[67'7F6'Bird]

Hello John - Thanks for your input!!! Much Appreciated.

I placed my brother in the trunk and held his beer hostage until all the sanding was done for today. It was a sobering day for him. HAHAHA He used the small right angle grinder with 3" sanding pads, a flap wheel attachment and a lot of complaining to get the majority of surface rust removed from the inner panels located in the trunk. He will need only a few more hours to get all the rust removed - Can't wait until he reads this.

THANKS ED!!!!

Steve

[67'7F6'Bird]

While my brother was sanding in the trunk, I was removing all the undercoating and paint from the underside of the trunk floor and frame rails. I used a wire wheel to get most of the light undercoating off and then went over most of the metal with the 3M grinding wheel and DA sander - 80 grit paper. To remove the heavy undercoating I used brake cleaner in a spray bottle, let it soak for a few minutes and scraped off the loose material with a gasket scraper - this worked great. I think another full day and most of this work should be done. Of course the Weather forecast was wrong, we were going to sandblast again but the rain came awefully quick. We were 5 minutes away from having the car get soaked.

[esahlin]

Poor brother Ed...I think that is one of the worst jobs Ive done yet.....sanding under the package tray especially with the quarters and tail panel still on the car.

[67'7F6'Bird]

Hello Esahlin - My brother made up for the trunk work today - His day was floating in the pool.

I brought the car outside again and had it up on jack stands to get the remainder of the rear under-carriage silica blasted. What a long day - I think about 10 hours today were spent underneath the car. I can only emphasize to everyone the importance of having the right mask for blasting - as I did not. Spend the money and get a good sealed face mask.

I applied Picklex to all sandblasted metal.

[67'7F6'Bird]

Here are pictures of the rear frame rails, trunk pan and fuel tank opening. My brother may not have been helpful today but he had a nice new custom jack-stand so I thought I'd give it a try; holding my car up - the 722 Jackstand was solid and held the car right in place.

[esahlin]

Lookin mighty clean under there!!! When I stripped my underneath...... laying on my back in the driveway..... I used 1/2 a million wire wheels and burned up two power drills.....not fun.

I spent most of the day today removing my roof and the underbracing. the underbracing was kinda rusty so I spent time stripping the POR15 off that I had applied 5 years ago. Also removed the seat braces and subframe bolt braces from the floorpans. getting ready to install new floor pans. Amazing the hidden rust under the seatbraces....you cant see it until you remove them. The floorpan under the seat brace is just bare metal....thanks GM for treating the metal in the factory . Those subframe bolt braces (under the seat braces) are galvanized (I think) and are actually rust free but the cage nut for the subframe bolt had a good amount of surface rust. Vinyl tops suck.

Spray some epoxy primer on your underside/bare metal soon. Here is a link for the best epoxy primer for the $. Ask around and maybe post on their message board....call the owner Barry Kives to ask questions about his products and receive incredible customer service. plus, if you need more info about learning to paint, paint guns etc.....Barry is a great guy to ask. His is a smaller paint company catering mainly to the restoration market.....very high quality for great prices. Check em out if you interested.
http://www.southernpolyurethanes.com/homepage.htm

[67'7F6'Bird]

Hello Esahlin - I new I should have purchased the car tilter for working on the undercarriage, next time I'll change the trunk pan instead, my back is so sore. We took your advice and removed the rear inner panel (behind the tail panel) to see what rust may have been lurking there. It wasn't that bad but the braces for the gas tank where rusting badly, only a small portion on the end, so Ed fabricated the brackets and we were able to sand the surface rust out on the trunk pan - At first we thought we went to far remnoving this panel, but with A welder I guess there really never is a too far if you have the patience to work on it. But futher inspection on the gas tank brace we were glad we removed it. The metal used for the brackets came off his 69 Camaro original rear panel that we changed last year - I knew his Camaro would be good for something - HAHHAHA

Steve

P.S. Thanks for the advice on the paint.

[67'7F6'Bird]

We did get the undercarriage stripped of undercoating, original paint and just about all the rust. What came in Handy today were dremmel bits (aluminum oxide) for the Die Grinder, this helped to get in all those small and tight spots, especially in the leaf spring pockets. We did finally get 2 coats of Eastwood Rust Encapsulator on the metal. I had used a combination of Rust Mort and the Picklex for the metal prep, for the few days the undercarriage sat without paint it had both rust inhibitors to coat the metal. I did resand only a few spots and then applied the paint. Top coat to be applied in a few days.

[esahlin]

You guys are making great progress.

I'm only a little bit ahead of you guys and i have been working on this car for 5 years.

[67'7F6'Bird]

Esahlin - It feels like all I do is work on my car, although my 5 weeks in the garage has aged me so much!!!! Thanks for the pictures. 5 Year - WOW! Keep at it, I bet its looking great!!!!

Here were trial fitting the inner panel and tail panel. There is a huge gap in the middle of the inner panel were it should meet the tail panel. Has anyone else come across this? And recommend how to fix it. The inner panel is listed for 67/68 Camaro Firebird, so is the problem that its basically stamped for the Camaro and Im stuck with this gap?

[esahlin]

I have the same gap on my new tail panel that is mated to my original GM "inner" tail panel. I left the gap as is. I just made sure that my new tail panel was "square" from left quarter to right quarter panel.

I believe there is a US stamped inner tail panel available (Classic industries or Ricks first gen camaro has em).....it looks like yours is the Taiwan reproduction (not that there is anything wrong with that). I do not know if the US stamped one is a better fit or not. Since my original GM inner produced a gap with the repro tail panel I doubt the US stamped inner is an improvement .....but I do not know.

http://www.rickscamaros.com/cgi-loca...258+1185004548

5 years is a long time but a few of those years I wasnt able to work on it much.....Ive been able to go gangbusters on the bodywork starting this past May.....so I have made the most progress this summer. Of course, when I started the car I began with the most fun part......the engine. After that the body work took a back seat for awhile.

