This is my attempt at a build thread
In September or October 2019 a friend of a friend called and he knew this guy that had a early 2nd gen Camaro race car and I should check it out. I agreed to drive to Aurora and check it out. He wanted a thousand bucks for it.
Turns out he got it from an estate sale in Nebraska. It had been sitting outside for years.
The story I was told was the old man raced it in the 70’s and his son ended up with it in the mid 80’s and raced it on 1/8 mile dirt oval. After seeing it I offered him $800 and he accepted.
Here it is …
1 Like
Thanks for starting the build thread, @Raybob9289. It looks like a ton of work, and I look forward to following along and eventually dicing it up with it on track. Keep the updates coming as you have the time.
1 Like
Thanks Justin,
Its definetly been a ton of work but as a car guy its a hobby that keeps me out of trouble.
I began dismantling almost immediatly.
Of coarse the rust was worse than I expected.
The 1970s cage was hacked up and added on to with dirt track components so I decided it’ll have to get redone.
And obviously I had to fab up a tub cart that would help hold the body together and give me some way of moving it around .
By November we were ready to go see Gary at Blastech in Englewood. It would be the last job he did for me before he retired and sold the place.
Loaded up and ready to go.
At Blastech
Luckily the rot was mostly the floors, rockers and rear quarters. And some out fit outside of Chicago was having a huge sale. Buy $1500 in sheetmetal and free shipping.
My buddy Kent (owns Rocky Mountain Insulation) just got one of his GTO’s off the rottiserie just in time for my Camar to go on it.
I raced against Kent back in the NASA American Iron days. He had an 05 GTO that was as fast as it was nice to look at.
1 Like
All this sheet metal work is one of the reasons why I chose the Camaro. If the Javelin needed this much sheet metal replaced I can’t imagine where I’d get it let alone how many billion dollars I’d have to shell out to get it.
One of the reasons I originally quit car racing was not wanting to blow all my retirement dough.
Another example was the rear leaf spring buckets. They were destroyed…
Between rust and dirt track racing in 1980’s Nebaska they were junk.
But I lucked out and found some. I beleive I got them from Goodmark.
Installed
Full floor replacement was a shit ton of work but I like to think of it as the foundation of a Unibody car.
The Covid thing really put the Camaro on the back burner. Lots of my sheetmetal was on backorder. It slowly trickled in almost as I needed it.
Rocker panel replacement.
My dad used to say “theres always something to do”
While waiting for sheet metal a tinkered with fixing up the dashboard
