Brought Home The Dream: '69 RS Z/28
 

Hey all,

Just wanted to say howdy and show the car I brought home this weekend: a '69 RS Z/28.

It was sold new at Ferris Bros Chevrolet in Harvard, Illinois, restored from 2000-2010 out near Chicago, then went to Tuscon then Anaheim and now up here to the South Bay. No docs and unfortunately the second owner did a reproduction trim tag (maybe to match the swap to 713 interior), but otherwise it's to my eye a pretty solid restoration. The PO had Jerry M do a "data analysis" on the car from photos and Jerry is confident it's an original Z. Once the world returns to a bit more normal I'll have to get Jerry out here to California to do a proper certification.

Some quick details: 02D, from photos appears to be an original 72 72 car, warranty replacement CE 302, original BV axle, and not-original M21. Carb rebuilt by Jerry (runs great!) and most everything under the hood is numbers-correct so it's possible the original owner blew up the DZ and swapped over the accessories to the replacement motor. 403 bellhousing, 367 starter, 480 distributor, 837 alternator, UH radiator, spiral shocks, YH wheels, and a lovely-sounding chambered exhaust!

It likely started life with standard interior and flat hood (not sure about spoilers either), but the second owner swapped to deluxe houndstooth (my favorite) and cowl hood. That super scoop hood flap works great!

Lots of little things to fix and tweak and I have much to learn, but overall it's a pretty damned fun setup for a weekend driver. It's been an exciting, whirlwind weekend here at our house for sure - finally made the dream come true! On to photos...

Congrats.

Too bad about the trim tag. Have you tried to see if a PO kept it? Would be nice to reunite it with the car, if possible. Otherwise, it is what it is, right?

Won't make it any less fun to drive.

For what it is worth, the white out treatment on the top of the cowl is similar to how mine came from the factory; although mine has less spill over onto the firewall.

See third pic in post #8 in this thread: https://www.yenko.net/forum/showthre...d+pics+project

Have a blast.

Thanks! Sadly the second owner unexpectedly passed away shortly after that ten-year process to restore it. His wife then owned it for several years, then reluctantly sold it to a friend, then it went to the owner in Anaheim from whom I bought it, so the tag is probably long gone. But seems like the paint job was done with a real eye for making it look factory. I kind of like that the repro tag is on top of the cowl paint so it's obvious it's not original.

Here is the car coming off the trailer on Saturday:

https://youtu.be/POz9dshTHVA

My thanks to Kevin and Darwin at Enclosed Vehicle Transport for great service in safely transporting the car!

Congrats Nice Camaro..

Rich

Very nice looking car, congrats.

Neat car ,Sure does sound Good !!!

Now that's funny ....we have the same dream! :crazy:
Can you believe that little 302 sounds so awesome!
Thanks for sharing!
Congratulations!

Thanks, everyone! Yeah, the chambered exhaust is just ridiculously fun. I'm also amazed at how well it idles, in part I expect thanks to Jerry M rebuilding the carb.

Congrats! Great looking car!

Very nice car. Congrats!

'

Big congrats!
:beers:
~ Pete

.

Wow...nice score!!!

Nice -- sounds TOTALLY mean. What a looker...

:youguysrock:

Thank you!

Nice car! I agree with everybody about how nice it sounds! Very cool!

Sweet ride! Congrats. Sounds killer!!

Had my first few little puzzles with the car this weekend. The first was with the reverse lockout. Turns out that if the steering column cover rotates counter-clockwise too far then it screws up the geometry of the lockout linkage and allowed me to move the shifter out of reverse. So I let out the clutch in "neutral" with the reverse bar on the Muncie still engaged... chirped backwards and stalled.... uh what?! After a few hours of research, putting the car on jack stands (before I had driven it more than around the parking lot), and learning all about how the Hurst shifter linkages work, I confirmed everything was tight and properly adjusted in the linkages and then found the twisting-column "bug" somewhere on one of the forums. Twisted that column all the way clockwise and it's good as new... No idea why it's rotating - maybe there's a missing screw or pin or something? For now it's a handy antitheft device, so long as someone doesn't try to put it in first and reverse at the same time :eek2:


Second little puzzle - I went to unscrew the antenna to put the cover on the car, and turns out the whole antenna mount assembly was loose, so it dropped into the fender and disappeared. With some magnets on sticks and some wire, I finally found the little pivoting washer that grabs the antenna body under the fender and pulled it out of that tiny crevice above the rocker.


Amazing how quickly you bond with a car when you're wrenching on it more than driving it in the first 48 hours :beers:

Gratuitous front end shot to accompany those little fixes that weren’t particularly visually interesting...

Beautiful!

Very nice! Congrats and have fun!

Thank you for providing the useful information about the car. A great article

Beautiful! Enjoy it!! Spend a few minutes each evening just staring at it knowing it’s in your garage. Sometimes we all get caught up in numbers this, date code that, and we forget the sum of the parts is what gets our hearts pounding.

She’s a beauty!

Cheers:biggthumpup:
Dave

Absolutely and thanks! I'll have to keep taking videos, too - amazing how much the sound is a part of the soul of the car, and you don't get that with just a few photos...


