1992 RS Camaro. First car for Der Burger.

Under the hood there were a couple of busted panels.
I never even thought as to why they were busted, I just knew I wanted to change them out.
The core support cover was cracked nasty as well as the radiator cover with the right bolt busted off of the plastic cover.


After I pulled both of the covers off the car, I looked down to see if there was anything on the radiator blocking its efforts.
Yup, a hay field.
So I checked the fluid and it was just water, so it was bucket drained and this is what we have on the face of the radiator.
The AC condenser didn't look this bad at all though...


Hmmm.
There appears to be an odd bump on the drivers side bottom of the radiator.


Most likely this is the OG radiator to the car as it still has a Made In The USA tag on it.


Now looking down at the bottom of the core support I can see why the rad is bent.
Somebody went ham and tried to pull some Duke Boys stuff with the car and smashed something into the bottom of the support bending it up on the drivers side (photo right).


I cleaned all the hay out of the radiator.
We then used a 2x4 and 4 pound sledge hammer to will things down there back into a flatter shape.
This would also explain why the top radiator cover was missing the drivers side rubber mount support.
With that support under the cover, it would have been 1/2 inch to high to even look right.
So they just pulled that side and called it good enough.

Junkyard fresh covers in place as well as all rubber supports.

Back on July 1st boss man told us that if we got our poop in a group and finished our project for the most part on Tuesday, that then we could take Wednesday the 3rd off as well as the 4th and 5th.
We busted buns and made that happen.
So we took our off day and went to the junkyard where a 1992 car had been deposited a week or so earlier.

I had a list of stuff I wanted:
- Auto trunk monkey (one year only part)
- radiator cover (installed last post)
-cover in front of rad cover (installed last post)
-neutral safety switch
-brake line bracket on strut
-T tops
-headliner
-coat hanger hooks
-air dam under nose
-blinker stick
-driver side mirror glass
-nose cone
-rear hatch

I was able to pick up all but the trunk monkey and T tops.
Trunk monkey was already gone and the T tops were crappy crappy plastic ones.
She will just have to keep looking for the trunk pull down unit as they are $300 on eBay for a complete one.
Hers was damaged due to break in and PO stupidity.

I am just going to put this into a safe place for now.
Better to just have a relatively inexpensive one hanging around waiting for the time we need it.
Than to have to pay out the azz for one if it were to get broken....


This nose cone and spoiler are ridiculously priced as well when just shopping for good used parts.
Plus since we pulled it, we now have all of the fasteners to reinstall this one later on when we feel like putting paint on it.
It is in pretty dang good condition and mostly just dirty here.
No visible rips or issues with it at all.


This cart has so much interior plastic and what ever else we wanted piled upon it.
It has been the best thing we have done to make Pick N Pull days far simpler to deal with.
With the nose cone on top of it all, the counter guy just came around the counter and stared at it for a minute.
Not asking any questions, just figuring.


A master stacker, there may be things that are hard to see on the cart....


Dudes at the junkyard are always asking about my truck.
That is one of the reasons why Max is under the hood plugging the wires back into things that make it run.
But here we are all packed up from a 94* day in the junkyard about to hit the nearest McDonalds for a Diet Coke and ice cream cone.


The day in the yard cost me $284 out the door.
I spent a few minutes looking up prices of good used stuff on the internets that were the same condition.

I have around $2200 in resale parts and pieces for this car now going by the online parts I found.
I would have thought that there were more reasonable parts availability as this is a GM product and a Camaro.
They made bunches of them...

We were just looking at random stuff as we were packing all the Camaro stuff up.
Max spots this one ton truck with a rack in the bed and thought about trying to make it work on our truck for camping activities.
As we gave up on that thought, he noticed it was a 2 wheel drive as there were coil springs.

His '49 Chevy has a turbo 350 transmission and a set of 4:10 gears in the rear end.
3500 rpm on the freeway is not uncommon to sustain speeds.

He crawled under the truck and it certainly has the 4L80 he has been wanting.
So instead of leaving the yard at 2pm, he got to work pulling the thing out of under the truck.


