Re: 1975 El Camino - long term project

by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 12:33 pm

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I eventually bought an old air VIR eliminator and replaced the VIR. I pulled it apart and it was trashed. I changed the o rings and flushed the system and charged it with 134. It works great and I’ll probably update the entire system eventually.

by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 12:41 pm

Now it’s time to tackle the suspension! The upper A arm bushings were completely gone and it was metal on metal. I can’t believe how well this handled even like this. I couldn’t wait any longer tho it was noisy and going to cause severe problems.

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by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 12:50 pm

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I went with big block springs since I liked the ride height. The PO had 1 inch spacers to lift it, I never liked the tubbed front end look. These are the basic big block springs. She sits nice and level. The youngins all say to bag and drop it but this body doesn’t look good lowered in my opinion.

by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 12:56 pm

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A little Eastwood frame paint and assembly will start as soon as I recover from a heart attack. This was in the fall of 2020. A couple friends came over and put it all back together. I got it over to the frame shop for an alignment and I took a couple months to heal...

by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:00 pm

Feeling better in the spring and way too much time on my PC I found a 400 SB in the neighborhood and picked it up for what will be a new power plant.

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by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:10 pm

Now with all the mechanical working, a core to build eventuality and suspension complete it is time to blast the bed and get rid of the nasty bed liner. I actually had no intention to do anything this year but drive... so when the blaster came for the corvair I had the bed blasted. That led to way too much work but I am almost done. I am only doing the top third and bed for now.

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by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:20 pm

A lot of sanding and scraping but it wasn’t that bad. Finally got it clean and started patching holes.

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by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:23 pm

And more and more fixing....

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by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:25 pm

And some more

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by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:28 pm

I ran an errand and left the car out... in the 30 minutes I was gone it went from sunny to pouring rain to sunny and a whole bunch of fast floods. Not at all usual and really pissed me off. See how fast it flashed! It was rusted when I got back.

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by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:31 pm

On to fixing the seams in the upper corners. This mostly gets covered with trim so I didn’t get crazy with it.

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by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:33 pm

I made a small panel to repair a rotted rib in the floor but had no brake, so I improvised. I can do better but good enough for now.

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by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:51 pm

Now for some filler to finish...

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by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:55 pm

And the sail panel. I wasn’t going to do all this but the seam filler was cracking so I figured it should get some attention while I was there. It is tough to stop. It keeps going and going! I had to draw the line. I removed all the old filler and replaced it. It was covering some welds which revealed the 1/4 had been replaced.

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by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:59 pm

Now on to epoxy primer and then some 2k to help blend my amateur body work skills. Took some time to tape..

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by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 2:02 pm

And then it was time to spray the epoxy. I had a learning curve which cost me A LOT of time. I didn’t know you can’t sand epoxy so it got sanded off and reapplied 2x before I found out. Oh well, each and every step has been a valuable lesson!

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by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 2:06 pm

Once I figured out the epoxy situation, I sprayed the 2K. Another learning curve! I should have gotten white not gray. When I sanded it, I sanded through to the white which eventually caused issues when spraying color.

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by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 2:12 pm

In the last post you can see where I sanded through. When I sprayed the bed it took 2 extra coats to cover the splotchiness. So I am fixing that on the sides and roof before I spray them. For now this brings me current. I sprayed color this past Sunday. It’s a little darker that I wanted but it will be fine. I think I achieved the right shade at coat # 5. I did 7 coats of single stage. My friend Warren was a huge help and showed me how to spray. He said I looked uncomfortable. I didn’t understand until I watch him. He was graceful and I was clearly stumbling.. lesson learned!

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by tgaetto Wed Oct 20, 2021 2:19 pm

I had a few bugs, leafs and dust but that will get fixed with wet sanding. It was very wet and looks blood red. It is Persimmon Orange (stock color). It looked darker when we lost the sun and due to the extra coats. I think it will be fine and I will probably scuff the lower sides and shoot them so it matches. But that is a big maybe.

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by S3TPI Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:35 am

Nice work, what method did you use to remove the control arm bushings?

by tgaetto Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:19 am

I used an old drill bit to ream out what remained of the rubber which allowed me to use a little heat and pound out the steel. I also sprayed them down with penetrating oil a few times. I used to work at a repair shop in the 80’s so I did my fair share of these but it had been 30 years. It’s a ton of work but worth all the time and expense. I’ll see if I have more pictures showing what I did. When I reassembled them, I tapped them to start and used my Harbor Freight press. Was well worth the $100.

by S3TPI Thu Oct 21, 2021 10:03 am

So you drill out the rubber to enable you to remove the cross shaft? That's the part that looks tricky to me, removing the first bushing with the shaft in the way. I have some I'll need to replace soon, and I would like to keep the original control arms.
Thanks!

by g3chevy / Mr Pontiac Thu Oct 21, 2021 10:30 am

You got the skills to pay the bills! Great work on the bed! Had to do almost the exact same repairs on my 76 about 10 years ago.

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by g3chevy / Mr Pontiac Thu Oct 21, 2021 10:33 am

S3TPI wrote:So you drill out the rubber to enable you to remove the cross shaft? That's the part that looks tricky to me, removing the first bushing with the shaft in the way. I have some I'll need to replace soon, and I would like to keep the original control arms.
Thanks!

Here's a quick video of how I drilled out the control arm bushing on my 87 El Camino.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr0Y5ir8qIY

by S3TPI Thu Oct 21, 2021 11:15 am

Interesting, I'll give that a try. What size bit did you use?

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