Nat’s car with the old wheels which had a vibration.
The new wheels look better and ride smoothly.
New Kicks
Category: Cars
Clip on Camaro
I got some surprise help from a neighbor while my father in law was also around. With all the help we dropped the front clip back on the Camaro. I’d been finished for a few weeks and just waiting for some help at this.
The car is finished and we drove it yesterday. Next I need to try to figure out what’s up with the carb. It just doesn’t feel right. There are several rattles still present from the exhaust being too close to the frame and possibly from the jack in the trunk. My goal is to make it quiet and solid.
A Day on the lake
After some hot sweaty car repair it’s time to cool off.
Something odd floating out there. Turns out it’s a dead bloated groundhog. Ew.
engine
The engine block in my father in law’s boat was spraying water so we investigated. I found bondo covering something. A grinder showed that it was welded in the past. After cleaning I used JB Weld to cover and fill any voids. Tomorrow will tell if the operation was successful.
Well the next day showed that this fix held. Unfortunately the freeze plug just above this started leaking when the block held pressure. Then with the boat in the water we found water streaming in through the transom somewhere. Time to cut our losses and sell this thing.
Rear mount
The rear mount on the front subframe was as bad as the others. This one had clearly been repaired before but it rusted badly around it. I really had a job trying to cut this out with limited clearance. The torches were out of the question with the fuel line an inch away. Welding required my pipe sweating pad.
Pieces after the struggle to cut it out. I had to cut back farther than the length of the repair plate.
So I had to lengthen it with a piece of steel. I got it sized the way I wanted and then had to get funky with welding it. Reaching up inside the frame blocked my view so I had to figure out when I was welding the end of that extension plate. I got it but it ain’t pretty.
After all the struggle to get this side I was dreading the next side. I took the bushing out and found it was in pretty good shape! I sprayed it with rust stuff, painted it with Rustoleum, and put in the new bushing. Done with subframe mounts. The ones on the front at the radiator support were okay though the bushings were rusted out inside.
Repairing the front subframe mounts on Nat’s Camaro
Now that I have all the parts I set the repair plate on top of the subframe mount. Then I put the new bushing on that and bolted it in. I ran my large drift into the alignment holes at the edge and put the weight of the car on it to keep it still. Then I traced it with crayon.
This picture helps orient your view. This is the left front, that’s the firewall, and the subframe to the left.
This shows the rusted subframe. The car was a daily driver for its early life and lots of salt accumulated and rusted under the bushing. Continue reading “Repairing the front subframe mounts on Nat’s Camaro”
Ceramic coated exhaust manifold
While doing some work on Nat’s 1968 Camaro I had to take the exhaust manifolds off. While I had them off I used a grinder and some files to clean up the mold flash. Once cleaned up I took them out to be ceramic coated. The coating not only makes them look better but it also keeps heat contained and sends it out the exhaust to the pipes.
This is the passenger side bolted in place.
This is the driver’s side. They don’t stand out except as clean. I like it.
New water pump and thermostat
I decided that if I didn’t replace the water pump now I’d be doing it soon after getting the car back on the road. At least now it’s easy to get to. Corrosion in the heater core and radiator along with “mud” coming out of the cooling system convinced me that the coolant had failed in its anti corrosive properties. It would have been nice to flush the motor with the water pump off but there were no exhaust manifolds and no spark plugs then. Don’t want water inside the motor.
The water pump I took off was painted Chevy engine orange to match the engine so I did the same with this one. I looked into switching to a clutch type fan but wasn’t ready to spend the $270 or more it would take. If I decide to make a change in the future I’ll probably hide an electric fan in the fan shroud so it appears more stock.
New motor mount
I wish I’d had this view of things when I replaced the motor mounts. There had been some odd things with launching the car from a stop that I decided were because the motor was torquing on its mounts. The Camaro uses a mechanical belcrank setup between the frame and the block. While the motor mounts were in better shape than I thought they weren’t bolted down properly.
Unfortunately I’ve found another potential culprit in the subframe bushings and/or their mounting points.
Heater box on outside of firewall
