My Camaro

page 7

First time it moved after 2 years !!
I moved house over the last few months so working on the Camaro was low priority. Now all is done that had to be done to the new house it is time again to work on the car. As a big bonus we were able to buy a garage located at 2,5 km from our house! It's not so big but for me it's big enough to build a car in. (2,8m x 5.8m or approx 9.5ft x 19.5ft) In The Netherlands a garage (in the year 2002) will cost anything from $10.000,- (in the country) to $40.000,- (center of Amsterdam), that's if you can find one! So you can imagine I am a lucky (and very happy) man. Soon I will move the Camaro to my own garage.

The first time out of the garage after 2 years! I took it for a small test drive and everything seemed to work. There are still a lot of things to do but I'm getting close....

The engine at idle

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The dash works
It was a nice job to sort out the wiring for my new dash, I made a new wiring harness for the dash and implemented it in the existing wiring. I know a lot of people are afraid of the electric things on the car because for them it's hard to understand. Since I went to a technical school and studied to be an electrician for four years it's no big deal for me. If you have to work on the wiring of your car, see to it that you have a good wiring diagram and a multimeter. A lot of problems occur due to bad grounds and/or connections, often that's the thing to check first.

The dash looks great (or at least that's what I think) and all the Autometer Phantom meters work fine. The movie shows some of the interior and the dash with the engine running. I covered the shifter plate with the same material as the dash to give it the "carbon fibre" look.

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The new battery cables look good and function perfectly. The engine starts good and all electric functions work correct thanks to the extra ground connections made.
I bought new brakelines from Goodridge, I am changing all the brake lines for stainless steel braided teflon hose, so all the hard lines are gone now. It is a lot easier to install, it looks good and replacing the rubber hose with the stainless steel braided hose gives a harder pedal, which I like. The front calipers are replaced with remanufactured ones with new pads. All the bleeder screws are replaced by speed bleeder screws, the best invention ever! I am now able to bleed the brakes alone and in no-time.
I also managed to replace the leaf springs and rear shock absorbers so that's another job done. Since the tank is in the way I had to lower it to remove the shackles and bushings, I was glad it is almost empty. The leaf spring cussions that I bought didn't fit so I have to buy new ones. The only thing l still have to do on the rear is mount the disc brake conversion kit and the Posi unit.

The front wheels will carry 255/40/17 tires and the rear 275/40/17. The tires that came with the wheels are front 245/40/17 and rear 255/40/17 and on the test drive they didn't rub. Only at full steering the tires rub the anti-sway bar so I will have to make a sort of bump stop on the lower A-arm to limit the steering. Also the allignment is probably way off so I have to get the car alligned. The car is not as low as I would like it to be but since it will be a daily driver it's ok. The number of speed bumps I come across every day justifies the ride height...... I also think that after some time when the suspension is properly seated it will be a little lower.

This picture is with the old (sagged) leafsprings.

After searching for second generation Camaro (specially 70-73) models for years I recently found these two. Now the second gen. is becoming more popular more models will appear, I think.

I will be going to talk to the painter soon so he can make a quote for the welding/smoothing/painting. Off course he wants to see the car so he knows what has to be done exactly. I hope he will be able to do it on my budget.........

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You can reach me by e-mail at: pro-touring @ hotmail .com