1992 RS Camaro. First car for Der Burger.

[Catbox]

I spent the majority of my time in the driveway under the hood it seems.

The battery is a stupid side post jobbie.
If you have read this far, I will assume that you read through the stereo wiring section above.
The PO sucks.
That is all.

So the wires at the battery are a mess and sticking out everywhere.
I can't stand that and it also makes it super hard to do any kind of clean installation of wiring.
We have put these heavy duty battery terminals on all the other cars, so why should this one be any different.
I purchased the wrong Die Hard post adapters at the first auto parts store, so I had to run to a couple others in town to find the right ones.

So AutoZone had what I wanted, plus a Camaro t-shirt for Der Burger...

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For the 0 gauge wire that I salvaged out of a BMW suv in the junkyard I will make all new terminal ends out of some copper tubing I have left over from my HVAC days in the field.
Here I have stripped the wire and installed a ferrule to keep the strands neat and tidy.

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I cut a 3 inch or so section of the tube and flatten one end of the tube with my old sheet metal hammer...

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With my awesome hydraulic cable lug crimper from Harbor Freight, I will lock the tube onto the wire for good...

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That should not be able to let go at all.
I have not had one fail on me in the last 20 years that I have been building cables for cars this way...

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[Catbox]

I then used my new center punch and drilled a pilot hole and opened the hole using a unibit to fit my bolt.

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A piece of shrink tube and then we have a complete cable end.
Just what seemed like 47 more to do.

New wire to the starter, the block ground, the 12v power lug for the fans, one for the new 4 gauge amp wire to the rear of the car, and I reused the old battery ground to be the new body ground.
With the new ground wire, seeing as it was all made from the same red cable, I wrapped the first 6-8 inches with black tape.
Thus marking it well as the sad cable.
Later it will get some black loom over the rest of it due to it will drive me nuts every time I look in there.

Some photos of my rewired and much better looking battery area cables.
Red cable on the left side is the new amp wire to the rear of the car.

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Battery installed and all cables routed and managed...

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Here is the new positive starter wire routed and held in place as well as the ground wire that is also...red.

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Here is the whole battery area all cleaned up and purdy.
The new 4 gauge that runs to the rear of the car now has a fuse under the hood.
I did reuse the small hole that the PO drilled for his wire.
I have water tight bulkhead fittings that we drilled the hole out too.
No bare wires through sheet metal like before.
From there it has been run along side the passenger door and through the stock wiring holder that held the Bose wire...

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The Monster Cable 4 gauge wire I used was a part of the wire set up that I had purchased for my first truck back when I was 19.
It is old but I checked the very end for voltage drop and there was zero voltage drop to .01v, so it will be just fine.
She can replace it with her money when it comes time to upgrade from the starter set up she is getting...

 

[Catbox]

We were all out there enjoying the less than super hot day out there this weekend.
Here is a shot of the kids in the car after Elizabeth took the seats out.

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Max took a break from welding and helped her pull the console apart to get all the extra wire garbage out of it as well.

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Everybody will have a great knowledge of the intimate parts of this car, including the owner / driver.

 

[Catbox]

Loads of time have been spent on the car over the last couple of weekends.
Since we needed a new to us dash, we went back to the carcass of the white '92 in the Pick N Pull.

It gave up a pretty clean dash panel in factory fresh condition, not the hackery that happened to the poor thing...

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A 1986 Firebird ended up in the yard near the white Camaro and the crack team that makes sure we don't take any jacks into the yard, left the factory jack in the car.

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Pretty fancy and pinkie up to be running a factory jack in the car now.
But of course, the way this one mounted in the earlier chassis is not the same as in our 92.
It will just live in the trunk well instead of behind the spare tire like the Firebird it came from.

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The Firebird also had a Flowmaster 80 series muffler on it, so for the $25 they wanted it came home with us.
Not bad for a decent shape $160 muffler.
However after testing, we are going to still use the Thrush version as it is a bit louder.
I will probably just sell this one off....

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[Catbox]

While in the yard, the Firebird also gave up its little factory wing.
I like the spoiler that is on the car much better and this again will probably just be sold off.

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It was 98* out there one of the days and I took refuge in the shade.
I had 3 or 4 different containers that had all the random hardware we have pulled from the junkyard cars.
That bugged me as it was just a pain to find stuff, so I found one of the containers I bought from the thrift store and sat down and organized all those things.
So much easier to deal with now.

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From the 'bird I also swiped the spare tire from it as it still had nubs on the tread.
Barely used and should be just fine for temporary use in the event of a flat tire....

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Hmmm these seem to have a very similar look to each other.
I would bet the baffles inside are just a bit different therefore slight difference in the sound.

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When digging around for speaker wires we noticed that we could see daylight while on the inside of the car.
What now.
So this car has one door that is different, I suspect the car was hit in the rear of the door / below the B pillar.
This chopped out support was most likely a part of that repair.
But looking in the pillar there is no wavy sheet metal to support this idea.
The white car gave up the full piece of the support so that we can graft it to the car and make it hole again.

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People do whacky **** to cars and then bury it under trim panels for somebody who cares to find it and wonder "What the bubblegum?"

