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The Stinger hood and the new wheels will look killer. I continue to be amazed how quickly and with such quality this restoration has come together.
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Yeah...me too actually.
Tearing it down quickly and getting it out for blasting helped to spearhead things, but the big push was from Ron who did the body & paint in a very short period of time. Now that it's home though is a different story. I've been busy squirreling away the needed parts and restoring a lot of them in my shop while the bodywork was going on. I've already started by putting more trim on the car in the past 24 hours than my green Z saw in 3 years of it sitting here after it was painted. Today I'll hang the rear bumper, install the front lighting buckets and the original T3 lamps. I should mention that starting today, there will be 2 of us working full time on the assembly for the month of December. With that, it should start to take shape really fast. As usual, I'll be telling the story with lots of pictures so stay tuned as we work away at the assembly. https://i.ibb.co/WDbkfLF/IMG-4320.jpg https://i.ibb.co/cNtdGRs/IMG-4364.jpg https://i.ibb.co/5TGz493/IMG-4362.jpg https://i.ibb.co/rs1qbzj/IMG-4357.jpg https://i.ibb.co/BqkH17z/IMG-4353.jpg https://i.ibb.co/khGQ145/IMG-4355.jpg |
Looks real good Graeme...Joe
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Looks great! I'm also amazed with your progress. Stoked you picked up Jason's Stinger Hood. Awesome to have two hoods for the car!
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In the past few days, I've had lots of time to go over the front end sheet metal and I'm not completely happy with the overall alignment or the fender to door gaps. In saying that, Keith and I will spend some time tweaking the gaps to see if we can make things a touch better upfront. After planning those changes, we set out to get the rear bumper installed and had it on and off a couple of times while chasing a 1/8" of overhang until we got it perfect. I have to say that Anthony at Alberta Plating did a phenomenal job plating the original bumper as it was expertly chromed inside and out.
Next, I unboxed a pair of rear guards I had thought were NOS because they were in an old carton? Once I pulled them out and tried fitting them I quickly realized those were a set of repro's that I had thrown into those boxes 4/5 years ago when I found a NOS set for use on the green car. Needless to say, these will be coming off when I come across another set of GM guards. If anybody has a nice set of NOS rear-guards, send me a message would ya? Here are a few shots of today's work including some decals from Don Lightfoot, a NOS trunk seal I got from Leo Pepino, and the bumper after it was fit back onto the car. https://i.ibb.co/KrTPjXN/IMG-4389.jpg Must have gone around and over under the car 50 times today. Where does the time go? https://i.ibb.co/nks9gWD/IMG-4381.jpg Test fitting the NOS latex weatherstripping I picked up from another sYc member. What a difference this stuff makes in closing! https://i.ibb.co/yVGCThC/IMG-4398.jpg All of the bumper brackets were blasted and powder coated. All new hardware was used. https://i.ibb.co/s9hLb0J/IMG-4399.jpg Triple chrome plated by our local plating guy at Alberta Plating. I think I'll take the door handles in now. (lol) https://i.ibb.co/tpkG5Th/IMG-4403.jpg Both sides are nice and even after a couple of rounds of fitting this original bumper. https://i.ibb.co/xmvymyb/IMG-4402.jpg The plating is just killer and now I will have to re-chrome the door handles and the mirrors as this makes nice originals look bad. https://i.ibb.co/HKFHbZv/IMG-4404.jpg The rear end is looking good and I did what I could to fit the repro guards, but they will change out when I find another NOS set. https://i.ibb.co/cwPgxBN/IMG-4384.jpg And the traditional trunk decals as sourced from Don Lightfoot. I took all of 10 seconds to place these without any concern. (lol) |
That car looks fast sitting still!
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How can you not love a freshly restored car!
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Hell, you are going to have time to build a car for your boy before summer!
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It's a disease....I doubt it...Joe
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Major chrome envy over here - looking spectacular!
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I see he never did paint those truck lid bolts body color... It will look a lot better with those painted!!
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Career change???
You should do this full time!! Ryan W31 |
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Yeah, he got the trunk latch keeper and the 2 bolts for the keeper but forgot about the hinge bolts. We agreed that we'd do another set and swap them out later. Lot's of time for that to happen. |
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Wow, excellent work on your Z! I've thoroughly enjoyed seeing the progress on it! Thank you for sharing.
