Bits & pieces

Was recently reminded of a little passage from the book that seeded the idea for this project. Even though it’s not from the Camaro chapter but the Javelin one, it describes well the phase of the project I’m in at present:

We started our first Javelin as a stripped chassis from the factory. We needed hundreds of other stock parts , though, such as hinges and brackets and linkages and thing, which are really quite a problem to order individually. For some reason American Motors didn’t want us to strip them off another complete car as they were needed. After we had installed the roll cage and widened the fenders we had to have some pars to continue with, and none we coming. I was getting desperate, so I called the factory and said, “Look, you’ve got to give us a car to take odds and ends out of. We have to have parts now! So they agreed to loan us a car, on the condition that we would rebuild it as the parts we ordered arrived.  I was promising anything at that point.  We picked up a running Javelin at a dealership and it got stripped … and stripped … and stripped … until it was virtually useless.

By the time we had the racer running the stripper was a pile of junk sitting in the corner.

Similarly, at this stage of the project, the Camaro is in needs of lots of odds & ends.  The “kits” you can buy, to do things like the interior, don’t include several parts they assume you’re keeping.  Things that aren’t really wear parts, but that tend to get funky with 45 years of age.  Don’t want anything funky on this bird so everything is getting replaced or spruced up.

Instead of being able to turn to a fully-loaded “parts car” next door (which I could for a while when I owned two 240sx’s), I have to get online and order the part.  Work on a particular oart of the car proceeds, gets stuck because of a missing part, so I move to something else, work until stuck at a missing part, and when the day is done, put together an order for all the missing parts plus anything else I can think may be needed.   Not the most efficient method of proceeding.

Despite this, the interior is progressing.  Still waiting on the driver door window actuator mechanism to show up from backorder.  Several of the other window components need to be thoroughly cleaned and either painted or powdercoated.  Looking for replacement vent windows – earlier it appeared these were stocked by online retailers for a reasonable price, but it turned out not be the case…so now I’m stuck looking for the main chrome pieces to the vent windows.

Carpet and under-dash pad are in.  Boo hoo hoo, weight from sound deadening.  At least it’s low I guess.  New painted factory gauge cluster is in, wiring is about done.

This car will be getting the full DL1 treatment, as the 240sx did.  Also have the Chasecam camera fully wired mounted up where the dome light goes.  So many car videos are from bad positions – on the dash, roof, or on the front bumper.  While better than nothing, these videos are only about 10% as useful as a video showing the driver’s inputs.  A vantage point that shows the road ahead in addition to the steering inputs from the driver is the best, it really gives you the right kind of perspective to understand what’s going on, and how the car is behaving.  Dome light should be a good spot in this car.

The back seats have been upholstered and are ready to go in, but they can’t until the rear quarter windows have been fully installed, and I’m waiting on one sneaky trim piece to complete that step.  Then onto the front windows, front door panels, headliner, and remaining trim.