 

[Catbox]

Last Saturday, we ended up pulling the whole interior out of the car as I had new wiring to run.
It really needed to be cleaned underneath the carpet and plastic panels something fierce.

Here is the spare tire well after we pulled all the panels and carpet.
Just dingy and dirty with a touch of smell...

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Wet rag and some Chlorox with bleach to clean all those surfaces and it looks much better even though nobody will ever see it...

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Here is the shelf behind the rear seats that the gas tank resides under.
I am happy to see that nobody has cut the floor out to change the fuel pump.

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More previous owner wizardry.
I have no idea what they were trying to accomplish with these random cuts and drill holes.
We tried to hit them with the welder, but they were not having any of that.
So I drown them in paint and taped over them with some HVAC mastic tape to seal them shut.
Somebody else can deal with them later on....

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The front of the car is all pulled apart as well for various reasons, but now it is to be cleaned as it was dingy...

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This car has been beat in its previous life, you can see some wrinkles in the floor pan where the exhaust was pile driven up into the pan.
Plus there seems to be a damage line from the passenger door frame across the floor and on the side of the tunnel.
The car is straight and tracks straight as far as we know, so it will all just be fine and hidden under the carpet and seats.

 

[Catbox]

More on the cleaning of the inside.
There are only a couple little areas where water has given itself to a couple little quarter sized areas of surface rust only.

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Clean and grunge free.
Under the passenger rear seat you can clearly see the exhaust dent.

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Noice and clean.
Well good enough for me and if she wants it any cleaner, she can do it herself.

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[JamesSam]

More on the cleaning of the inside.
There are only a couple little areas where water has given itself to a couple little quarter sized areas of surface rust only.

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Clean and grunge free.
Under the passenger rear seat you can clearly see the exhaust dent.

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Noice and clean.
Well good enough for me and if she wants it any cleaner, she can do it herself.

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Wow. That's gotta feel great! Awesome. That's money dude.

 

[Catbox]

So the trunk well is where the stereo amplifiers will live.
The is looking straight down into the trunk well.
There are those two ragged holes again after I had flattened and painted them, then taped them shut.
I have also applied the mastic tape to the side walls and floor of the well as it will kill some of the noise these panels will just naturally make.
I was going to purchase a whole thing of sound deadener, but I have spent enough so far and need to leave something for the future to do.
You can also see the 4 speaker wires and 6 line RCA in the photo that have all been run forward to under the dash where they will be then run to appropriate locations.

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Here we have 4 of the 6 speaker wires running to the front of the car as well as the RCA.
The speaker wires going to the 6x9's were run separate to keep them from having to cross close the power wire.
So those run through the body panels down the sides to where the speakers mount.

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On the top of the fuel tank hump we covered it with an inexpensive self adhesive foam with aluminum backer from Frost King.
It helps with road noise and heat from under the car.
I try to only place this on parts that will not get wet as the foam can absorb water.
The Frost King was also placed into the body cavities where the 6x9 speakers mount, those panels now have a decent amount of the tin can noise removed from them when you tap on them.
To maintain the clean wire club kind of install I wanted to achieve with this budget install, I used Gaff tape or Tessa tape to hold all my wiring in place when running through the car.

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We kept all 4 wires flat as we taped them into the car.
I don't want any rattles from loose wires, so they were taped quite extensively from the rear to the front.
The RCA's were run down the other side of the tunnel just like these were.

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For the grounds needed in the trunk well, I had Max weld a nut to the car where I had drilled a hole through it.
Works like a champ as we have 12.11v when the car is off and 14.24v with it running.
I tested voltage at all points in the rear and they are good to go.

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[Catbox]

Wow. That's gotta feel great! Awesome. That's money dude.

She is getting irritated that it is taking so long for us to wade through the projects this car has presented to us.
My wife and I had a "chat" about the car not supposed to have been a summer project.

I explained that perhaps I should have just replaced the busted stuff with simple stock stuff and sent her on the way.
But instead I wanted to take the opportunity to build with her a cool car that she could be proud of as well as myself.
That is something I wanted to do for my kids as my dad was not so receptive of the thought of doing a project car.
At 16 or 17 I told him we should do a project car together.
To which he replied "You just want me for my money."

So now that I have been told that I am taking to long, I am going to slam it all home and stop making things better.
Just to let her get in and going.
I will be finishing all the things I have started and still have a good time with the kids in the driveway while working on this one or any other that happens along.

 

[JamesSam]

She is getting irritated that it is taking so long for us to wade through the projects this car has presented to us.
My wife and I had a "chat" about the car not supposed to have been a summer project.

I explained that perhaps I should have just replaced the busted stuff with simple stock stuff and sent her on the way.
But instead I wanted to take the opportunity to build with her a cool car that she could be proud of as well as myself.
That is something I wanted to do for my kids as my dad was not so receptive of the thought of doing a project car.
At 16 or 17 I told him we should do a project car together.
To which he replied "You just want me for my money."

So now that I have been told that I am taking to long, I am going to slam it all home and stop making things better.
Just to let her get in and going.
I will be finishing all the things I have started and still have a good time with the kids in the driveway while working on this one or any other that happens along.

