It didn’t take long to decide to build a cool Camaro, but we wanted to build something that was do-able by the average enthusiast, because that’s what we are, in all reality. It seems that all project cars have to have a name these days, so we took the Royal Purple name and combined it with the Rally Sport Camaro option and came up with the Royal Sport Camaro.

The first challenge was to find a car, and we turned to eBay Motors to help with that one. eBay Motors is like the biggest online car buying and selling resource, so we had a feeling that we’d find a ’69 Camaro Ragtop pretty quickly. Within a week of settling the Camaro Idea, we were already found a car and had the bidding process in full swing. You have to realize that we don’t have a lot of time to build this car, so we relied on ebay to come up with a car quickly. That’s a great eBay benefit… they’ve got about a zillion cars listed, so you’re bound to find what you’re looking for, and you know when the Auction is going to end, so you can really work a timeline.

There are a couple things to keep in mind when buying a car on eBay, and perhaps the most important is to communicate with the seller. IF you’re interested in buying a particular car, email the seller and see if you call and discuss the car to answer all your questions. We spent quite a bit of time discussing the condition of the car… we had the seller crawling under the thing, the whole bit. You should also get as many pictures of the car as you can so you know what you’re buying.

We liked this car because it’s a pretty solid running and driving car, and it fit our budget. That’s another cool thing with ebay… if you know how to work the system, you almost have built-in buyer protection… if you’re bidding against other people, that means there are others willing to buy the same car. So, if you get it home and it’s not what you wanted, you can “Re-Bay” it to the next person and find what you want.

We ended up winning the Auction and traveling to the Chicago area to pick up the car. The day we went to pick it up, I lifted heavy tool and had to go to the emergency room and was put on heavy medication. Kelle and Nick were making fun of me, so I had Nick be the daring one to drive the car onto the trailer. It all went pretty smoothly.

The next day it was about 5 degrees outside, and I decided to do a walk-around and check the car out. Again, I was on heavy pain medication, and looking back at the tape, it’s pretty funny to see.

Once we got the Royal Sport home, we decided to road test the car. It’s got a 350 with a Turbo 350 automatic in it, but it was an Original 6 cylinder. The car has no options as it sits, with 4-wheel manual drum brakes. It does have power steering.

The tired 350 isn’t going to hang around for long, as we’re going to be swapping in a GM Gen III small block V8 under the hood, most likely a variant of the LS6. This will be backed by a 6-speed manual transmission.

The wiring is pretty fried, so our test drive was short. Check out the orange “starter” wire… just touch the battery and it starts! The wiring in this car is going to be just one of many casualties of the restoration.

Here’s a great tool to have if you don’t have a ton of room in your shop. GoJaks allow you to pick up and move cars with one foot! Simply slide the GoJak dolley under the wheel, kick the lever a few times, and you can roll your prized possession all around. It’s fun!

Another great tool is a lift, and these are actually becoming reasonable in home shops. For a couple thousand dollars, you can get a 9000 pound capacity 2-post lift like our Eagle Equipmentunit and make working on cars a zillion times more enjoyable. We attacked the Camaro from the top and bottom at the same time.

Under the car, we sprayed some Royal Purple MaxFilm synthetic penetrating spray lube on all the rusty bolts to break them free for the teardown.

It’s fun to take cars apart with a plasma torch! Our HTP MicroCut 400 quickly sliced the exhaust, stuck bolts, and other unwanted obstacles out of our way.

Kelle had fun cutting the rusty brake lines off the bottom of the car. She’s into distruction.

Topside, Kelle continued her reign of distruction on the interior. She discovered the seats were not even bolted to the floor. She quickly cast them aside, then proceeded to quickly dismantle the dash and the remaining interior parts.

A previous inhabitant of the Camaro built a cozy little nest in the heater box… no wonder the seats seemed stiff… all the stuffing was in the dash!

We elected to remove the front sheetmetal as an assembly. You can remove the handful of bolts from the lower inner fenders, the radiator core support, the upper fender bolts from the cowl and door jambs and pull the whole front clip at once. Get some help because it’s heavy!

Remember our GoJaks? We found another use… subframe removal! We unbolted the subframe from the car while it was on the lift and rolled it out from under the car with the GoJaks.

One Camaro disassembled in one weekend. The windshield came out next, and then we were ready to load it onto the Auto Twirler rotisserie and take the tub and sheetmetal to Imperial Blasting Technologies for a complete stripping.

We’re hoping that we have something left of the car when it comes back from the media blaster. This car has had a rough life; the floors are patched, the quarters were patched; the bottom’s rusty… we’ve got some work to do.

SOURCES

GOJACKS

Eagle Equipment 

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