- Well, yes, I'm still alive, as is the Camaro! Before I start, thanx for all the emails asking about how things are coming. I appologize for taking so long to update things here, but I've been distracted with both the car and other things. But I do have news to report.
- A lot has happened since my last entry in the diary. Probably the single biggest is the
completion of the bodywork/repair that needed to be done! That was also one
of the reasons for the lull in the reports here. I dropped the car off with
a personal friend/bodyman (and about one of two that I actually would trust
to work on the car besides myself!) around March 8th. What started out as fixing
my screwup (colorsanded through the clear on the driver's side door) and
aligning the hood turned into:
- Repaint the driver's side door
- Repaint the passenger's side door (color match problems)
- Repaint the passenger's side fender (same as above)
- Repaint both rocker panels (missed some spots the first time)
- Repaint the entire set of white stripes (problems with red bleedthrough on the trunk and spoiler, and 2 black bugs in the hood, as well as alignment with the upper header panel)
- Repaint the front header panel
- Align the subframe to get the front wheels/tires centered in the wheelwells as well as assign in the alignment of the front sheetmetal
- Loosen and realign the entire front end for hood alignment
- Replace the hood hinges with a new set (one new, one slightly used)
- Touchup chips on both doors and fenders
I'm sure there is more that I'm forgetting, but what started out as a one-week trip to the shop turned into THREE weeks! I'm incredibly pleased with the results, but it was stressful waiting, as I was trying to make a car show on April 6th, and I still had a lot more to get done.
Here is a picture showing the car all done. It doesn't look much different than the ones from the last set, but I had to put at least one new one up here! :)
- After I picked up the car (March 29th), I returned home to work on the motor and inside some. I had 2 annoying leaks on the front of the motor. The first was the stupid three piece timing cover I used. I have had a constant slight oil drip off of that thing since I installed it. As of today, I have literally removed the harmonic dampener three times and pulled the water pump twice trying to fix this stupid thing! The third time, I used black RTV as the sealer (previously I tried to use Permatex liquid gasket stuff, didn't work!). So doing that was the first job.
- Related to the timing cover since I had it all apart, I also tried to fix a power steering leak that I was having. Unfortunately, I couldn't tell where the leak was coming from, so I disassembled everything trying to find it. I found a loose connection of one of the hard lines on the rack, and I replaced the o-rings in the AN line adapter fittings going into the rack. I put it all back together, and it seemed like it was fixed (for a while).
- After fixing my motor leaks, I took the car for a drive, and all seemed better.
I then proceeded to install my 1/2" lowering blocks on the rear springs to get
the tail end down slightly. Easy enough, I've done it before, and it only
takes about 30 minutes to do both sides. Unfortunately, this time when I removed
the driver's side rear wheel, I noticed a puddle of differential fluid in it!
THAT'S not a good sign I thought... So on Monday I called up Currie to get the
part # of the seal so I could replace it. Since it didn't look too bad, I was
planning to wait until after the car show (5 days away) to tear into it...
Of course, I didn't wait though. And boy was that a bad decision. Turns out I was able to get a seal at the local parts store, and since I was planning to take off work on Tuesday anyway, I figured I would go ahead and fix it... Are you hearing a disaster in the making? You should be... VERY long story short, after FIVE phone calls to Currie, and 3 hours of work trying to get the seal out, it turns out that the axle flange on the rear end housing had BROKEN! That's right, it broke. The machined surface where the seal should be pressed in had separated from the rear of the flange and was free to move inwards towards the third member. Thus, I couldn't install the new seal, and I was screwed. I decided to just stick the seal on the axle and hope for the best, and I put it all back together Wednesday morning since there honestly wasn't much else I could do.
Currie sales manager Kent and I went through several phone calls, and in the end he sent me a new housing to get me back together as quickly as possible. Kudos to them for warrantying a rear end that, while 2 years old, had less than 40 miles on it at the time of the failure. The new rear arrived this past week, as of yesterday, it is painted and installed (after transferring over the goodies from the old one) in the car. I'm happy to say, so far no more leak! :)
- So after putting the rear end together, I loaded the car up on a trailer and hauled it to Greensboro (where the family lives). I had an appointment to drop the car off Thursday morning to have the headliner installed. When I arrived, I was informed that the car wouldn't be ready Thursday, but it would be Friday morning. Oops! That hurt... So I lost a day of walking the Autofair swap meet with my father, but in the end it was probably just as well since I could take my time getting to Charlotte and enjoying the day.
- I picked the car up Friday morning, headliner installed, and headed off to Charlotte. The drive down wasn't very pleasant, as the car just didn't want to pull comfortably on the trailer I was using (first time I had pulled with my Expedition).But I made it without any damage done, so that was good. I spent the afternoon cleaning and preparing for the show which started on Saturday.
- So finally! The car makes its debut! Below are some of the pictures from the show. Unfortunately, I had some awesome pictures of the car sitting in Victory circle, but my stupid digital camera ATE THEM! :( The below pictures come from others who were there with me.
- Since returning home, I've done a few more little things to the car. As I said, I replaced the axle housing, and I've also pulled the front of the motor apart again to finally fixed the oil and power steering leaks. So far, so good on both (fingers are crossed!). I've also done a little work on the inside, but not too much. Here are my latest pictures of the interior (be warned, they are large downloads):
- Phew! Ok, I think that about catches everyone up with the last couple of months. The next few weeks will involve working on the AC, installing a new set of front spindles to get the car higher off the ground, and hopefully actually driving the car to enjoy it! Oh, I also need to clean up the trunk wiring, but that shouldn't take too long. :)
The show was a lot of fun! The car attracted a lot of attention, and people seemed to really like it. One of the highlights of the show was seeing Kyle Tucker of Detroit Speed and Engineering and The Twister fame. Kyle and his wife Stacy were there displaying some of their company's products, and I was able to talk to him for a while about the car. We also discussed having him do the roll cage, which I would really like to do! Look for that in the future...
Finally, after a long weekend, the car took home it's first trophy! It was voted "Best in the Show" of the group of 30 Camaros I was there with. In honor of this, I participated in a short 'parade' session through pit lane where I got to shake hands with Humpy Wheeler (owner of Lowes Motor Speedway in Charlotte). Then I loaded up the car to come home