You are doing everything right. Proving your Dad and your wife wrong. The time you have spent with your kids on this is irreplaceable. Don't sweat it Peter. Again, amazing stuff! Your daughter and son should be very proud of their respective rides.

 

[Catbox]

We had finished running the wiring forward on Saturday and so yesterday, Sunday, I spent most of my time building an amp rack.
A couple years ago we upgraded our living room and the old entertainment center was dismantled and set a side to be used for just such projects.
This was when wood was super expensive, plus this stuff has the cool wood grain on it.
Perfect for a budget build such as this one.

I did spend the good coin for quality speaker wire and the RCA as those will be in place for most likely the life of the car.
So the speaker wire is oxygen free copper 14 gauge from Amazon and a decent enough 6 lead RCA so if and when a new head is installed, there are plenty of connectors to go around.

The Rockford Fosgate came with the car and is a 4 channel amp that will power the dash speakers and the 6x9's.
(Insert Monster Garage sound effect ~Freebie!~)

The Kicker is for the sub woofer or woofers, I have not decided if I will be buying more than the one that I have in the stash.
Max has the Kicker that would have been here in his VW currently, so I borrowed this one from him as it was purchased to go back in the VW.
The Kicker that should be here was another ~Freebie!~ from a garage sale that was raining right on it. I sent it out to be repaired and it cost me $20 plus shipping.
Doesn't get much more budgetier than that and it hits hard.

The Blaupunkt unit restores bass frequencies lost during MP3 file compression giving back the lows that are missing.
It is a budget unit and I wanted to know if it worked as well as all the reviews say it does, so she is the guinea pig for this one.
I just bought it off Amazon for $40.

The fuse block came from a Goodwill score a few years back for $3.99, add $8 for fuses and we are good to go.

But the sub box is built to hold three 8 inch subs, my brother is quite good with the wood work and he built the box for them.
Those subs are just about the cheapest thing I could find, they are by Pyle.
The subs are so budget, they have plastic baskets.
But they work and sound alright for what they are as long as you don't over power them.

All the wire used to wire this stuff up is reclaimed wire from the car and the main power wire was purchased by a 19 year old me that never used it.

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Test fitting the unit in the car.
That is when I noticed that I had forgotten to lay the wires in for the remote turn to each unit...

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After I put the remote wires in.
I used the classic David Freiburger spark plug wire separator method with zip ties.
For this rendition I used little pyramid risers with double sided tape on them to keep them in position.
The zip ties connect directly to them and make for a solid mount.
Next time I build one of these, I may do the mount the wires directly to the board by drilling through it and running the zippy ties through the holes in the board.

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Plugged it all in and connected the battery.
I checked the voltage and it was there and 0.01v less than at the battery, I would say that should do just fine.
Max hit the key and triggered the remote wire and all three units came to life with power lights.

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I have also perused the junk pile to find a couple of pieces to use as brackets to hold the board in the car from the top and the bottom.

Next up is to run the individual wires to the amps in the proper places.
Then the new 6x9's will be installed and tested.
We have to change out the whole dash board before we install the 4x6's in the new dash locations.
I will be making a baffle for the backs of those before everything is installed to block off the noise from the rear of the speakers.

Until next time yo!

 

[Catbox]

I almost forgot!
The sub box that Paul built.
It is going to sit atop the fuel cell hump.
We figured it all out a couple weekends ago.
The little subs want 0.5cuft each for air space, we came up with a box size with a total of 1.6cuft.
So three of the Pyle subs at their $30 each price would be swell for a starter system.
When she has a job and her own money, this box can then be converted to a two sub box that each will have the 0.8cuft for the fancier subs I will tell her to buy.

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I just have to wanna spend the extra money on the car.
She may just get one sub for now.....

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[squaredeal91]

Loads of time have been spent on the car over the last couple of weekends.
Since we needed a new to us dash, we went back to the carcass of the white '92 in the Pick N Pull.

It gave up a pretty clean dash panel in factory fresh condition, not the hackery that happened to the poor thing...

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

A 1986 Firebird ended up in the yard near the white Camaro and the crack team that makes sure we don't take any jacks into the yard, left the factory jack in the car.

You must be registered for see images attach

Pretty fancy and pinkie up to be running a factory jack in the car now.
But of course, the way this one mounted in the earlier chassis is not the same as in our 92.
It will just live in the trunk well instead of behind the spare tire like the Firebird it came from.

You must be registered for see images attach

The Firebird also had a Flowmaster 80 series muffler on it, so for the $25 they wanted it came home with us.
Not bad for a decent shape $160 muffler.
However after testing, we are going to still use the Thrush version as it is a bit louder.
I will probably just sell this one off....

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Is the 80 series's only a 1 in 2 out? Heard a couple that look like this and they sound Good!!

 

[Catbox]

Is the 80 series's only a 1 in 2 out? Heard a couple that look like this and they sound Good!!

Yes, it is a counter-flow model.
The exhaust goes in and funnels through the upper half and then drops down to the lower half to exit out the two tailpipes.