We forgot the sawzall and that made the exhaust enter the problem of wiggling the heavy transmission out from under the truck.
The rear crossmember was unbolted and pounded out of the way, while we placed a random tire and wheel under the trans on the stands crossmember.
That way it would fall on that and be supported, instead of simply falling to the ground and or on us.
Then it was tilted back and allowed to come to rest on the ground.


The lady on the intercom was yelling at everyone to pack up and leave when we got it out of there.
But a couple hours of work and $303 later, he has a presumably rebuilt 4L80 from a 2000 1 ton truck.

Yesterday we also got the second V band and 2-1/2 to 3 inch increaser on the cat.
Now we can start to visualize how we are going to be routing the 3 inch pipe under the car.




When we all got tired of hanging out in the hot hot outside we were changing the window wiper arms.
The ones on the car were some how bent weird and would not put center pressure on the glass.

My brother says "You should just put the cowl hood on now."
I countered with "You and Max go get it and we will."

Hood came off in no time flat and so did the air cleaner and stock intake tube.


Here is the almost finished look.
The hood spring was a test of late in the hot day patience.
This hood had it located slightly different, so after trying and it being crooked.
We drilled a new hole that made the dumb spring line up correctly.
Adjusted the latch catch thingy and it opens and closes like a champ.
The body lines are pretty good all down the fenders until the nose, it is not straight at the end of the hood any longer.
But we have a new nose to fix just that....


I was waiting on the kids auto body buddy to come along and fix the small dents the hood has.
But he is slacking and not returning my texts promptly, so now he gets to work on them on the car or we just pull the hood again.

Better photos to come once the car is back on the ground and washed of all the summer dirt that magically appears.
Now we are all caught up

I LOVE this thread, thanks so much for sharing!

@Catbox Peter, I love your threads for Maxwellvis and his 49, 3100..and this thread for Burger and her Camaro. Amazing what you are doing with your kids. I and my cousin spent many a night on 2 lane country roads taking his 82 Z28 to the limit back in the mid to late 90's, so fun. I want to go to a junkyard with you one day and look for some stuff!

JamesSam said:

@Catbox Peter, I love your threads for Maxwellvis and his 49, 3100..and this thread for Burger and her Camaro. Amazing what you are doing with your kids. I and my cousin spent many a night on 2 lane country roads taking his 82 Z28 to the limit back in the mid to late 90's, so fun. I want to go to a junkyard with you one day and look for some stuff!

Click to expand...

It was Gun Metal Grey with all the badges(decals) in white. My favorite color on a Camaro and a Corvette.

Zee Burger has ants in her pants to be turned loose in it, but she has to wait just a bit more as we complete all the little tasks that make it dependable.

The major things that need to be worked over are the exhaust, some PO wiring issues, brake lines, valve seals, valve springs, and a TBI rebuild.
She just turned 19 the other day and auto body buddy has the headliner that came from the white car.
He is going to recover it for her in black material for her present.
I forgot we also have a set of brand-used sun visors for the car that will need to be turned black to match.
I bet auto body buddy will be able to make that happen as well.

JamesSam said:

@Catbox Peter, I love your threads for Maxwellvis and his 49, 3100..and this thread for Burger and her Camaro. Amazing what you are doing with your kids. I and my cousin spent many a night on 2 lane country roads taking his 82 Z28 to the limit back in the mid to late 90's, so fun. I want to go to a junkyard with you one day and look for some stuff!

Click to expand...

I like sharing it with you all.
Plus I get to spend time with all the helpers out doing what we all like doing.

I do love me some junkyard fun.
My buddy Jake and I have been going to the same one since we were 16.
Some 32 years and three owners ago.

Small victories this weekend.
The moron PO plasti dipped everything except the headlights, tail lights, and windows.
From a junkyard car we pulled the front blinkers and then yesterday I cleaned the dirt from them as best as possible.
Also found this panel to be dented, I just didn't notice it until now.


Before on top and then after...



