Day 2 67 Camaro restoration

[Chuck_Burg]

As previously mentioned my free car time has been wrapped up with Dad's L78. All I can say is what a lousy build that WAS. I'm not sure who previously built this engine but upon tear down it was evident the job was very amateur. The crank was cut but not chamfered. The line bore was left alone but someone resized the rear main.... Needless to say the line bore was all out of wack and all the rods were out of round. Since we were this far, we wanted to make sure the heads were good too.... so we decided to send out the block and heads to Heath Hiebert (local Grand National boat racer) of Advanced Racing Engines in Riverside, CA. Great work. Great price. Most of the springs needed shimming from prior machine work to the seats. He corrected the line bore, replaced the cam bearings, honed the cylinders, did a valve job, and put new valve guide seals in the heads.

This car was strictly a show car, so I'm guessing the previous owner had on idea since he never really drove the car.

The 6223 crank was wasted after I spun the #8 bearing. The machine shop sold me one for dirt cheap and we had it cut .020" under on the mains and rod journals and polished it. The entire rotating assembly was balanced by Revco in Long Beach, CA. This guy, Gary, is amazing and very reasonable. He was able to resize the original dimpled rods too.

My friend and I reassembled it. New rings, new COMP 143 replica cam, new lifters, had the intake and water neck vapor honed (amazing process if you're unfamiliar), new Melling high volume oil pump etc... We broke in the cam, changed the oil and took it for a drive...

WOW!!! Amazing!! Engine is so smooth. Valvetrain nice and quiet. Great linear power, we installed the cam straight up. 16* initial timing, 38* total. Running it on Sunoco 110 leaded.... As I previously mentioned, we did see the motor had NOS TRW pistons.

Now... back to the Prospector

[RPOLS3]

Please tell us more about the 67 L78..............

[Chuck_Burg]

Originally Posted by RPOLS3

Please tell us more about the 67 L78..............

That's an entire story in it's own.... You can follow along here! Car has an awesome story. It's a remarkable car that now drives as good as it looks.

https://www.chevelles.com/threads/ebay-67-l78.385669/

[RPOLS3]

Originally Posted by Chuck_Burg

That's an entire story in it's own.... You can follow along here! Car has an awesome story. It's a remarkable car that now drives as good as it looks.

https://www.chevelles.com/threads/ebay-67-l78.385669/

Thank you - I recall the story about Curt now - sad as it is.

[Chuck_Burg]

Originally Posted by RPOLS3

Thank you - I recall the story about Curt now - sad as it is.

Agreed. He did an amazing job restoring this car and hunting down the protecto plate/engine block. That Chevelle is probably my favorite car...

[Chuck_Burg]

So yesterday was fun! We removed the sub frame. As we all know this car is a low mileage unmolested early production car. The body mounts are in great shape! The tape for the rear body bushings was still intact!

I have dug up some things in this archeology experiment that differ from what I thought were correct.

Many things on the front suspension seem to have been painted black at the factory rather than "natural finish" such as the drag link, tie rod ends, spindles, and the steering knuckles, and pitman arm. The idler arm definitely looks like it is natural cast iron. I always thought these parts were left natural finish from the factory. I HIGHLY doubt these parts were painted black after the car was purchased new. Note the orange inspection paint on the drag link, pretty cool! The car retained all the factory bushings, control arms, riveted upper ball joints. Only thing that looked altered were the shocks. Figured everyone would like the condition of the ID tag on the one coil spring..

So my question to you all is would you refinish the black aforementioned parts in black, or would you do them in a natural cast finish? I am leaning toward the black because it seems like they left the factory that way. Either way, black parts will be powder coated....

[NorCam]

A common question that we all ask of ourselves. Black, natural, or add some contrast with grey or phosphate color mixed in? Myself, I like a little contrast on the inners, outers, and sleeves. I leave the steering arms natural but have satin clear coated them to preserve the paint daubs once redone. Everyone has different views on this and ultimately is up to how you like things refinished and there is no right or wrong on a great car such as this.

I would however caution you on powder coating any parts that connect to other metal parts under stress. The powder will often crack and can then flake off when the joints are tightened back together. For that reason alone, I now paint all of the front steering and small suspension parts and only powder the frame, control arms, and sway bar. The rest is easy to media blast, prep and paint while the big stuff is off being coated. But that's just me...

Loving this car and trust it will turn out to look spectacular!

[SMS]

This car is beautiful. But I'm partial as I have a Gold Chevelle. Thought I'd share a gold interior 67 I used to have.

[Chuck_Burg]

That interior is beautiful! I love the door panels on the deluxe interior. My car has gold standard, no pun intended haha, interior. Did yours have plastic or steel seat backs? Look like the later plastic ones in the picture, mine has the early steel ones.

[Chuck_Burg]

Slowly but surely coming along. Last week I sent the subframe, control arms, engine mounts, cross member, inner fenders, core support and sway bar to a local powder coater. Very impressed with the results. Yesterday I sent them my leaf spring buckets, and bumper brackets.

I decided to use Rich, Enoch on this site, to replate much of my original hardware. Can't wait Rich!