[67'7F6'Bird]

Esahlin -I am gonna look into the USA made Inner Tail Panel - Thanks! Can you post pictures of your inner panel also to show the gap with the original GM inner Panel. I think my original inner panel fit tight below the license plate - I didn't take any pictures of it though.

We have made our best 4 week effort on panel alignment, here are the photos. We have used screws on the drivers quarter panel, rear valance panel, inner tail panel and outer Tail panel. All these were mated to the original passenger side quarter panel.

Some minor trimming and grinding was needed is some areas, mostly where the quarter meets the tail panel and the rear valance panel.

[67'7F6'Bird]

More panel alignment photos.

[67'7F6'Bird]

Here we removed the passenger side quarter panel. The outer wheel well was very rusty and will also be changed. I think the prep work will go a lot quicker on this side. The car is elevated with the rear springs and differential removed. We feel the roll bar and subframe connectors has helped significantly in keeping everything square. The majority of our panel alignment was with the car sitting in its natural state with all 4 tires on the ground. The minor panel alignment up in the air was the rear valance panel and trunk lid.

[67'7F6'Bird]

We needed to do some welding on the drivers side frame rail - fixing a crack and filling a hole. I also got some practice welding the bumper support seam to the trunkfloor. Some of those factory spot welds in the rear (frame rail to floor pan & bumper support to floor pan) where very questionable as far as penetration. We mig welded anything that was questionable.

[esahlin]

I'll see if i can get a pic of my inner to outer tailpanel center gap. My inner is original but it has been bent to straighten it since I found that the car had been hit in the rear. I might not have the best example for you......but I did end up with a gap very similar to yours there in the center of the panels.

Your other panel alignment/fit look good to me. The side gaps between the trunk-to-rear-window-panel and the quarters never got perfectly even from side to side for me. I dont know if that was the fault of the panel or not. I ended up using a Fusor 2K (two part) self leveling seam sealer for those two gaps to match the factory look.....but I still thought they looked a little uneven so I gave up and removed the sealer and welded the side gaps. Then filled the weld area with fiberglass filler. I smoothed the filler so no gap can be seen on my car but some guys grind a perfect gap into the filler (with a cut-off tool etc) to get that factory seam indentation look. I mention that as an option if you find your not satisfied with the gaps there after much trial fitting.

[67'7F6'Bird]

Esahlin - I did order the USA made Inner Tail Panel through Ricks Camaro parts today - I'll post pictures of both Taiwan / USA made panel when it arrives. Thanks for the information!

I removed the surface rust on the inner panels - this side seemed to cean up a lot faster than the drivers side. I will apply the initial coat of rust encapsulator tomorrow, 2 coats total then top coat it.

We also need to fabricate a small portion of the inner wheel well where it meets the trunk floor. We have kept the panel aligned properly with a small piece of metal welded to the trunk floor.

We did some initial quarter panel fitment on the passenger side tonight. It definately isn't as crisp a fit compared to the drivers side. The lowest point at the drip rail / quarter window doesn't fit that well yet, It seems the stamping in this area is too low because my seam on the rocker panel isn't tight enough for my liking. We are working in the drip rail area to help get some more adjustment on the lower front of the panel which sits on the rocker panel. If anyone has got some tips on what they may have had to modify to get this panel fit Please let me know.

[esahlin]

On the inner wheel well to trunk floor seam that you are fabbing a piece for....that seam there is known for rustouts especially on the passengers side. I checked mine from the top....removed the factory sealer and found some rust under the seam sealer but it didnt seam too bad. Anyway I heard it was a bad area for rust so I removed the bottom 2 inches of the inner wheel well and found a rust out/ hole in the trunk panel directly behind the inner wheel well near where the shock mounts. I ended up replacing that part of the trunk pan where the top of the shock mounts. They make a panel for that trunk pan/shock area so i bought and installed it. Then I fabbed the bottom 2 inches of the entire inner wheel well out of new 18 gauge and welded it up. I just mention this because since you re-fabbing in that area already, I would check the rest of that seam all across the inner wheel well because its known for hidden rustouts and bad rust.....if your in there already might as well check the whole seam just to be sure for piece of mind. Odds are high that you will be glad you checked that area carefully. Maybe yours is OK though.

You guys are really cleaning that car up good. Your doing a much more detailed job of prepping for rust than some of the pictures Ive seen of "Pro" resto places doing.

I cant add anything to the passengers side qtr fit cause I used a qtr skin on that side. Wish I hadnt used a skin but too late now.

[67'7F6'Bird]

Hello Esahlin - We removed all the seam sealer where the trunk meets the inner wheel well, we wire wheeled it first then sandblasted it. All was in good shape except the passenger side area that was cut out. We used a pointed autobody hammer and hit all the lower few inches on the inner wheel well on the outside of the panel, of course to make sure everything was solid my brother got carried away hitting the panel a few hundred times. HAHAHHA

As far as the prep work - we do seem to get carried away!!!!

He patched the panel exactly to what was there. The picture looks like the lower area is too short but this matches true to the straight edge of the panel.

We did get the Rust Encapsulotor on all the metal. we are gonna top coat then use the Fuser spray on undercoating in the wheel wells too.

I was also thinking of using the DSE wide inner wheel wells but couldn't make up my mind, so we patched it.

[67'7F6'Bird]

On both patches we used "Weld Through Primer" on the back of each patch panel and to what it was being welded. The high speed cut off comes in handy to cut the welds down as where not yet at the stage where there is no dressing.

This patch we aligned plug weld holes to the inner panel matching the look and correct attachment point as the original panel.