That feels much better, but man the paint is filthy with various schmootz we have been using on it.
It needs a good wash something fierce....

The PO replaced all the shocks on the car.
The brake hose has a bracket that has a bracket that the hose clips into, or it is supposed too.
Here we have the next best thing, a bunch of zip ties to hold it on...


Flipping noodle head.
I got the bracket off the junkyard donor and they had cross threaded the hole that it bolts too.
So yeah, we figured that out and ran a tap through it and found a suitable bolt to hold the bracket on with.
I didn't take the finished work photo, but you get the point.
This brake hose looks to have been replaced with a stock replacement sometime in the past and looks good enough.


The car came with front wheel bearings for both sides and this peaked my interest.
Tony had mentioned one of the bearings was noisy, but still good to go for now.
I pulled the passenger side cover off and was concerned with the surprising lack of bearing grease in there.
The cotter pin came out as well as the nut cover thingy, first time I have seen those.

I was able to move the spindle nut with my fingers very easily.
This is what I was presented with when I pulled the caliper off and removed the bearings.
I did wipe some of the old grease off the big bearing, but not much...


I was taught to not skimp on the grease in this area, I think I packed it well enough.
Plus we packed more grease inside between the bearings and then a bunch in the cap as well.


The passenger side going all back together here.
We replaced the brake hose on this side as it was the one that had the cracked casing on it.
The braded hoses Amazon told me fit the car, did in fact not fit.
So I will be returning those and just rolling with the ones that are on it for now.
The box is there just to keep the brake fluid from splashing all over my legs as it was replaced...

While taking a break, we were goofing around with the air cleaner.
Now that we have the cowl hood on the car, I wanted to see if the K&N that is on the truck would fit under the hood.
The filter is on a drop base and the Camaro needs to have a flat base filter on it.

That is one crusty TBI unit.
We have a rebuild kit for it and will be doing the mod to make the fuel pressure adjustable while it is off.
I also need to find a new set of injector plugs as they are beat with one of the wires being twisted together in there....


I forgot to take a photo of the K&N in there as we just flipped the drop base over to clear the linkages.
It fit perfectly into the hood and was able to close in this way with the 3 inch filter and lid, but no room for the stud.
So a flat base air cleaner will be perfect with room for the stud and nut to hold it down as the drop base is about an inch taller when upside down.

So with just the drop base on upside down, I did take a photo of the K&N filter top just on the base.
Super low profile....


I went to just simply swap the speakers in the B pillars with these Pioneer 6x9's from the junkyard.
They were in the pile on the cart, so they may have been real cheap.
I ohmed them out and they still read 3.5 ohms, so they are not blown and will be fine enough until she wants to upgrade them with her money...


Check out the fine examples that I pulled out of the car....

Yup.
Chrysler speakers with home made adapters soldered on.

I ended up stopping with this upgrade when I saw what the PO had used for speaker wire.
The wire used is the stuff you would use to wire a 120v machine with.
It was 12 gauge but with large stiff wires instead of the many fine strands car audio uses.
I got into my stash and pulled out a spool of 14 gauge OFC speaker wire and ordered her up a 6 plug RCA to run at the same time as we do the wiring.
Then I told Zee Burger that she is going to have to pull the seats yet again so we can do it correctly...


Here is just a photo of how my neighborhood looks when my friends show up...

Zee Burgers 1992 Camaro
Uncle Paul's 1972 truck
My 1979 Silverado and 1954 Bel Air reflection
Across the street are:
Buddy Jakes 1955 210
and Max's 1949 truck
What you can't see is the '55 Chevy I was resting on and the Jurassic Park Jeep in the front yard.

Good times.

I am convinced the PO of the poor car was a pucking futz.
He had no business wiring on the poor car the haphazard way that it was done.

There was wiring running to the back of the car to power the sub amplifier that used to be there just wadded up.
The white wire, whatever it was supposed to do was pinched somewhere in the body work and fried.
No fuse in any of these lines what so ever.
Cool fire starter...