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Happy to be sharing the project and bringing all y'all some car updates and pictures every couple of days or so. More on the plate for today but also chasing a fitment gremlin with the front headlamp bezels today. Why is it we can put together a car from scratch yet have an issue that eats hours with something as trivial as fitting a plastic headlamp ring? :thumbsdown: |
Wow, that car is going to be stunning, can't wait to see it with the stinger hood installed! I too an amazed at the speed and quality of your work Graeme. We got our 4 speed 81 Z28 home from Canada about the same time your Z28 was delivered from the States and just got the NOS silver vinyl material for our Z from SMS yesterday. You'll have your car done before Legendary has my seat covers and door panels ready, very impressive.
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Yup...it's going kinda fast, isn't it? Brake lines and fuel lines were finished up today and now we're getting some interior parts ready for the headliner to go in next week. Still, lots to do but hoping to have it ready to roll out in Mar/Apr as soon as the snow melts and shake it down really well.
Hoping there's a MCACN show next year as I'd love to bring it down. I have plenty of leftover fabric from the seats if Kandy is available to model the yellow houndstooth in Chicago. Do you have your son involved in the rebuild of the Z/28. |
I hope you can bring it down to MCACN next year too, we've been every year since 2012 and have every intention of being there in 2021. I'm sure Kandy would rock a yellow houndstooth skirt for you if you brought one down, she loves to get dressed up.
We haven't done much to the 4 speed Z28 yet, I'm in the process of rebuilding the computer harness for my Mom's 81 Z28 so I can get the original carb, distributor and smog system back on it. He goes the junkyard with me to get parts and we've managed to get a dash, a AM/FM cassette and a bunch of other small parts for it at a yard about 10 miles from my house. Still looking for someone to paint it but we've got it narrowed down to two. I've got an older guy like Ron I want to do it but he's got 7 other cars he's working on so I'm not sure he'll be able to get to it next winter so my son and I will have time to finish it before he graduates high school. Unfortunately for me, I'm about 5 times slower than you are Graeme. |
In some other news this week, Russell Rosales was kind enough to drive over to Jason's place on the west coast and picked up the fiberglass stinger hood that was purchased last week. He then hauled it back to his place and snapped a few pictures of it sitting up behind his 70 Camaro which was really cool. While some of this was going on, I was quietly working to find a ride for the parts to come up to Canada in the midst of Covid. Needless to say, Russell brought the parts together to make things more accessible for shipping, and man did that ever come together with perfect timing. The hood was picked up and brought to his place last night, and by this morning our phones were buzzing with messages from the shipper who was trying to route a driver into the area to pick up the parts and get them onto a trailer bound for Canada.
Russell then headed home mid-morning to grab the hood and the wheels before delivering them to a convenient loading location where they were put into a trailer for the next leg heading north. With all that he has done to help me out with these parts and the very generous deliveries, all I can say is that Russell Rosales (Mr.4Speed) is just an amazing dude! A genuine person and a real hobbyist who has gone to great lengths to help out a fellow car guy. From what I have come to learn, it's not the first time he has stepped up to help someone out like this, and I am sure it won't be his last. I feel I have made a new friend in California, and hope to return the favor someday. Thank you, Russell. You rock my friend! :youguysrock: https://i.ibb.co/NFXpHY6/Hood1.jpg https://i.ibb.co/2sWt4b1/Hood3.jpg |
As I have said many times....the cars are just cars....but it's the great friendships that are created in this hobby and the generous acts of kindness are Priceless!
Kudos to Russell :) Dan |
No doubt, Russell is a car guy that loves the hobby and bleeds 10W40. He is a great friend.
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Russell is top notch!
Jason |
As are you as well Jason. Great to work with and also very accomodating on this special little project. Thank you for everything with the deal on the hood and making everything available as you did.
