Did some minor work today, as the weather was decent...a little overcast, but otherwise comfortable for working on the car. Unfortunately, I had little in the way of immediately workable projects to complete. So I started off by taking some pictures of the work I did last week, including the newly replaced black trim panels and seatbelts.

The seatbelts were in good shape, but the little red 'release' buttons were pretty gnarly looking. I searched around for some tips on cleaning them up and found an awesome tip...vasoline. Yep, simply cheap vasoline (or in my case, store-brand petroleum jelly) applied lightly and then wiped away has fully restored the factory red on these pieces.

I also straightened and tightened up the exhaust tips, which were loose and not even...the left one was hanging considerably lower than the right. They look much better now.

Upcoming plans: Still in the market for replacement door panels, front shoulder belts, replacement seats front and rear, and a trim panel for the interior of the trunk. If I find them I'll be swapping out these parts, if I don't I'll be busy looking around for them. Also making plans for a paint job, replacing the carpet, sunvisors, and possibly adding an after-market stereo for some better tunes. More to come...

No luck with the door panels. The potential donor car had power windows, so the panels would not fit. I'm going to keep my eyes open for an appropriate set, but worst case scenario I can order a set of aftermarket ones eventually. The weather here today is awful so I won't be uncovering the car for any work today. Maybe next week.

Replaced some of the interior today with newly acquired black replacement parts. Did the door sills, kick plates and lower rear arm rests. Also replaced the front seatbelt receivers and the rear seltbelts and receivers. Also replaced a few parts in the engine compartment which had white overspray on them from when the car got it's last paint job...the radiator/fan assembly housing cover and the front shock tower caps are now nice and shiny black. No photos today, I plan on taking some photographs tomorrow if the weather holds out.


After getting the interior of the car reassembled this afternoon, Cami and I took the car out this evening for a quick trip to town for groceries...she's running good, though I am considering making an upgrade to the transmission at some point. I also got a line on some leather interior pieces, so I am going to head out in the morning to look them over. Thinking now about trading out the seats and door panels for leather, if I end of liking what I see tomorrow.

Finally caught up!

And now I am finally caught up! I spent a little time today working on the car after dedicating most of my day to cleaning the house.

The lower bumper was missing two grill inserts which I have discovered are extremely rare and hard to come by. I took a chance and fabricated two replacements to help at least fill the gaps and make it look a little better. They are by no means perfect, but for now they make the front end look a lot better I think. I'm still looking for the correct replacement parts, so hopefully these will only be temporary.

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After:

I also cleaned the engine compartment and replaced some of the broken wire looms. I think it looks really nice now...I still plan on doing some touch-up paint to the engine compartment to help clean it up a bit, since the previous owner didn't have the painters mask off the engine compartment very well. But for now I am pleased.

I think the next post will be next week, after I have a chance to hit a couple of salvage yards. I'm still looking for those grill inserts, additional black interior trim, maybe some new seats and definitely some new lower seat belt anchors.

More work, more work...

I replaced a few pieces of interior trim after finding a suitable donor car at a salvage yard in Mebane last week. I picked up some black interior pieces with the ultimate goal of switching all of the tan interior parts out for black. We may leave the carpet, seats and doors tan, but all of the plastic will hopefully eventually be black.

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After:

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After:

I think the changes, although they are all minor, are starting to add up and make the car look a lot better. Although I haven't taken any pictures, I had removed almost every piece of the interior and cleaned it, replaced it correctly (a lot of the trim was not installed correctly, with interior lips exposed and bolts missing). This has not only made the interior look a lot better, it's reduced a lot of the irritating rattles which seemed to haunt the car while in motion.

More catch-up work!

On the same day I did the taillights, I also replaced some of the interior trim. The passenger side door had a large crack in the upper door trim, and the door handle panel inside had a missing piece. I picked up both parts at the u-pull-it place in Greensboro for under $10. It was a little tricky figuring out the process for removing the parts, but fortunately I got to practice on a burnt out piece of crap camaro at the the salvage yard.

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After:

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I also replaced the vent louvres in the inside of the doors:

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Starting with the small stuff

I'm a little behind in updating the work that's been done so far on the car, so I'm going to do multiple posts tonight to get caught up.

I did the first work on the car about a week ago after taking a trip to a couple of the local u-pull-it salvage yards in Greensboro. I picked up a new set of taillights to replace the original factory ones, which originally had gold trim which had long since worn off. I got a very similar style set with black accents to replace them, and only shelled out $10 for them. A quick project to say the least, from start to finish I think this took me about 20 minutes.

The original taillights:

And the "new" replacements:

Not too shabby if I do say so myself. I think it adds a lot to the look of the car, with the cleaner lines and better contrast from the black vs the worn off gold around the plate.

The Beginning...

My wife Cami and I recently purchased a 1984 Camaro Berlinetta as a project car. This car, which was produced in limited numbers during 1984, has an interior package which was years before its time and includes some bizarre digital gauges and a swivel-pod radio.

The car had already received a Edelbrock crate 350 engine courtesy of its previous owner, and is in mechanically good shape for a 28 year old sports car. We're planning on upgrading the interior significantly over the next year and probably getting it into a new coat of paint eventually. The interior as it stands is in pretty rough shape, with worn out carpet and upholstery, cracked plastic trim and missing screws and retaining clips. I plan on starting out small with some minor repairs and upgrades, and I'll be documenting it all right here.

Now, on to some photos!