I guess that is one way to lower the ohm load the amp sees at the subwoofers.
The red butt connectors are far to small to connect these wires, I have no idea what is going on inside that black tape...


Here is the fine wiring that started me down the path of pulling all the random wires from the car.
These were simply pushed under the carpet to get to the amp in the foot well to connect the 6x9 on the passenger side.
Somehow they were smert enough to use the factory wiring on the drivers side....


Le sigh.
On the left is what remains of the rca that went to the back and some other random wire.
I don't know what the white wire is.
He used the green 8 gauge speaker wire for power and ground duty, just pulled apart.
One unfused 8 gauge positive wire through the firewall to power the amp and one half you see in the console under a small ground screw.
No protection on any of these added circuits...


This is the majority of the wiring we have pulled out from the PO stereo install.


There was a Rockford Fosgate amplifier screwed to the bottom of the heater box in the passenger foot well.
We removed that and set it aside.
The plus side of having all this crap wire, we were able to wire the amp up to test.
We ran it off of a Milwaukie M12 battery for power and a 3.5mm plug to RCA for sound during the short test.

It was previously thought that the rear channels of the amp were fried, nope just the low pass filter turned on.
Took a second and reset all the adjustments on the amplifier and powered it up.
The fine fine Chrysler speakers were just not able to process the subsonic frequencies being sent their way with how it was.
Now it runs like a champ and will push her front four speakers once I get that all figured out.
Plus for me as I don't have to buy a head unit or a front stage amplifier.

On the subject of the fine Chrysler speaker that were installed in the car.

These were under the dash.

Typically these cars have a maximum speaker size of 4x6 and even then some don't fit.
These are simple 6 inch round speakers.

THEY WERE NOT EVEN MOUNTED.
JUST PLACED ON THE DASH THAT WAS LEFT AND THEN HAD THE DASH PAD PUT BACK OVER THEM!!!!!!


This shitsipper took the dash off, removed the stock speakers and just started hacking away...
No flipping care for anything going on in there...



Not even tape over the top of the open vent tube he hacked away.
A view from the inside...

I guess I can now not have to worry about size or fitment issues and just devise a way to mount and support the speakers up there.
There are the two bolts that have chopped off mounts as well as the empty mount hole still there.
So I have at least three mount spots to work with.

Once we run the vacuum through the vent hole, I will be taping the top of the vent closed for better dash vent operation going forward.
At least Cowboy Dinglebobber did that on the drivers side chopped up hogwarsh...

Now that that is behind me, we spent probably close to 18 hours in the driveway last weekend.
12 on Saturday and 6 on Sunday.

We slept in on Sunday and then went out and rounded up some deals from Marketplace for the Burger and her upcoming learning to ride a dirt bike.
Picked up a chest protector, goggles, and gloves for just $45 total from a couple people.

Max got to work on the making the exhaust complete.
First he welded the front part of the cat to the Y pipe on the car.

He said ouch a few times and I simply reminded him that he was wearing about 25% of the safety gear he was supposed too be wearing.
"Yeah yeah" came from under the car at me...

Now he reinstalled the V-band that actually holds the cat in place and figured out the length he needed on the legs of a 45 to make the turn and head down to the back.
Skip a few steps as I was busy with my own projects and we now have a fully welded exhaust pipe that runs all the way to the back of the car.
Even makes it over the axle where it is supposed to be.

Here we are looking towards the back of the car, the V-bands will be clocked properly when it is all finished...


Here we are looking forward to the front and you can see the cat and its connection to the stock Y pipe...

In the back ground you can see the cars waiting patiently for their turn at resurrections.

We have opted to install a V-band before the axle to ease any future work we will need to do back there.


Here is where we currently are with the exhaust pipe.
I do believe there will be a V-band here as well to facilitate simple removal for maintenance and upgrades.


Once the whole system is assembled, Junior will go back and install the hangers and make sure things are good.
Because if there is a rattle, he will hear about it until he gets it fixed.
It sounds much better than it did with just the Y pipe, but it will sound great with the muffler set up.