You are a class act in every way! :burnout: |
Today we are back to work on the car with some detailing and prep of some parts like the pillar moldings, wind lace pinch molds, original visors, and laying out the headliner so that the creases are eased out on the fabric. Once that's installed next week, the window channels will be going in with the latex seals, and then the door hardware and glass can go in. Here are some pics of the hard lines which were installed on the fuel and brake lines yesterday. The fuel tank will also go in this morning and I will now decide on the length of some custom rear shackles we are making to raise up the arse end.
https://i.ibb.co/31SWJjt/IMG-4421.jpg Brake lines being run along the front subframe. https://i.ibb.co/df6P65q/IMG-4420.jpg Restored Kelsey Hayes proportioning valve dated 038 https://i.ibb.co/ggFmgnw/IMG-4427.jpg Fuel lines secured to the passenger side subframe. Drain plugs were a personal choice of being painted black when glued in. https://i.ibb.co/zR8BZSS/IMG-4428.jpg The repro floors have these seat belt anchors angled wrong. They now interfere with the brake line bracket https://i.ibb.co/3CMQZ9L/IMG-4430.jpg Front brake lines and fuel lines are now completed. https://i.ibb.co/j5WbytG/IMG-4432.jpg New brake hoses are secured to the control arms with restored original hardware. https://i.ibb.co/BcG7pd2/IMG-4439.jpg New radio ground straps were also installed up front. New body mounts can also be seen here. https://i.ibb.co/7XFVNRX/IMG-4429.jpg Here are the rear brake lines along the rear frame rail. Subframe connectors will soon be welded in with plugs. https://i.ibb.co/JcRV0br/IMG-4435.jpg These are the custom hanger bracket being made to extend the ride height. The 5" lengths will now be fabbed and powder coated. https://i.ibb.co/4dVMspX/IMG-4437.jpg And the rear hangers were painted before a new tank goes in. I chose detail gray for color over the standard black. |
Z/28 porn..............:)
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Looks great! Make sure you bend that rear brake line away from the seat belt hole. Could be camera angle but don't want your seat belt bolt to wear a hole in your brake line
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Looks great Graeme! Kudos to Russell and Jason :) :youguysrock:
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"...all I can say is that Russell Rosales (Mr.4Speed) is just an amazing dude! A genuine person and a real hobbyist who has gone to great lengths to help out a fellow car guy."
Well done gents. I have been on both ends of similar transactions. Coincidentally, I was on the receiving end on the twin to this hood. Mine is identical, although a bit more rough than this one. Found a smoking hot deal on it in the Chicago area. A fellow named Rob who goes by satz28 over on camaros.net picked it up for me, and kept it in his garage for a couple of months. I retrieved it from him after attending the 2016 MCACN. I didn't even have to pay for shipping that way. Come to think of it, that is when I delivered a box of parts from Texas to Ryan for his Cutlass S W31 project, and got to meet him and his son. Is this a great site for a great hobby or what? |
The repro floors have these seat belt anchors angled wrong. They now interfere with the brake line bracket
Well that sucks. Seems like they can't make ANYTHING repop that is 100 percent correct. I would just cut the end off the seat belt bolt. It adds no holding power anyway. |
For those of you with the ET or Cal Custom diff covers...what are you guys using to hold the rubber brake hose fitting atop the diff cover. I connected the hard lines and installed the soft line, but there is no way the typical bracket that bolts to the housing cover will align with the brass end of the soft line?
Here is some of the stuff we did today including cleaning of the sun visors, kick panels, upper pinch weld moldings, cowl ducting, and more. Also installed the rear fuel tank, started on the wiring and installed the rear brakes on the diff c/w hard lines. https://i.ibb.co/kq88x1r/IMG-4497.jpg Visors and headliner moldings turned out awesome! https://i.ibb.co/XphHc2F/IMG-4463.jpg The new fuel tank got some original insulators and then went into the car. https://i.ibb.co/YcngQzJ/IMG-4490.jpg Next up we installed the hard lines on the rear axles https://i.ibb.co/RCnLJCB/IMG-4492.jpg They fit great but the soft lines brass fitting will not reach the bracket from the diff cover. https://i.ibb.co/JQNNQFc/IMG-4491.jpg Right side hard lines fit great too. https://i.ibb.co/B31Wr9F/IMG-4493.jpg The issue is with the bracket that bolts to the upper left cover bolt. It won't align with the brass splitter block. https://i.ibb.co/kmbN79R/IMG-4486.jpg Finally, I got around to the brakes and e-brake cables on the diff. |
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Ryan W31 |
I know that you have had a lot of these cars, and you probably ran them hard at times. It's common for the Camaro and Nova rear ends to rip the spring perches off of the housing. Many people use 2 U bolts on each side instead of the T bolts to help support the spring perches. I've had to repair several Camaro housings where the axle tubes were ripped or the perches were torn. I don't know how hard you intend to drive this, but you might consider this. I know that the brake lines have to be modified to get the other U bolts in place, but brake lines are easier to replace than to fix a damaged axle tube. I can see marks on the axle tubes where this rear end has had the extra U bolts installed in the past.