These past few days have been a steady stream of friends and neighbors coming by (at a social distance) to see the car. So many anecdotes of "my dad had an orange '69!" and "I have to show my friend - he's going to flip" and just all kinds of stories and smiles. And it's the loudest car in the fleet so it'll help that the neighbors are excited about the car too haha.


I've thought about a 1st gen Camaro for so long that it still doesn't feel like it's actually in my garage. More like I'm at the Monterey Historics and how cool that I get to stand this close to it! Great stuff, and what this hobby is all about.


Time to figure out why the steering column cover is free to rotate out of position enough to defeat the reverse lockout...

Had my first twilight drive. The more seat time I have, the more I'm starting to "wear" the car, and the chambered exhaust is just addicting... Got stuck in reverse again after parking (where the shifter moves to neutral but the lockout stays engaged), and this time rotating the cabin-side steering column jacket didn't fix the lockout linkage alignment so I had to jump under to move the reverse rod back to neutral. I'm hoping the reverse bar just needs adjustment so will tackle this weekend. Might be fun to switch to steel bushings with a Hurst rebuilt kit while I'm under there - anyone do steel in the linkages and like it?

The first thing I did when I bought my 69 Z was to get rid of that horrible Muncie shifter. If you intend to drive it, put a Hurst in it. You will never regret the decision.

Ah, thanks Lee, I had that wrong and thought the bushings were replaceable on the factory Muncie/Hurst linkages but looks like not. I might have to add that to the bolt-on upgrades list...

The original shifter for all '69 Camaros w/4-speed was a Hurst. I had several back in the day and the reverse lockout functioned perfectly. Yours is not correctly adjusted or has non-original components.

I bought mine used - had 18,000 miles and it had a Muncie in it. It may have been swapped out to a Chevelle SS 396. The car was not 100% stock: had headers. Flat hood Lemans Blue with White stripes and Dark Blue Interior. No spoilers.

And those damn RWL tires. I must have spent a 100 hours with Brillo pads working off the curb scuff's each time I blew parking it against a curb.

William and others, this may be a dumb question but is the cabin-side steering column jacket supposed to be rotatable by hand? I'm wondering if there's a missing pin or internal fastener in the column that allows the jacket to rotate out of position and so mess up the lockout geometry. In the meantime I'll get the car on jack stands tomorrow to adjust the Hurst linkages...

You are probably missing the reverse lock-out rod. If you do not twist it after starting the car your reverse lights will stay on. If you twist it after engine is started reverse light will go off, but you will not be able to remove ignition key until you twist it back to the reverse position.

- Warren

....

... Wow ... Nice Camaro :flag::flag::flag:

...

As it turns out, the reverse rod was two rotations out of adjustment. Got the car up on jack stands and used a carbide bit as a 1/4” pin to get the Hurst linkages adjusted. Now it shifts like new :beers:

Did not know until now that it’s adjusted that the steering column jacket is supposed to rotate when you shift into reverse. Today I learned...

Funny story:

My best friend in college had a 1969 Chevelle SS396/325 HP 4 speed. The car came without a tach. He liked the hood mounted tach the GTOs had and bought a look-a-like. Came in a black plastic housing. Then he went to Lee Chevrolet in Wellesley, MA (Babson remember) to get a quote for install and paint. It was more than the cost of the tach. So I recommended to him that he return it and exchange it for a column mounted Sun Super Tach which was the same price.

He exchanged tachs and we strapped it to the column, got the wires snaked and all hooked up and started the car. Bingo - worked perfectly. So we're sitting in the car waiting for it to warm up and when it did, he puts the shifter in reverse and the tach moves . We are both staring at it like it just spoke to us. Al looks at me and says; "it better move back when I shift into first" which of course it did. He hated that movement so much he would avoid shifting into reverse as much as possible. Without the tach we never noticed the column jacket rotating.

That’s pretty amazing :smile:

That's interesting, never heard of that before. I do remember that was a big thing in the 70's, cruising around with your reverse lights on. As a stupid kid, always thought it was cool, lol.

It was new for 69. That's what locks the steering wheel when parked. Basically you can't park it and take the keys out until you put the shifter in reverse.

Reverse light switch was also moved to the column so when it rotates it turns on the backup lights.

Easy to spot a 69-up with back drive linkage missing when someone jumps in to start it and the back up lights don't come on, or you see one parked in 1st gear and the keys missing.

Many thought it was a pain and why so many were removed early on. Once adjusted and working properly it's fine. The function never bothered me since I'm one to almost always back into a parking spot.

Neat Z by the way. :biggthumpup:

nothing better that a HO 69 RS/Z

good luck with the car and looks like your on track to fixing your reverse issues!

Back then, many of the headers available did not clear the reverse lock out rod, and called for it's removal. So if we were out street racing or cruising, and we saw a GM car with it's back up lights on, we knew it had headers. Kind of a clue to how stock it was if we wanted to 'have a go'.

Thanks, all, and fun to hear all the stories. Lockout works great now - very satisfying to put in reverse and see the column jacket rotate, knowing all the little details that go into it...