The subframe I am going to have acid dipped at Bass Plating in Bloomfield CT.


I know, I have a car addiction problem. I can't help it.

I am going to leave the exterior paint alone except for a few small patches.

The engine bay, I want to look like this except for the smog. I am planning on leaving headers on it.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-f...0/CIMG5218.JPG

There are quite a few Z/28 302 pics here: https://picasaweb.google.com/LucasRe...89556991200834

Man with all tht money you spend fixing these things why not juat go to barrett jackson or the like and buy a mint one

HA!!!!

Like this one for 143?

http://www.barrett-jackson.com/appli...ln=722&aid=222

It's nice, but no, thanks.

edit: I was just looking at the ad again. Why would a car without a speck of rust and perfect body panels need a frame off restoration? Faded paint maybe?

edit 2: if I hit it big on Lotto and money didn't matter, I would be buying this EBay Z/28 for only 499.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...SS%3AUS%3A1123

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/pratt1/jmz28.jpg

you can get them for alot better then that price and you will probably be close by the time your done restoring these lol "Old Reliable" is pretty sexy though!

Very nice! Damn, now I want a first gen.

but sometimes you never really know if still needs a lot of work, or has fake tags and is extremely well done clone, or is a rebody.

I thought you just sold one.

I guess man lol either way they are sexy cars. I just felt bad for ya with all u are doing to them but i guess you knew what u were getting intO

I did sell my 67, it was a project car for me and my ex-fiance so I got rid of it more to spite her than anything but seeing yours makes me want one. I do like the 68 and 69 more, I hate the triangle windows in the 67's.

Ah, OK. With the 69Z I wouldn't have it any other way. The only thing I have into it right now is the original purchase price + shipping to CT + $800 for Jerry M to inspect it + $250 for the car detective. I am not going with a high end restoration shop, just local guys and all I really want done is clean-up of the surface rust and the engine rebuild. The body is solid, but needs clean-up. Laurel and Precision Engines have reasonable pricing and have done stuff for me in the past.

The great thing for me, and this might sound goofy, is the car kind of has come alive in talking with 6 of the former owners on the phone. Most are Vietnam vets, and really liked the car. 3 have offered to buy it off me. I like hearing about their history with the car and the things they did with it.

As the economy gets worse, pricing is getting more reasonable. I'm sure you already know this, but body condition is probably the most critical factor.

Yeah I hate body work, I figured I'd start looking again before christmas time. I have always been able to find really good deals around the holidays.

Good choice. Norm did the L30 engine in my 68 back in the mid 80's. That little 327 surprised a lot of people. I can't wait to get it running again, especially now that my Quadrajet is properly set up. A fresh 302 is going to be awesome.

I love the plans for the car. As for the rear end, are you just going to have it cleaned & repainted? New Gardner exhaust maybe?

If you need additional help, just give me a call.

I'm going to try to get away with as little repainting as I can. Just the surface rust areas. Worst case is I will rattle-can the underside and engine bay. I'm going to leave the exterior alone even though it could use a repaint. I figure I'll drive it for 5-10 years as is. I just don't like the surface rust everywhere.

I will probably go with a Gardner exhaust connected to Doug Thorley headers. The headers came in already.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...28/headers.jpg

One slight problem is that I'd like to keep everything totally stock. A stock 302 had a compression ratio of 11.5:1 which means it will probably run terrible on pump gas. There is a Sunoco station about 2 miles from Kaman in Bloomfield CT where I could get Sunoco 260 GT100 which is 100 octane unleaded so it wouldn't be too bad.

Thanks for the offer to help. If I run into a bind, I might take you up on that.

you are doin the proper head work to run unleaded right? 11.5 on a cast head you are asking for a hole in a piston. 100 octane Might solve it lead additive is an option or get aluminum heads? and pain them to "look" correct but save all the original pieces?

Thanks Pizza! Will talk to Norm about this and probably go with the lead additive.

or just get leaded gas from hollands garage in burlington.
http://maps.google.com/maps/place?rl...23131948817667
get aftermarket aluminum heads as pizza said and keep the originals !

Dawg, What's the highest octane rating that they have? You run race gas in your car right?

I made a mistake on the compression ratio. It's supposed to be 11:1.

It looks like a lot of guys run aviation gas: http://www.camaros.org/forum/index.php?topic=2355.0;all

My car runs 11 to 1 on pump :shrug:

Yep. It looks like some guys run 11:1 on pump with no problems at all.

Yeah as long asyou have 93 should be no problem at all

Wrong and Wrong. Sorry guys but an aluminum head transfers heat to water Alot better then a Cast iron head does. So on an aluminum head you wont have hot spots like you will on a cats iron head. like the edges of the squish area and valve shrouds and plug boss. all of those will glow on a cast iron head and with too high of compression will burn the fuel before the plug fires(detonation) and wen that happens kiss a piston good buy.

Lead additive/leaded(aviation fuel) was the reason you could run high comp on pump gas in the 60's. doing it now is not a good idea unless you run vp110(110 octane race fuel) or greater. other wise you will have to back off your timing so far that you could lose almost 100hp just so it wont ping wen its warmed up. run either lower comp pistons with the cast heads or aluminum heads if you want to be able to just drive the car without issue and special fuels. sorry to be long winded but id Really hate for you to do this and then be upset with the performance or need for 7.50 a gallon fuels.

Thanks for the explanation Pizza!!!! I'd rather have too much info rather than too little.

any time. theres alot to converting a classic high comp motor over for pump gas use. cast heads are the problem.

Thanks capt obvious but us aluminum guys go 11.5+ with 93 11 should have no problem on a honda if u wanted lol

9.5 on 93 is the limit for cast iron head John!

No way maybe if you put it together :p

look it up. then talk to me with facts not what you think will work. ass.

Where did u get your facts? I have seen plenty of the stock motor cars running on 93.
With the stock small cam and low timing it will have no problem imho.