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Thanks, Freddie.
What you are seeing here for mounting hardware is only temporary. The perches have additional welds on them now and the U-bolts and I-bolts will all be replaced when the car is loaded up with some weight and the Lakewood J-Bolts go onto the traction bars. Maybe when I route the hard lines over the new hardware, I can stretch them out far enough to get that brass block where it needs to be with the holding bracket. That may happen sooner than later. :-) |
OK, the J-bolts hardware is now installed and the rear brake lines have been massaged into a spot where I could get the brackets onto the cover. Not quite factory looking but works fine for the day 2 end of things. Some of you may remember me picking up some Air Lift traction bags back in the summer when they popped up in the classifieds. Well, I broke them out last night and after a little concern about how to get them mounted up, I pulled out the pieces and got it figured out. Let's just say the instructions were more than a little vague, but then again this was 50+ years ago when these were the ticket.
Here are a couple of pics as I got the first side figured out and installed the bag using the offset brackets. Once the bags are inflated, these things grow right into place and it's easy to see how they apply the right amount of preload to the rear springs. I'll follow up with a video in the coming days, but these are freakin cool now that I can see how they work. https://i.ibb.co/CnwPjx5/IMG-4530.jpg https://i.ibb.co/kc11vTT/IMG-4529.jpg https://i.ibb.co/BgvcNq0/IMG-4528.jpg |
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Graeme, It looks like you Lakewood bars have the extra set of holes at the rear that are outside of the spring perch. If you want extra spring perch clamping it is possible to use 2 U bolts each side and put the J bolt in the outer hole ( if memory serves me correctly )
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I tried that again today Mike. Those outer holes are aligned right on the edge of the spring perch and put the J-Bolt out of vertical alignment. When I did try them again today, I put the legs into the outer holes and the fronts into the stirrups but as you tighten the nuts the upper hoop becomes cocked at a slight angle over the diff and the angle of the fronts becomes more pronounced where it goes through the stirrup. It puts the nuts at the front into a slight bind although it's tough to see if the pictures below.
I tried this on the Nova a couple of years ago and had the same issue, so I relented to installing just the J-bolts as so many other people have done over the years. See the pictures of the driver's side below as I attempted it earlier today. Became another no-go and I figured those J-bolts had to be plenty strong enough for what this car will be putting out? Would they not? https://i.ibb.co/bQYjZZ5/Nova.jpg Here's the little day 2 Nova before I changed out the u-bolts due to poor angles. https://i.ibb.co/r4TX1ct/IMG-4564.jpg The holes are so close to the inside hoop that they align at an angle as they route up over the housing? https://i.ibb.co/YbJc8wV/IMG-4562.jpg You can see the angle more with this shot. Messes with my OCD (LOL) https://i.ibb.co/cw4bfkV/front-bolts.jpg Here you can see the angle of the nut. The more you tighten it the worse it gets. Even with a washer it goes to bind on one edge? If I recall correctly, I tightened the Nova down to proper torque on the J-bolts and those front bolts started to bend beyond the stirrups. Anyone else had any level of success trying to run u-bolts and j-bolts on trac bars. I always end up seeing people use just the j-bolts? |
Maybe you could re bend or over break the front stirrup at the bend area so it helps with the J bolt nut alignment? , and maybe elongate/tweak the outer hole too to keep the j bolt vertical?
Problem with using just the J bolts on the diff housing is the clamping force is not as great as U bolts because the front stirrup is a pivotable/movable part. I think the idea of the J bolts is to be able to preload 1 spring more if the car goes crooked on launch. |
That makes a lot of sense Mike. I have to go see Mel next week as he's cutting the rear shackles for me on his water table. He'd be able to overbend the tops of the stirrups and correct the angle to match the J-bolts, and that might help the alignment over the diff as well. I looked at the holes earlier today and there's a bit of room for the holes to move outwards a smidge.
Those ideas would help the J-bolts fit better :worship: Thanks for the suggestions, Mike. |
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