Our customer wanted to restore this 1970 Camaro SS that has been in storage for about 20 years. The car is interesting in that it has the highly desired split bumper front end typically associated with Z28 cars of the year and has the heavy duty 12 bolt rear end and rear sway bar, but currently lacks a positraction carrier. The powertrain was a small block 350 backed by TH350 automatic with factory floor shifter. Someone added T tops somewhere along the way and they are well done.
We began work stripping lights, bumpers and much of the interior, removing the hood and pulling transmission first, and then the engine.
The wiring harness had been cut up and the owner has a new wiring kit we will install later in the project. The front suspension and steering were removed, along with the fender liners.
The radiator support was pretty rusty, so it seemed like a good opportunity to replace it with a high quality reproduction.
While we are waiting on the new radiator support we took the opportunity to clean and strip the front subframe and paint it with POR-15 to provide a good clean canvass for installation of the new suspension components.
Next we install the upper and lower control arms, assemble and install the coilovers setting the initial preload. The control arms fit well and work with the factory spindles which were cleaned and painted as well. The upper ball joint is designed to work with other spindles, and when used with the stock spindles, a significant portion of the taper extends above the spindle. We sleeved this in a cut section of hose.
In our next installment, we will install the spindles and make some modifications to the spindles to support the new Wilwood brake system. The section of the spindle used to mount the original GM caliper must be cut away to make room for the adapter brackets.
The rear is similarly in progress with the factory leaf springs, shackles and shocks removed and the rear end and fuel tank removed from the car. This affords us an opportunity to clean and paint the under car area of the rear, remove the factory sway bar and bump stop mounts and prepare to install the subframe support that will provide the mounting points for the rear coil overs and upper control arms of the four link system.